The Rudolf Steiner Archive

For the threefold order, one must first create understanding, which is only possible by introducing people to the threefold order in a concise way. In some places, an understanding of an independent economic life separate from the state is beginning to emerge; however, people are still afraid of an independent spiritual life and it must be made clear to them that one cannot exist without the other. For example, you cannot educate practical people in state schools, you can only educate civil servants there. Preparatory schools for practical life (commercial schools, technical schools, etc.) only make sense if you have teachers there who only teach there for a while and then go out into practical life again, to be replaced by other practitioners. So there must be a constant exchange. Today, the calamity has broken out primarily in the economic sphere, and the sore point is that for about 150 years people have got into the habit of thinking only about economic life. Those who will now be working for “Futurum AG” are concerned with simply discussing the things that are contained in the key issues. If you look at the parliamentary reports, there is a lot of talk in the individual states about the introduction of the gold standard. A great deal of clever and ingenious thinking has been done for the introduction of the gold standard. In all these speeches in favor of the gold standard, there is one common thread: all the speakers were of the opinion that free trade would be significantly promoted by the introduction of the gold standard. The opposite was then the case later on. Those who spoke in favor of the introduction of the gold standard were all so-called practitioners, but in reality they were not involved in practical life at all. We have increasingly withdrawn from economic life. Once economic life is independent, national borders do not hinder anything. There were economic experts at Versailles, but their voice was not important because they had nothing to say.

Hans Haas asks how people will satisfy their greed for profit in the new economic life.

Rudolf Steiner: It is already very often the case that people only want money in order to have power. It is therefore important to make it clear to them that - if they have economic insight - none of their power escapes them. The only difficulty is that people collect money for their children and do not want this money to go to others. It must be made clear to them that the money will certainly be completely taxed away over the next ten years.

In Rudolf Steiner's view, the question Hans Haas has posed

At the Goetheanum, the threefold social order is fully implemented except in the legal sphere, which is of course missing. In the construction industry, everything that can be achieved has been achieved, if only we could still manage to get the workers to leave the trade unions. The aim must be to get people out of the trade unions, although this must be approached very carefully.

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Arnold Ith asks whether it could also be said in answer to this question that in the threefold social organism, people's selfishness is also restrained by the fact that everyone controls and is controlled by everyone else.

Rudolf Steiner replies that this can certainly be said; he notes that, for example, one should not get too involved in ethical questions during discussions. It is not about promising people a paradise, but making it clear to them that everything can only continue with the help of threefolding. Rudolf Steiner says that everything you need to know about how to propagate the threefold social order is contained in the key points. The hardest part is teaching today's proletarians these things.

In response to a question from Ernst Gimmi as to whether it would be beneficial to propagate among the proletarians today, Rudolf Steiner replies,

that everything is arranged for everyone. It is very important for 'Futurum AG' to make it clear to industrialists that they now have to communicate with the proletarians. What people are experiencing today in terms of social issues and Bolshevism stems simply from the fact that people have been disregarded everywhere; there is no longer any trust anywhere.

Question from Eduard Wirz: Which circles should be approached primarily for the issue?

Rudolf Steiner replies that now, those who have been recommended should be used more to reach others in Switzerland. In Holland, it will be necessary to initially approach people who can further pave the way; Mr. de Haan, in particular, comes into consideration here. In England, it is a matter of initially approaching Mr. Kaufmann for certain circles, and for other circles one must work with the help of certain members - Drury-Lavin, Collison. It is important that one speaks only for “Futurum AG” and does not say anything more about the Goetheanum - this applies to all gentlemen present, except Mr. Gimmi. The brochure is the main tool for propaganda. You will approach people with the brochure by explaining to them: It is important that you not only receive large sums of money, but also small ones.

Arnold Ith asks whether Rudolf Steiner thinks it is a good idea to work in only two or three countries for the time being, to which Rudolf Steiner replies,

that only five countries can be considered.

Arnold Ith says that the gentleman going to England might as well spend eight days in Paris.

Rudolf Steiner also believes that it might be possible to make preparations in Paris.

Ernst Schaller wonders what would happen if an Englishman came here and was worked with for about a fortnight, and then travelled back to England with one of the gentlemen present to work there. Eduard Wirz asks whether this could then be extended if each country were organized within itself. It is replied that this is already the case, to the extent that it is necessary, in that the threefolding groups and anthroposophical groups are there.

Rudolf Steiner remarks that Futurum AG should not be decentralized too much; it would be quite wrong to found anything other than at most branches abroad.

Eduard Wirz notes that the new issue of other companies is always very well organized, and that the question now is how best to carry out the issue of “Futurum AG”.

Rudolf Steiner says that we have to expect that the banks will not accommodate us. But we also have to organize the prospectus. One could find the most incredible ways to do this. Rudolf Steiner says that, for example, someone can be found in all Swiss cities who could do something for the prospectus.

Arnold Ith believes that the gentlemen present must be the main driving force, and that they must motivate people to take action.

Rudolf Steiner believes that the threefolding office is the basis for “Futurum AG”; for example, all the address material is stored there.

Arnold Ith asks whether the gentlemen present would be best distributed among the different countries.

Rudolf Steiner replies that this would depend on the wishes of the gentlemen concerned, but that Switzerland, England, Holland and America are important for the time being.

Ernst Gimmi notes that Mr. Dürler in St. Gallen could possibly be considered.

Rudolf Steiner says that initially all attention must be focused on the issue.

Eduard Wirz remarks that he would have liked to take on England personally, but believes that he is not yet sufficiently established there and will not be able to familiarize himself quickly enough because he has no connections there.

Rudolf Steiner thinks that Mr. Gimmi is definitely a candidate for England, but he still needs a companion. He notes that he does think something can be done in England, and that it would have gone better in August and September, but it also needs to be done now.

[After a speech by Emil Molt, Rudolf Steiner takes the floor:]

Rudolf Steiner: Ladies and Gentlemen! Today is the second time that I have had the honor of addressing you here. The first time was at the invitation of Mr. Molt, to speak about what I believed at the time to be necessary for the progress of humanity out of the great turmoil into which human aberration and its consequences, the terrible catastrophe of the world wars, had led us. Today I am to speak in the presence of the light-filled Christmas tree for the Christmas celebration. But please do not expect me to give you any of the usual Christmas speeches, which can still be heard so often in our time. I would feel like a dishonest person if I did that, and I would also have to believe that if you yourselves are true in your feelings, you cannot bring anything from your hearts to such an unctuous speech. For let us admit it to ourselves: what is often heard in Christmas speeches today seems as if an inertia that has been held for centuries, a kind of mental inertia, had held on to words that still held their validity for times long past, but which today, in view of the world situation in which we find ourselves, seem as if those who speak them would see nothing with open eyes of what is truly going on around us.

Christmas today – one may say it bluntly, I think – is basically something that, in the feelings of the great mass of people and also in the feelings of the few who until recently were called the upper ten thousand, should initially only be a memory, a memory of feelings, of inner forces that were once alive in humanity, which, however, and we will talk about this, deserve to be revived, revived in a new form, but which are not alive today.

When Christmas approaches, people today think - depending on whether they are more or less blessed with goods of fortune - of giving each other more or less precious gifts. They also think of lighting the Christmas tree and getting into some kind of mood, although they don't really know what it is supposed to be. But it wasn't always like that. And I would like to mention just one detail – one could mention many such things, but let us think of this one detail; in a certain way it also characterizes the other things that were associated with Christmas in earlier centuries.

We can look back to the areas that are also around Stuttgart, which go far up to Thuringia and Hesse, which go over to Baden and Alsace and further into France, which go down to Italy, over to Bavaria and so on. We can see this area by looking back in history, and a remarkable picture presents itself to us as we look ahead to the approaching Christmas season.

In most villages – since this area was even less interspersed with towns back then, I am talking about the 14th and 15th centuries – a group of young men was gathered from October onwards, and this group of young men was to learn roles in order to perform Christmas plays at the time of the consecration festival. The text of these Christmas plays was usually available in handwritten form from a particularly favored family in each locality; they held it sacred. No one knew who had written it, so far back in time were memories of these Christmas plays; but the text was held sacred. As early as October, the person in possession of this text, who was also held in particularly high esteem in the village in question, would gather the young men he thought suitable for the performance. In those days, such performances were not yet performed with women, but only with male youths, who also played female roles, the role of Mary and so on. So this group of young men was assembled and taught. Strange traditions have been preserved from this teaching, and from these traditions, these traditions, one can see the deep sentiment with which the Christmas season was imbued as it approached.

There was, for example, the strict regulation that all those who were to play along, that is, who were the learning students of a teacher – it was prescribed, forgive me for mentioning such a harsh regulation after all – that all of them were not allowed to go to their girlfriends during the whole time. We only have to go back to the old cultural conditions to understand what such a rule meant, but it was strictly adhered to by the people who were considered called to take part in something like this. A second rule was that during the entire time that the young men were rehearsing the Christmas play, they had to obey their teacher strictly. That was also a rule that would be extremely difficult to enforce today. We, at least, who are now endeavoring to perform these plays again in the Anthroposophical Society, can hardly carry out any of these provisions. As for the first provision, it refers to something that does not occur at all among anthroposophists, and as for the second provision, it would never be adhered to, because such obedience does not exist there. The third rule, on the other hand, is one that cannot be implemented in anthroposophical circles if we are to rehearse these plays today. This is because the third rule meant that you had to pay a fine if you forgot something and said it wrong during the performance. We couldn't implement that either, because no one would pay the fine.

So I just wanted to mention these individual provisions to show you what was possible back then, out of the sacred mood. Now, there is something we cannot do within the Anthroposophical Society either, where we have resumed the Christmas plays in many places, especially this year, for example in many places in Switzerland, where they were rediscovered, because they had gradually been forgotten in the 19th century and were no longer performed. However, there is one thing we cannot do either: the teacher, who rehearsed these festival plays with the group of young people, was joined, as was only natural in a time when Christianity was as alive as in the centuries I have spoken of, by the local clergy. Of course, we cannot achieve that either. Then the teachers joined them. As it turned out, we could achieve this more easily, and we also succeeded where these teachers in particular had grown out of our own ranks.

Now, I presented all this to you to give you a picture of what was approaching in the mood of the individual places when the holy Christmas season approached. For what were people actually preparing for? They were not preparing for the Christmas tree – that did not yet exist at the time, it is at most 150 years old, when it was first established –; people did not gather around the Christmas tree, but they gathered to commemorate in the mood, in the inner experience of the heart, what they imagined with the birth of Christ Jesus. That was indeed a very different, more vivid conception than it can be today. For people in those days had a different awareness of human dignity and human existence. They still lived quite differently with one another, so the Christmas message was still something for them.

In this Christmas message, we may remember today, there is indeed a deep democratic trait. Today, we have no right to emphasize this democratic trait from the official confessions. But then, if one wants to cultivate true Christianity, as it must first arise again in humanity, then, my dear audience, one perhaps has a right to mention precisely this democratic trait.

There were two prophecies regarding the birth of Jesus Christ. One was for those who, at that time, we can say, formed what we might call the proletariat, and the other was for the shepherds in the field who sensed in their hearts that a time had come that needed healing. And out of this mood arose the mood that was poured into their words: Revelation of the divine, of the spiritual, in the heights, and peace to the people on earth who are of good will. - A drawing closer of man to the spiritual, that is what was felt. And in this approach, something was seen that was to bring renewal and refreshment to humanity from the conditions that existed at that time and that seemed unbearable.

But there is not only this one proclamation for those who could be called the proletariat of that time, for the poor shepherds in the field. There is a second proclamation, that for the wise men, for the kings from the East, that is, for those who were at the top of humanity at that time, for those who were the opposite of the proletariat of that time. Just as the shepherds in the field received the Christmas proclamation in their own way, so they also received the wise kings in their own way. But both found themselves confronted by that which simply wanted to be the representative of the whole of humanity. And in the same way, on the one hand the shepherds in the field and on the other the wise kings from the East, sacrificed and worshiped this representative of the whole of humanity, of the pure humanity that knows no human distinction. In this is indicated in the Christmas proclamation the deeply democratic trait that runs through Christianity and which, despite the many centuries, has not been fully realized to this day, and which can only be realized if one maintains a proper sense of this general, purely human quality that lives in all people and that knows no human distinctions.

One might say that the three main festivals that humanity, Christian humanity, has celebrated over the centuries, in the time when they were still alive in thought and feeling, drew people's attention, one might say, to a threefold structure of the year.

Christmas speaks most to the feelings; it speaks to the feelings by directing them to what, in the highest sense, has poured itself out over the world as the impulse of democracy.

Easter should take hold of the human being's thoughts more, should point him more to spirituality and freedom, while Christmas should point more to equality among people, to the absence of differences, if one wants to work into the deepest part of the human being. Easter should stir in man that liberating feeling that overcomes him when he rises to the spiritual and when he gains an awareness that the spiritual must ultimately always triumph if the world is not to perish, over external material things. This resurrection of the spiritual out of the material is, after all, the Easter idea. When the soul can resurrect inwardly, then it actually experiences freedom by being able to put itself in the place of the spiritual.

And the idea of Pentecost points us to brotherhood. It is presented to us in such a way that we are made aware of how those who were called upon to proclaim Christianity at the time found the right tone to speak to all people in pure brotherhood, to approach all people. If we understand it correctly, it points to what we must feel inwardly if we want to achieve brotherhood in relation to the external, material life of humanity.

It is something ancient, rooted in the human spirit, which has always guided thought in the most diverse areas of life according to the threefold order. Today, my dear audience, we need this threefold order again to heal something in humanity, again to eradicate something unhealthy. Therefore, it was basically for the same reason that I spoke when I had the honor of addressing you for the first time, and that I would like to speak to you today.

We live in a time that is so ill that most people do not want to imagine their illness, partly out of convenience, partly perhaps even out of ill will, but mainly out of selfishness. It is indeed the case today that most people who are content with comfort are always satisfied when, out of the turmoil of the day, a little improvement appears here and there and they can see that not everything has fallen apart, that there and there is “a better economy”. But for those who can see through it, today's life is like that of a person who, three years ago, was still able to buy a suit, and wears this suit - even if it is a bit shabby, he can still wear it - but he cannot buy a new one. And because he can still wear this suit, he still believes himself to be in a possible situation in life. But it is in store for him that one day the suit can no longer be worn. Such is the case with today's conditions. We see how people are trying to patch them up, how they are applying all kinds of mixtures to improve things a little here and there and keep the old. But today's social life is like the skirt. The skirt can still be worn and this social life can continue for a while, but it will surely tear; it will not go on. And the fact that people somehow believe that it will continue is, ladies and gentlemen, a great illusion that people create for themselves by comfortably wanting to persist in the old and not wanting to approach what wants to be a real new creation, as the impulse of threefolding supposes.

It is not surprising that at first, after the idea of threefolding became known, the proletarian leaders not only ignored us, but even put all kinds of obstacles in our way. It is not surprising that everything that Mr. Molt has already described to you has happened. For today we see that the call for the threefold social order is countered by another threefold impulse. This other threefold impulse we may perhaps - even if it does not sound like the usual unctuous Christmas words - present to our souls. For it is precisely by looking a little into the present that we can find the strength that could really perhaps lead not only to the illusion of living in a possible situation as long as the skirt is not yet torn, but to acquiring a new skirt.

Today we see the world filled with a threefold order, but what a threefold order it is! You see, this fall in Dornach, in a more intensive way than was previously possible, we tried to show in a series of college courses how the spiritual life itself in science must be transformed, how it must be placed on its own feet if humanity is to be saved. We were able to show what should be taught in the future in the fields of the individual sciences, in the field of economics and practical life, so that the teachings can penetrate into life and become practice. What are our views on such matters today? Well, today we think entirely from the old conditions, and in this field in particular we are the most conservative of all. Of course, there are people who, in their own belief, have a very good opinion of the popularization of spiritual things. They found adult education colleges, adult education centers, public libraries, and so on. They make the people happy by bringing out among the people what has flourished in the universities and schools in those times that led us into the catastrophe. One feels extraordinarily comfortable when founding such libraries, such popular educational institutions among the people.

In this area, the impulse of threefolding that has emerged from anthroposophically oriented spiritual science must think quite differently. For anyone who is familiar with the circumstances is aware of something quite different. The situation is that the scientific approach and intellectual life cultivated in our schools today is of no use because it belongs to the declining world itself. And no social order, however well-intentioned, can do anything other than lead to decline and not to the dawn if it merely carries the intellectual life that is cultivated in schools today out into the world. For it is not a matter today of carrying out into the people that which is cultivated under the roofs of the university, that which is cultivated in secondary and primary schools, but rather of carrying a new spiritual life into the universities. A new spiritual life must first come into the universities, which can bring salvation to mankind. That is not the case there.

That is why, you see, spiritual science with its consequences, the threefold social order, is too radical for people today - too radical even for the proletarian leaders, who of course want to do nothing other than to conservatively place the old spiritual life in the heads of the people. What makes it difficult to work socially with such an endeavor?

There is the first link in today's threefold order, there is the sum of today's representatives of intellectual life, who, insofar as they deal with the matter at all, want to know nothing of such a renewal, but always emphasize that their old way of spreading Christianity must in turn become popular. And now, ladies and gentlemen, here is how the spiritual life as it is cultivated by anthroposophically oriented spiritual science was characterized by a representative of intellectual life who holds a professorship at a university: He said: First of all, for national reasons – these gentlemen are very fond of invoking national reasons – the people need the nourishing bread that comes from the pulpits, the nourishing bread that they are accustomed to seeing represented by the representatives of the confessions. Only then does it need the sweet. He describes what is attempted by spiritual science as sweet.

This is just one example. I could cite many more of the ways in which what is anthroposophical spiritual science is defamed from the lecterns of these teaching institutions. It is no wonder that the representatives of these teaching institutions react in this way to a movement that wants to bring something different under the roofs of these teaching institutions. For in a certain way, after all, the masters are stepped on, and then they squeal. That is the only explanation for this matter, after all, if one understands it. But it is necessary to understand that one needs an independent spiritual life in relation to the political and economic order. We need a spiritual life that works out of its own forces. And such a spiritual life, as far as it can be today, is anthroposophical spiritual science, through its inner essence, despite the fact that everywhere its throat is being cut. Anthroposophical spiritual science wants nothing more than to provide the pattern for the spiritual life that must come and that can only bring freedom to people. On the other hand, we see the other link in the present threefold social order: the representatives of intellectual life, who are today the most conservative people and would like to suppress all spiritual progress, especially that which can truly bring salvation.

And this first link in the present threefold division is joined by another, which is made up of politicians and statesmen and so on, who have still grown out of the old conditions - out of those old conditions that have brought about the terrible catastrophe over European civilization, through which millions and millions of people have been killed and crippled. They do not want to see that the only hope lies in the fact that new people are emerging from the broad masses, new people who have no connection with those who led into the catastrophe. And it is not the proletarian leaders who belong to these new people, because they are the ones who, like the others, only continue what led to the bloody catastrophes. No matter whether they are delivering speeches at labor meetings or sitting on such curule chairs and shouting abstractions into the world like the one on which Woodrow Wilson sat ; all these people, they want nothing that could bring salvation to humanity today, because they have completely outgrown the old with their thoughts, they only strive to preserve the old in some way.

One must not get hung up on words, my dear audience. Even the word “League of Nations,” which is now going around the world, should not create any illusions in us. A League of Nations can be something very good, something great and salutary, if it is rooted in those ideas that are needed to bring salvation to humanity, in the sense that I indicated when I had the honor of addressing you here almost two years ago. A League of Nations that would emanate from such people, who feel that way, would certainly be a League of Nations that could contribute something to the salvation of humanity. But such a League of Nations must proceed from quite new people, from people who grow out of the broad masses, who today may not even be noticed or, if they are noticed, are trampled to death – at least spiritually. But Leagues of Nations as they arise from the minds of old politicians, these are phrases, at most something Versailles or Geneva-like. And the Geneva spirit is nothing but a talking-shop that fails to take account of the realities of contemporary Europe, just as if one did not see the real conditions with one's eyes open. That is the second link in today's threefold division.

And the third link in today's tripartite division is made up of those people who want to hold on to the old economic system, who only ever think of galvanizing the old again. These are the people who have illusions about American credit to Europe, who have illusions about the possibility of improving the exchange rate situation according to old recipes, who do not want to see that the only thing that can bring salvation is what is called associative economic life in the sense of threefolding. I do not need to characterize it here today; it has often been characterized here and in other places.

We have a threefold order, but it is a threefold order of the negative, a threefold order of today's representatives of the spiritual life, of today's politicians and statesmen, of today's business people, who are working against the good of humanity. This threefold order must be replaced by the other threefold order. And anyone who thinks they can get through with small thoughts today is very much mistaken. Today it is only a matter of ideas that span the globe, while individual countries, especially after the war, have increasingly sought to erect Chinese and other walls around themselves. And while this pernicious game continues to be played, world conditions today cry out for the internationalization of economic life. And today we know that if we only want to ensure that there can be salvation under the influence of the internationality of economic life. Why keep putting a ban on anything that is to be introduced or exported? This only leads further into decline. Only the freedom of economic life is what can bring salvation and blessing to Europe and the whole of today's civilized world. And until the community of people in the world who have an understanding of the fact that such internationality must take hold, it will not get better. Today we have the task of bringing the impulse of threefolding into as many minds as possible.

When I left Switzerland last April to work here – called by friends in Stuttgart – in the sense of the threefold order, after the appeal “To the German People and to the Cultural World” was given to individuals to sign, a very well-known pacifist who had written extremely well during the war visited me. He did not want to put his name to the appeal without first having obtained more precise information about the intentions, which he thought he could not deduce from the appeal. The “key points” had not yet been published, and he told me, among other things, the following: “So you are going to Germany now. I can imagine that you are banking on the second revolution and you would like to pour into the Second German Revolution - the Second Russian Revolution was already over - that which is the meaning of threefolding. - I said: No, because firstly, I have no faith in the Second German Revolution; it will not be something acute, it will remain something chronic. And secondly, even if such a revolution should assert itself, not all the minds will have been removed from the same, which, despite all radicalism, want to continue to cultivate the old ideas among people. - I leave it to everyone to decide whether, in principle, both have not fully materialized.

Therefore, my dear attendees, I would like to say: He who today perceives the great Hydra, the snake that asserts itself as the false threefolding, he who sees this Hydra, this snake, in its real form, could already be pointed out that we in turn need a cure for the morbid conditions of civilized humanity. Therefore, it does us no good today to sit under the Christmas tree with its lights and just remember in an unctuous way what people used to celebrate when Christmas approached. Today we must turn our gaze, if I may say so, from the usual Christmas, from the Christmas of history, to the world Christmas. We must realize that we must live again in a mood in which we must see through what is there, that we must live again in a mood in which we acknowledge: Something must be born again, a spirit must embody itself within humanity. Today we can no longer imagine it figuratively, no, today we must imagine it in full reality. Today we do not need a frivolous radicalism, but we need the radicalism that was also present when Christianity entered the world. Today we need a world Christmas radicalism again. And we must say to ourselves: into this world, as it is around us – disintegrating, sick -, into this world something spiritual must come. And attention should be drawn to what should come as spiritual: to the threefold social order. This threefold social order should embody itself within humanity.

And so, as the world lies today, we can actually do no other than absorb the Christmas spirit into ourselves as a feeling for the future. One might say that the Christmas spirit as a world Christmas spirit has basically no truth today. It only has truth when we absorb it into ourselves as a sense of the future and let it permeate our hearts.

If we look at the Christmas tree in this way, we see its lights shining us into a future in which a possible Christmas will come again. For basically, we can only be in the Advent mood today, in the mood of expectation, and in that mood of expectation that demands deeds, devoted action from us, so that the World Christmas, that is, the outpouring of a new spiritual life into sick humanity, can happen again. We need the mood of Advent, and we need the mood that wants to awaken the strength within us to bring about this Christmas for the world.

But we will never come to this true Christmas mood if we just continue to recite the old, worn-out phrases about Christmas in an unctuous manner, but we will come to this true Christmas mood only if we look with clear spiritual eyes at what stands today as the false threefold division of the world, which is also a spiritual, a political-legal and an economic one. And we will only come to understand what the new Christmas can be for the world if each of us does our duty, if each of us seeks understanding of the world situation. We will only recognize it if we visualize the image that was so often presented to devout humanity in earlier times, so that this devout humanity felt much about this image: below the snake, the dragon, above the one who conquers this dragon. The snake, the dragon is there - the false threefold order is there, my dear attendees. From our hearts, from our intellects, from our understanding of the world situation, there must arise that which will crush the head of this snake. Then, when that happens, only then will Christmas be again. Therefore, today, anyone who lives sincerely and honestly in accordance with the aims of the threefold order cannot speak of anything other than the world Christmas that must be brought about through the efforts of people to achieve the right threefold order, as something healing, that crushes the head of the false, world-murderous threefold order, so that health may once again enter into the social life of humanity.

I would like to have said my admittedly inadequate words today so that the Christmas idea can live in us. But what they want is for these words to find their way to your hearts, so that this Christmas idea may arise in your hearts and the true threefolding may be present in the world, crushing the false threefolding, the dragon that is rearing its head ever more boldly and impudently in the world today.

Dear Sirs and Madams, It is not entirely consistent with the opinions I myself must have of the progress of the movement that Councillor of Commerce Molt has just so enthusiastically expounded to you, if I myself appear before you today to discuss economic issues, or at least economic directions, , but I would have preferred it if the idea of the threefold social order, which did come from me and which I recommended to the world, had been presented to you by a man who was professionally involved in economic life. For it may be said that in such a matter, what is just can only make the right impression when it is advocated by someone who, by his external profession, is fully immersed in some branch of external economic life. But it is the wish of our friends that I myself should speak first of all about our ideas for the recovery of economic life, and what we have taken as a basis for the founding of the “Kommende Tag”, a purely economic society. That on the one hand,

On the other hand, it is difficult today to speak of the recovery of economic life from a broader perspective in a very short time. One can keep these broad perspectives in mind in all one's actions, even in the founding of something seemingly far removed from economic life, such as the Waldorf School, or in the founding of the “Kommen Tag”, as in the case of the establishment of “Das Kommende Tag”. But it is difficult, especially in view of the present world situation, to speak briefly about what one has in mind. Therefore, I ask you to consider what I am about to say, first of all, only as a broad outline, as a suggestion, and then perhaps to receive the suggestion to look up some of the details in my booklet “The Crux of the social question”, or in other writings, for example ‘In the Execution of the Threefold Order’, in which I have set out in detail the principles underlying the whole idea of threefold order for the most diverse areas of life. And I must also, since I may well assume that not all of the esteemed listeners who were kind enough to appear here today are already quite familiar with the idea of threefolding, at least in the introduction with a few - just to characterize it, not to prove it - what the impulse of the threefold social order actually wants, and only then to show what I would like to tell you today.

From the most diverse backgrounds, a few of which I will also mention later, the only remedy for our social ills that I feel is this threefold social order, founded in Stuttgart, is precisely this threefold order for every social organism, be it the German Reich or any other social organism, small or large, can be carried out for each individual, and in fact in such a way - as Mr. Molt has already partially indicated - that what was previously abstractly summarized in the unitary state, so that the individual points of view continually mix: the interests of intellectual life, the interests of economic life, the interests of purely political life, especially socio-political interests, [that] what was thus combined in the unitary state, without being truly organically structured in itself, is to be separated into three members. What I am describing to you is by no means utopian, but something that has been taken from the practice of life. And perhaps today it will be possible to show that when we speak of this threefold order, we are not appealing to some distant point in time and to a particular improvement of humanity in some direction, but that we are speaking of something that can be tackled in principle every day in some area, so that these areas then grow together and a recovery of the entire social organism is the result. The point is that the affairs of spiritual life, to which the education system belongs, must be administered separately from the affairs of legal life together with political life, and then, as a third area, all matters of purely economic life.

The affairs of intellectual life, especially the affairs of education and teaching, cannot be decided by parliamentary means if anything fruitful for the real development of humanity is to come of it. They cannot be governed or administered by majorities in any way. Instead, it is a matter of placing spiritual matters, above all education and teaching, on the basis of pure self-government; that from the lowest elementary school to up to the university, in all fields, those people who are the teachers, and indeed those who, in the time when administrative matters are at issue, are actively teaching, are also the administrators of the entire teaching system. Today we have it arranged in such a way that the person who is involved in any kind of administrative work in the education system used to teach at one time, so that he has actually grown out of the living connection with active teaching and education. Therefore, in the future, the teacher must be relieved. Of course, this cannot be done in its entirety today; our Waldorf school teachers are far too burdened for us to be able to implement everything we consider necessary, but we are working against a situation in which teachers, in terms of teaching and education, only have to spend so much time that they still have enough left over to help manage the school as a whole. In this way the whole field of teaching and education is placed under the control of the teachers and educators themselves. It would take us too far afield today to want to prove this in detail, and I would like to characterize and inspire more today than prove; but it will be shown that in such an administration, through the mutual recognition of abilities, the individual will can be applied, and that from person to person, from body to body, in a deliberation that is not at all reminiscent of parliamentarization, what is to be done for the administration is done. And anyone who really wants to achieve something in the administration of intellectual life must be part of that intellectual life itself.

I will explain what I actually mean in another area. We intend to found an institute here in Stuttgart or nearby that is dedicated to the field of medicine; a field that, as everyone should know today, needs physicians with a certain background, namely in the field of spiritual science. We will be able to produce a whole range of remedies that are hardly on the world's mind today, but which will be a blessing to the world. But we do not intend to run this production of remedies in such a way that they are merely produced by a number of doctors; this would run the risk that these doctors would become bureaucratic, that they would increasingly outgrow the living understanding of human health and illness, that they would become more and more bureaucrats and technicians. Therefore, such an institute must be connected to a clinic, no matter how small. So that those who become technicians are continually in contact with healing itself, with the art of healing. In this way, that which must ultimately permeate their entire way of acting is kept alive in them, the way they have to participate in the overall hygienic-therapeutic process.

This is the basis of a lively approach to teaching and education, which is not sitting there in a parliament with a majority of people who have no idea about the art of pedagogy and didactics, but who judge from other interests and that they make decisions about pedagogical and didactic questions, which in turn are carried out by civil servants who either never worked in the teaching and education system or who left it and are no longer connected to it in a living way. A spiritual life that is left to its own devices means one in which those working in it are also the administrators of that spiritual life.

Now I want to touch on the other wing of this threefold social organism in principle, that is the economic wing. Here it must be clear that economic life is such that it is impossible for someone who is not knowledgeable and skilled in some branch of economic life to judge anything about it. These things can easily be proved from facts. I would like to mention just one, which I have also mentioned several times in my 'Key Points of the Social Question': the empire that so clearly showed how impossible its continued existence was within the European chaos is Austria. I spent half of my life in Austria, namely thirty years; I know the Austrian circumstances as they developed in the 1870s and 1880s, when anyone who studied them a little and could see through, could see from the outset how it would gradually come about; how it had to come about not only for national reasons - that is what one says so easily - but mainly for a different reason. When, in the 1860s, parliamentarianism was established in Austria under the pressure of modern times, how was the Reichsrat composed in Austria? From four curiae: the curia of the large landowners; the curia of the representatives of the chambers of commerce and chambers of trade; the curia of the cities, markets and industrial towns; and the curia of the rural communities. So these curiae consisted of representatives of economic entities, and what they wanted as representatives of the economic entities became intertwined with the purely state and political circumstances in the Austrian Reichsrat. The legal relationships were decided there, laws were given there, but not according to the purely political, purely legal aspects; rather, laws were given there according to the majority. There was often no internal connection between what was to be given as laws and the interests out of which these laws were voted on. In other words, anyone who was able to observe the circumstances had to say to themselves: this is a complete impossibility. Especially where the people were thrown together in such a way that there were 13 official languages in this Austria, it became apparent how, in collision with all the other circumstances, an impossible economic representation was at work in the Reichsrat. It became clear that, above all, it would have been necessary not to parliamentarize economic matters, but to have only those matters represented in parliament that every adult, simply because he is human, can have a say in; on the other hand, to remove all parliamentarization from economic life. In economic life, only those who have expertise in some field and are professionally competent may be considered. The competent and professional economists would have to join forces with others who are competent in other fields, and through these ever-widening associations, an associative life would arise. So that, to put it in layman's terms, it actually works like this: someone who is involved in a branch of production, or who represents a field in which consumers have come together for something, they join forces, associatively; not in such a way that there is an authority above it that organizes, but that all organization arises from mutual negotiations. When implemented, such an associative principle can achieve that each association puts into the negotiations what it understands that the others do not understand. And from the mutual behavior, not from overriding, but from mutual respect for what is expertise in the other, from this principle, which can only emerge from association, the network of the economy can arise, which now really manages the economy economically.

Thus, on the one hand, we have a free spiritual life, and on the other, an economic life that is not dependent on individual personalities.

Please excuse me if I express something that might offend, but which arises when one has studied economic life, state-political life and spiritual life impartially over decades, and when one asks oneself: Who is actually able to assess the economic situation when different economic sectors come into play, or even large state economies, or, as it was in more recent times, the world economy?

In the spiritual life, individuality is what counts, because in the spiritual life it is a matter of the abilities that are born with the human being penetrating into social life from within the individuality, that come out of the human being in the course of human life. If the institution were not set up in such a way that those forces that lie within each individual individuality can come from within each individual individuality, then one would simply be depriving social life of forces. But in the free spiritual life, it is possible for each individual to develop his own inner powers as an educator or teacher.

In economic life, it is an empirical fact that no one has such abilities that encompass anything outside of one or at most a very few economic sectors. For economic life is based on what one has acquired over the years through dealing with economic affairs. It is impossible for anyone in economic life to make a proper judgment as an individual. This may cause offence, but it is an empirical rule that can be proven. I would just like to point out one thing to you: When you read parliamentary debates from the mid- to late 19th century, you get the impression that the decision to incorporate all economic issues into parliament was made around the midpoint or second half of the 19th century, but especially around the midpoint, how much was discussed in parliament about the benefits of the gold standard. What I want to say now is not intended as an objection to these parliamentary speeches, which were delivered at the time by both economic theorists and practitioners. They are really very clever people. I know that a lot of astute things were said in favor of the introduction of the gold standard at the time. And among these astute things, which people said not out of insight but out of personal acumen, was also one that recurred again and again: that under the influence of the gold standard, free trade in particular would flourish. This judgment is repeatedly encountered, and there were good reasons for defending it. They were astute people, but they proved to be poor prophets. The reality of economic life was that people everywhere were crying out for tariff barriers. The protective tariff policy was introduced. So the opposite of what these astute people said about economic developments based on their individual beliefs occurred. And one could cite countless examples that would show that in economic life, the individual human being has a correct, thorough judgment only for those things in which he has personally participated. Therefore, it is necessary that in this economic life it is not the individual who judges, but the associations that form from the individual branches. So that in fact economic action, acting together under the influence of negotiation, happens out of knowledge of the subject, not out of parliamentarization, not out of the decision of majorities.

On the other hand, it is justified to decide by majority vote, in a completely democratic way, in all those areas that affect legal life; these affect what can be judged because it concerns what is universally human in every person who has come of age. We do not want to talk about the age limit here. So, what is placed in the judgment of every mature human being belongs to the state, which stands between the independent economic life based on associations and the free spiritual life.

It is a prejudice to believe that economic life and legal or state life are so intertwined that the two cannot be separated. Those who judge in this way judge according to what has emerged in recent times, where such an amalgamation has already occurred in the socio-political and economic spheres of state life with economic life, for example, so that there are people today who can no longer grasp the idea that the pure economic life, which deals with the production of commodities, the circulation of commodities, the consumption of commodities, with the tendency, on the basis of this negotiation, to arrive at a corresponding price from the negotiations of the associations - because in the sphere of economic life, what it is all about is, after all, in the end, to arrive at a price that ensures people a dignified existence. People can no longer imagine that these negotiations can be separated from one another, including in terms of administration and the constitutional system, and separated from the treatment of purely human issues such as the question of working hours. In the sense of the threefold social order, working hours would not be dealt with within the economic body, but within the body of the state. There it is like this – and I cannot say it any other way, I have acquired this judgment through decades of study – there it is like this, what must arise is that at the moment when, for example, we have overcome, through the principle of association, the hybrid nature of the so-called trade unions, which basically belong to economic life but which, by their constitution, by their very nature, are nothing more than reflections of a politicizing, of a political life; if we had overcome this principle of the trade unions, where basically people come together who are not involved in real economic life at all, but who make demands that do not belong in the economic sphere. In economic life, one should get to know what plays a role between the production, circulation, and consumption of commodities. If people who also work as manual laborers are involved in the association, then today one can only say – I am firmly convinced of this and I was a teacher at a workers' training school for many years, I got to know the most radical workers and their state of mind there; one cannot judge the social question if one has only only from the outside, but one can only judge about what the true labor question is when one has looked at the people - then we would not have the agitation in the socio-political field today, which at the moment threatens to destroy our economic life; we would not have the completely abstract demand for the eight-hour day. If the workers' associations were involved in economic life itself, they would assert their judgment in legal life, where they simply have to decide on the length of working hours; they would know that it would affect their own bodies if the corresponding working hours were enforced. Only when one separates this question from the purely economic life, only when one has a possibility to judge on what is purely human, without any connection to economic interests, which belongs in the political, in the state, only then is one in the position to judge objectively on these things. One can have a heart for the workers' issue in the truest sense of the word, but this heart then also tells one that it is necessary above all that social life should flow in such a way that the worker does not undermine the ground under his feet. To do this, however, it is necessary to look at our entire economic, legal, political and intellectual life with a healthier sense than is often the case today.

You see, one would have to talk a lot about it if one wanted to get to the bottom of the reasons for the economic plight, for example, of the German Reich. And it is really difficult to talk about threefolding today because it can only be carried out in a surrogate. After all, it is political life that is ruining economic life on a large scale today. The war ruined our economic life, but it is fair to say that peace has ruined our economic life even more, and in a much more hopeless way. So it is very difficult to talk about these things today, but I would like to point out that we will not be able to solve economic issues in the appropriate way today either if we do not set about solving the big social issues as such, insofar as this is relatively possible.

You may think about the threefold social order, initially as a kind of postulate, if you like; but one thing is clear, especially within the German Reich, when you consider the fact that this in fact emerged in the second half of the 19th century, that it is already there in certain areas, but that it is only there in a destructive sense, not in a constructive sense. And here you will allow me to dwell very briefly on things that appear to be far removed from economic life, but which, for those who see through things, are intimately connected with it.

You all know that the longing for the German Reich has existed for a long time. It is one of the most beautiful blossoms in German life. How did this longing for the German Reich appear, for example, in 1848 and even later? It appeared as a purely intellectual impulse. Those people who spoke of this establishment of German unity lapsed into a kind of romanticism – whether you like it or not, it is a fact – when they spoke of what they were striving for, of German unity. They wanted to found a Reich in which the spiritual substance of the German people would come to the fore. Then a Reich was founded from completely different points of view. No criticism is being expressed here; enough of that was expressed in the 1970s; one may admit the historical necessity that the German Reich had to be founded in this way, not out of this idealism, which can also be a false one , but it was not wrong for numerous personalities; this founding of the German Reich could have truly served as a framework for that which, out of the best spiritual striving of the Germans, wanted this German unity.

The foundation of 1871 could have provided a framework for spiritual matters. They were there. And, ladies and gentlemen, however much they may be in hiding today, they are still there today, perhaps most strongly there, even if not on the surface of life. But what then emerged within this framework? Here, too, I do not want to criticize, but to fully acknowledge: a flourishing economy has indeed emerged; an increasingly flourishing German Reich in the economic sense has emerged. Do not take what I am about to say in a dismissive sense.

The dreams of those striving for German unity were in the background as a free, spiritual empire, not publicly active or organized, but carried in the heart. It was there, this link of the spiritual organism, only it could not assert itself in the face of the external organization. It did not have its own organization. More and more, a purely economic organization asserted itself. What arose from completely different spiritual and political foundations was used as the framework for a large, powerful, admirable economic organization. Unfortunately, however, this organization contradicted the demands of the world economy, which arose more and more in the second half of the 19th century. It was simply – whether one regrets this or judges it differently – it was simply not possible for the framework of the German Reich, which had developed out of very different conditions, out of spiritual and political conditions, to become an economic area that was opposed to the trends of the world economy. This has become the deepest cause of the war, at least in the West; this is the basis of our tragic fate in Germany.

Now we have two links in the tripartite social organism. We have the secretly ruling spiritual realm; but the school and education system was organized according to the aspects that were at the top. It was, so to speak, seized by the tentacles of the unitary state, which, however, asserted purely economic aspects. On the other hand, we have economic life. And in between, yes, in between, we have a fragment, a part of the third area; the purely state, the purely economic area. This does not descend from above; because here one thinks of setting up politics itself in such a way that it can increasingly develop more and more over the economy; politics, which grows from below, which is there in the demands of social democracy. There, the demands are set up quite ruthlessly in relation to economic life, about which the Social Democracy merely theorizes. There, the demands are set up without regard to intellectual life, to the conditions of economic life. There, purely political points of view are asserted.

You see, these three members of the social organism are growing up, you just don't see it; you don't see that you also have to organize what is growing up; that you really have to come to treating these three members in such a way that they are really taken up; that we have a separate organization for spiritual life, a separate organization for legal life, where those who are not really part of the other two organizations no longer make their demands alone, but together with those who are part of them, have to work with the others as full, whole personalities.

Then we have economic life, which has just been conducted continuously from points of view that did not take into account the general demands of the world economy. We have, to a great extent, developed the economy under the entrepreneurial spirit of technical science in this new German Reich. But we have not developed this economy from an overview of the economic conditions of the world economy. And this world economy plays into the sphere of every single household. It is not something that hovers over our heads, but something we experience at every breakfast. More and more, it is something we experience, and it became more and more necessary to place oneself in this economic life out of knowledge, out of insight, which in turn could only arise out of social life. This was neglected. Then the war took away what had been achieved in a fragment of the world economy. Now, however, we are faced with the fact that politics has narrowed us down to such an extent that it is extremely difficult to achieve much through the threefold social order from this torso, which is an economic torso even in the middle of Europe. But if we look at the threefold social organism, we have to say: Of course it will not be able to turn what is an economic torso into paradise, but it will be able to get the most out of it that is humanly possible.

On the other hand, it is actually beginning to be recognized everywhere that it is necessary, on the one hand, to distinguish economic life from the social organism and to really place it on its own. However, there is little insight among those who, for some abstract reason, speak of a planned economy and believe that economic life can be organized from some central office. In economic life, we should stop talking about organizing altogether. We should know that in economic life the hard-working person can only achieve something if they can also stand within the economic circle that they can see, and can establish a relationship with the other economic circles in such a way that they stand within the associative so that the right thing can happen through the interaction in the associations; so that an opinion can develop that the individual cannot have, but that only those can have together who are part of the associations.

If we look at things this way, we have to say: What we can achieve is perhaps very imperfect, but we will still achieve the humanly possible even in this torso of Central Europe, if we not only tackle those issues that are purely socio-political matters in confusion with economic conditions, but if we really look things in the eye and try to carry out the necessary separation of politics and economics, as far as it is possible in the present circumstances.

But what is emerging, especially the revolution, has once again been covered by an incredibly dense fog, a political fog, and the prophets with their planned economy have emerged in droves. A most unfortunate consequence of what lives in politics is also the famous paragraph 165 of the German constitution of the Republic. Read this paragraph about the composition of district economic councils with a Reich Economic Council and then with what the Reich is to be internally, and try to form a clear and distinct idea of how something unified is actually to come about there. It is the most dismal amalgamation of economic and political points of view in this very paragraph 165 of the German republican constitution of the Weimar National Assembly.

You can see that there are people today who are looking in the right direction, but they are groping in the dark. They realize that something must be done to help the economy. Take the Reich Economic Council, which is truly an assembly of exceptionally knowledgeable people; but you cannot organize across a wider area from a central office, because the possibilities for business are different in each individual territory. The point is that those who have grown into these operating possibilities are included in them, and not those who are directed from above; who manage themselves through associations, while others are included in other operating possibilities. Those who judge from a political point of view will always get it wrong, because they believe that they can organize the whole of economic life through some kind of plan. But in the Reich Economic Council there are people who are familiar with the needs of economic life. They have stated that it is a matter of organizing the whole Reich according to mere economic or transport policy conditions. That is a significant word, only the demand would be that one now leaves it to the individuals working in the individual businesses to form groups that arise by themselves. It can be shown that an association formed from various economic sectors and branches of consumption acquires a certain size simply from the soil conditions or other operating possibilities, from the operating possibilities and consumption conditions. Associations that are too small would be too expensive, and those that are too large would be too unwieldy. This is what needs to be pointed out.

On the one hand, what the threefold social order is striving for is already being demanded today if we are guided by sound judgment. But other organizations will then arise out of the circumstances. It is really striking that out of today's circumstances the Reich Economic Council has been formed, which has to say that it has no initial authority, that the Reich must be divided into such bodies that work out of their operating possibilities. But in between there are always those who hold fast to the old. Thus we have to note that in a meeting of the representatives of the chambers of commerce, it was demanded that economic independence should be introduced uniformly, but that the economic entities should coincide with the old administrative districts, which were created from completely different points of view. In this way neighboring cities would be torn apart, which would naturally have to coincide. This is what repeatedly interferes with the recovery of our judgment, that people cling rigidly to the old.

In another area, too, individuals have already worked their way to a fairly sound judgment regarding corporate bodies that have emerged from the old, even economic necessities, but which no longer have any justification. Anyone who is concerned about such things could be aware of the sad economic situation of the municipalities and cities. Anyone who has studied the matter will tell you this. They are at the end of their economic resources. And those who look into these conditions already have a judgment today that other carriers must take the place of the old economic municipalities, that they must be relieved of what they can no longer provide because they have inherited their practices from old conditions. What kind of bodies are we talking about that are supposed to take this on? Bodies that are formed from the perspectives of economic life itself and that form associations with one another. That is what it is about. And so we can see it as a characteristic feature of our public life today that those who are seriously concerned with these matters are already longing for something to happen that draws attention to the fact that things cannot continue under the old conditions. I would like to say that between the lines one can read it without the people who write the lines knowing it. The sensible manager already has the urge for associative life, for the formation of new economic entities where only economic expertise and specialized knowledge count, the intergrowth of the individual manager with his economy. The grouping into associations is already on the way, but people have so much respect for the old that they cannot get away from it; they keep trying to form corporate bodies out of economic life that associate themselves, that are natural associations themselves, but they would like to combine, would like somehow to nestle in the old framework that which they want to build anew. But that is what holds us back. It is only our lack of courage in the face of new judgments. It is only that we do not want to come to terms with our thoughts. That is what brings this immense inner need to the outer need, that we cannot achieve what is humanly possible within the framework that is still left to us. Of course, even with a certain prospect of success, success in a material sense, the right thing develops out of industrial circles themselves, only one does not go to the last step. For example, it is a very good thing that the electricity industry wants to divide the entire administration of electrical power into eight districts. But if one looks again at how this body is to be linked to the old state framework, one sees that People do not want to break away from the old judgments. They cannot understand that legal relationships and economic relationships only interact properly when they are no longer combined, but when they are properly interlinked.

Some people say: the law is, after all, linked to the economy. Of course it is. In reality, they will continue to be intertwined. But there is no reason why the two should not be kept separate, if the economic circumstances are taken care of by purely economic entities, and the legal circumstances by legal and state entities. Then the people who represent their legal interests in the state and their economic interests in the economic body will not divide in half. They enter life as fully human individuals; they will all represent economic, spiritual, and state-legal life. It is only through the human being that what is only separated by the administration is joined together; but there it must be separated, otherwise we will not progress.

This is what actually distinguishes the impulse of the threefold social organism from other contemporary efforts. I have often been told: Yes, your threefold social order wants an independent economic life, that is also wanted elsewhere. And a free spiritual life is also striven for. It is pointed out that there is something here and something there that recalls the threefold social order. Since our Anthroposophical Society is international, I have already spoken about it with all kinds of people from all over the world. Some have said to me: The threefold social order is nothing new. In the areas where people are interested, we are already trying to do all of this in all three areas. I could only say: The less new the threefold social order is, the better I like it. I am not seeking to bring something new into the world with the threefold social order, but rather that which is new for the development of humanity at this time. What is new, however, is that the efforts in the individual fields are coming to light and that we can only make progress if we come together in the one great impulse, which is the threefold social order.

I am well aware of the objections that can be raised from the most diverse sides. I have also discussed the objections that can be raised from the standpoint of international interests in my paper “The Crucial Points of the Social Question”. I know very well how little scope there is for the development of threefolding and for an associative economic life in our German Empire, which has been so curtailed by the peace agreement. But if we do what is possible and, as I believe, necessary for life, then I have confidence that the example will prove effective. The victors will take a good social thing from us if we can bring it about, just as they would take any other invention from us, even if we are defeated. The only difficulty today, which I often regret in our circles, is that we have too few people working on this.

You see, the book “The Key Points of the Social Question” has been translated into European cultural languages and published everywhere; in English, Italian, French and Norwegian-Swedish. The English translation was published in May 1920. Basically, although people were always warned that an Englishman would not want to have a proper judgment of what comes from a German today, objective discussions of this book appeared in abundance in England in a short time. And if we had had the opportunity to give lectures in England from city to city in July, if we had been able to capitalize on the mood that was created by the book, then something would have come of it. Then, I am convinced, a German idea would have made a great impression there, even under today's terribly unfavorable conditions. We were unable to hold lectures in England; we are far too few in number. The few people around Steiner, the few men in the “Coming Day” are struggling, one can say; for them, night is hardly there at all during long periods. We basically only have a few people, and we need many, many people to make it work. I could only give you the guidelines, they were only meant to be suggestions; but for us they are what, if they can be represented by a sufficiently large number of people, must lead to the recovery of present life.

We also started with the “Coming Day”, this “stock corporation for the promotion of economic and spiritual values”. It is to be a purely economic enterprise. Of course, I would like to point out that such a small individual society cannot achieve what the threefold order wants within the other economic life, of course. Because just think, the most important thing is to get rid of special-interest groups such as the trade unions. We cannot do that overnight, especially not with a small group of people, and especially not if something like what happened to me here in Stuttgart, when we started working for the threefold social order, I would like to say the say it in a way that is somewhat anonymous; I got into conversation with someone from the circles of the bourgeoisie who has a certain following after we had succeeded in generating a great deal of understanding for the idea of threefolding, especially among the working class. This gentleman said to me: Yes, I can see that there is something fruitful in these things; you could make progress with them if you gained followers. But you are too few to win followers, with the few people around you; we cannot base the matter on so few eyes. Therefore, we prefer - although we know that with cannons and rifles we can only go on for another 10 to 15 years - to leave it as it is.

We did not allow ourselves to be discouraged from founding this “Coming Day”, even though we can only realize a very small part of our ideas in it. This small part is that in this “Coming Day” and the “Futurum” that goes with it in Dornach near Basel, societies have been created that eliminate the harmful effects, at least initially in a small area, that can be seen when studying the interaction between banking and industry today. Unfortunately, I cannot go into this in detail now; it would be taking us too far afield. I would just like to say the positive thing. The “Kommende Tag” and the “Futurum” are to be such societies in which banking is administered in such a way that it is not purely banking, but that the administrators of banking in the individual industrial enterprises, which are associatively united in the “coming day”, are at the same time active in productive industrial work, the entire organization of work, and also take care of the financial administration themselves. What has been separated only in the 19th century, to the detriment of humanity, is to be joined together: banking with productive work, with industrial, commercial work and so on. And we want to show that all of social life can really flourish.

I mentioned earlier that we want to establish a therapeutic institute under certain conditions. We have also founded a publishing house. The Waldorf School is also connected to the Kommenden Tag financially to a certain extent, even if it is still a loose connection today.

We want to show that if you can manage things in the right way, you can establish spiritual institutions alongside them, if you just have enough financial acumen to calculate with long time frames. Because spiritual institutions also pay off, they just have to be allowed long time frames, and you just have to have an open mind about what humanity needs.

We are convinced that the remedies, in the way we want to produce them, do not include any unproductive enterprises, although no other thought is embodied in them than to help humanity. But precisely when one works in the noblest moral sense in such fields, one also works in the best economic sense. For it turns out that by taking what you gain in the short term and investing it in enterprises that are subject to long-term conditions, you are at the same time establishing an economy that also encompasses the free spiritual life, which also belongs in the economy. This is an example of how we do not want to juxtapose things, but rather structure them so that things interact in the right way. And just as we do not want to found a school of world-view in Waldorf schools, but only to apply in the art of education and teaching what we have gained from anthroposophy, just as we do not want to inculcate any world-view in the child, but to let the human being become blissful as he wants. People are always criticizing what they see as dogmas in our work. We do not have dogmas; we have a method of inquiry that we claim is the right method not only for world views but also for practical matters. In Waldorf schools, the way we treat children is essential. We have Catholic children taught religion by Catholic teachers and Protestant children by Protestant teachers, but we want a methodology based on a real, thorough knowledge of human nature. And so it does not occur to us to inject any kind of world view into economic enterprises. We would regard that as foolishness. Rather, the aim is to ensure that the “day to come” is based on the associative principle of economic life to the extent possible today; that it realizes this associative principle, which is alive, at least in the one point that the banking activities and measures associate with the industrial and commercial measures; that it forms an organic whole. Perhaps we will live to see that, if the matter is sufficiently understood, this economic center will expand more and more and an economic association will emerge from it, which can then serve as an example to others. This depends on the understanding, also on the - how should I put it - generous understanding that our contemporaries show us. I know that I could not evoke this through these allusions, but the literature is indeed extensive; two books are available from me, and the weekly magazine “Die Dreigliederung”, which we publish, appears every week, in which we discuss the questions at hand in detail, and in which the intentions of “The Day to Come” have been discussed in detail; in which also highlights are thrown on the conditions of the present, on the way in which the present must be treated, so that the impulse of threefolding as a practical impulse can enter into real life and so on. There is also criticism of what in our economic life cannot possibly lead to anything other than decline, at least not to sunrise. And there is still other literature. And the Federation for the Threefolding of the Social Organism is there, trying to propagate these ideas, precisely because it believes that salvation can only be achieved in this way.

Dear attendees, please forgive me if I have only been able to give a few hints and if I have to refer you to what else we do for the idea in the way we have just characterized. But I hope that these suggestions may indicate, first, that here at least an attempt is being made, out of the great trends that are now standing before us demanding a construction out of decline, and out of practical ideas, out of ideas that social life and the real people of the present, that out of all this an attempt is made to do something that leads to a healthy economic life through a free intellectual life and through a legal or political life that satisfies people in its field. We cannot make progress today with small means, which we can only deduce from what has already been missed in economic life, but we can only make progress if we decide to understand the downfall of economic life from a broad perspective and to use this to gain momentum for a real awakening, for a recovery of this economic life.

Automated Translation

My dear friends! When we discuss the affairs of the threefolding movement and related matters in such a circle, we must be well aware that the whole threefolding movement can only be conceived of as being part of the necessities of the present, of that which can and should go from the essence of our entire movement into general culture. Now it is quite natural that in our extraordinarily fast-moving times, we have to adapt our working methods to the changed circumstances. It is quite natural that there can be no general programs, that we have to work quite differently in Germany today than we did in 1919, for example, and so on.

But one thing, my dear friends, is necessary to bear in mind, and that is: we cannot work fruitfully in such a field as the threefolding movement is, if we, as it were, limit ourselves to the threefolding impulse, which we may discuss in the abstract from various perspectives, and form groups to discuss the threefolding question, perhaps in a utopian way, which it should certainly not be. If such a movement is to be carried forward fruitfully, it must be carried forward with constant consideration of the circumstances, the narrower and the broader, that is, the German and foreign world conditions in general. One must try to have an open eye for what is going on.

And here I would like to put together two apergus, two points, through which I would actually like to say what I have to say. Yesterday, an attempt was made to do something in a conference with a smaller group, where the question arose in different countries – it was thought that this was the right thing to do – of turning to people who, as they say, have a name, so that a certain part of our movement could be propagated by something like this. One would have to be convinced of the fact that when one raises such a question today, one should find personalities who have a name, when one raises such a question today, that such a question presents itself quite differently than if one had raised it eight years ago. Eight years ago, all sorts of people came to mind – and rightly so. Today, no one comes to mind, because the people who could be named over the last six or eight years have been completely used up; they are no longer names. Out of habit, people still cling to the belief that this or that person has a name; just take a closer look, for example, at today's newspapers, people who speak as politicians: either you keep finding Stresemann or Helfferich over and over again, or someone who really can't say or do anything other than a person in the position in question who is not entirely inferior, like the current chancellor – isn't he, I believe he is – so there is no way today to deal with the same issues as they were dealt with eight years ago, as soon as one addresses the specific circumstances, and such a movement must address the specific circumstances, it cannot just have a programmatic effect.

Now, in connection with this aperçu that I have just mentioned, I would like to mention another. You see, it is, I believe, a very concrete fact that the Anthroposophical Congress began here on August 28, 1921, and will close tomorrow; for us here, I believe, it is first and foremost a very concrete fact. This Anthroposophical Congress has – and this evening you saw from an announcement how the space situation looks – so it has attracted a whole range of people here to Stuttgart.

To our great satisfaction, they are working in this field. Yes, what better can you do as a contemporary worker than to use the most concrete conditions? You have to start from facts, once they have been created. Now I would like to say what I want to say illustratively, as an example, so to speak. Please do not take my choice of two examples as implying that the others are not also all examples. However, just because someone is not named does not mean that they should not be named, but I have to choose some examples.

You see, this afternoon we heard a lecture about Wilbrandt's “economy”. First of all, it was a link to Wilbrandt's economy. But this lecture is such an event that, if it is exploited, if it is really needed as it can be needed, it can have tremendous significance and be an enormous means of agitation. If this lecture had been given at some economic congress or professors' congress or somewhere, not only would a detailed report of it have appeared in every major newspaper, but it would have been discussed for weeks, column after column. It could be that there are Anthroposophists and threefolders who leave this congress and do not tell the other members, who were not there, about this lecture at home as something they have experienced. Yes, that means that, firstly, we have few people who are already working productively today, but on the other hand, that tremendous work simply falls by the wayside, is not utilized. We do not yet know how to use the concrete facts from day to day; we think about how to hold introductory courses and so on, and so on; that's all very well, but of course we were already talking about that twenty years ago. For us, the things that are happening must really happen, that's the important thing, my dear friends.

The other example I would like to mention is a lecture given by Dr. von Heydebrand, who was also present as a member of the teaching staff. This lecture is so radically critical of something that is, in the most eminent sense, culturally damaging and destructive that, with yesterday's lecture, we have once again made an epoch-making statement. Just imagine if this lecture had been given at some teachers' meeting, the furor it would have caused among the teaching staff. Just as university economics in its entirety has been exposed as hollow and void, has been exposed, yesterday the whole folly of experimental psychology and experimental pedagogy was presented in such an interesting and humorous way that this is something that must be exploited.

Yes, my dear friends, we have just experienced since the revolution that endless work is simply left unused, is ignored; we must learn to make full use of our things. We must keep a watchful eye on things, for we may experience epoch-making things here in the realm of education and economics, and that these will be taken for granted by our people. Yes, that is how it has been with the Dornach School of Spiritual Science to this day. There is an enormous amount of work in it, but it is taken for granted, and it is also taken for granted that a few people should go to all this trouble and do an enormous amount of work. People listen to it, but it has no effect.

Isn't it true that it has rightly been discussed how tired people are and how hard it is for them to take it, but we don't tell them anything about it! They would take things on board if we presented it to people with an open mind for what is happening and from an open heart, there would be understanding if we put the current, the immediately concrete thing in front of people.

What is all the talk of the Stresemanns, the Wirths and so on, compared to what has been said here at this congress? If no one says anything else, it must be said; it must occur to someone to continually lose sight of the full significance of this movement and to think about abstract programs, how should we best hold introductory courses, but to have no heart or mind for what is actually going on among us. That is what hurts so much and what could be different; the threefolding newspaper, what an endless task the threefolding newspaper is! I have spoken about these things before. Not only has the threefolding newspaper been ignored in its significance, but now it is even being reduced. So it's not true, the things I say are not to nag, truly not to nag, but only to draw attention to the fact that we in our movement have a serious obligation to appreciate the things people do and to present them to the people in a truly appreciated way. And what would be the result of making use of what is being achieved here again in the Dornach School Courses if it were utilized in a timely manner! What material there would be to work with!

This is what must be emphasized, and it goes through our entire movement. See, to give an example: It was really something striking that an essay on threefolding appeared in the Hibbert Journal in the first place; that in itself has a significance, but think if the friends take it up directly and make use of it, then it can achieve twenty-five times what it achieves in the Hibbert Journal; it is the most respected journal of English intellectuals. And I could demonstrate such things in all fields. And what I dared to say on Sunday, this lively interaction, this lively interest of each individual in the whole movement, is something we must adhere to very closely.

How many members know how well organized, how tightly organized our opponents are, how much we need to keep a watchful eye on them and act energetically in relation to this organization of opponents? And here I would like to say one more thing: As far as I know, there is a lively exchange of ideas between Dornach and London; many letters are written with all kinds of gossip from Dornach. I mentioned these facts at a recent conference in Dornach and said: But when something like a performance of eurythmy, as happened in Baden-Baden, is besmirched, which is a most important social matter, then no one complains, no one takes any notice of it, it is not really considered as a concrete current event. I was then told that they had not known about this in London, even though it had been discussed in the Basler Nachrichten, if one had not happened to find a copy of the Basler Nachrichten in the dirt on Oxford (or Regent) Street, and there one would have learned about this fact.

So you see, there is a lot of sense in what I am saying, that it is necessary for everyone to make the affairs of the entire organization their own affairs and to have a sense of what is really being achieved in the organization. Just think what it would mean if something equivalent to what you have just heard about from the congress in two examples had happened out in the world. One must appreciate these things and do not you think that the local groups can really be interested if they are reported in this up-to-date way about what has been experienced here in Stuttgart?

My dear friends, I mean what one finds again and again, and that is - as Rector Bartsch emphasized with a certain correctness - the follow-up work, the processing. But these are the real highlights of the movement, and they are what we need. For example, we need to ensure that the following happens: it is no small thing that 1600 people have gathered here for a congress and that the things that have been discussed here have actually been discussed, that all of this has happened, that the little eurythmy rehearsals have been so well received and so on, and so on, we really must not sit here with sleepy heads and go home with sleepy heads, but actually make a living movement out of the whole thing. Temperament in the souls, enthusiasm in the hearts, then what is needed in the details will be found. Again, one cannot give programmatic advice, but one must appeal to temperament, humor, enthusiasm, fire.

Build up a great deal of fire by lighting it in an enthusiastic way out of the facts, and then the threefolding newspaper will not be neglected, this congress will not be neglected as the Dornach School of Spiritual Science has been, and so on and so forth. Instead, this fire will be of use for something.

[In the introduction, the employee representatives from the various enterprises report on grievances and discrepancies between the ideal of threefolding and the reality in the enterprises. In response to a question from Rudolf Steiner, the example of an incompetent foreman is mentioned. The works councils are not sufficiently involved in operational decisions. A discussion about internal company issues is broken off at the request of Rudolf Steiner, since this is the wrong place for such a discussion.]

Rudolf Steiner says that much of what has been said is justified, but that the ideas of the “key points” can only be fully realized when we are further along. In these matters, it must be borne in mind that honest intentions are there, but one must come together and overcome the tremendous difficulties through discussion, not by talking past each other. From the point of view of real practice, we are all in a dilemma. We can only have proper business managers if they grow out of practice. The different views are a multiple obstacle to understanding, and can only be overcome through a certain liberality. Often enough, the intolerance of the trade unions prevents reasonable cooperation. The institutions cannot be changed overnight, just as the entrepreneur has certain obligations to fulfill in relation to his organization. At the building site in Dornach, reasonable cooperation was possible because the building could only be constructed through a willingness to make sacrifices. Since 1918, mutual understanding has become very difficult. It is not fantasizing on both sides that leads to understanding, but bridges must be found through loving engagement with one another. We have to come to that. We should understand each other. On both sides, everything is justified, but it is difficult to find an understanding. The education of the workers does not prevent this, because in my opinion it has been abundant. It would be necessary for them to believe us and for people to meet us halfway. It is still the case today that we recognize damage and mistakes, but that it is difficult to overcome some of them due to the existing obstacles, because the necessary understanding is lacking.

[Further discussion: about mutual understanding, the demand for a minimum subsistence level, about piecework.]

Rudolf Steiner then takes the floor for his closing remarks. He repeatedly emphasizes that it is absolutely necessary for the people united in the enterprises of the “Coming Day” to build the bridge through trust and mutual understanding that will make the transition from the old rotten conditions to the new and healthy ones possible.

He expresses his pleasure that the discussion with the works councils has taken place and hopes that such discussions will take place in the future.

Rudolf Steiner said something like the following: Propaganda for the threefold social order is fundamental because it can be seen as a way out of the plight. The opinion that the threefold social order has not been grasped by the proletariat as a result of inadequate schooling is not correct. The idea has been properly understood in certain broad circles of the proletariat. But instead of now pursuing the idea to its ultimate consequences, the workers turned to the old leaders and in the end abandoned the threefold order. It is only possible to make progress if one turns to the workers as a human being. The path to understanding was there, but the leadership stabbed us in the back.

The “Kommende Tag” is actually only a surrogate today. It was not founded to hold the ideas of threefolding, but to have a center from which further work could be done. Today, the “Kommende Tag” cannot yet satisfy many needs; but as a starting point, it has its great significance. If the threefold social order had been implemented in 1918, then something different from what the “Day to Come” represents today would have emerged from it. It would be necessary for associative life to develop out of the understanding of individuals for such a thing. Today, the will for it must become as strong as possible. But we also have to talk quite differently, and the consequences must be drawn in view of what is necessary in the future. The establishment of the “Day to Come” has actually boycotted those entrepreneurs who have joined forces with the “Day to Come”. Nevertheless, work must continue, and it must be expected that a widespread boycott will ensue. Now we should have common ground where we can orientate ourselves from person to person according to broad principles. Individual grievances must be treated separately from the big issues. There are healthy ideas in many minds, but many people today talk nonsense and do not realize that we are now entering the great crises, which will be much more terrible than those that have occurred. Everyone has social impulses, but they say things that awaken hopes, or they remain silent. Trust must be sought from person to person. Only with trust can we move forward. In many cases, trust cannot be established because an intermediary makes it impossible to achieve a good outcome.

We need to find a way to deal with the issues properly. We should communicate, so to speak, without talking. We have failed with the threefold order and now we are left with no alternative. In the earlier study evenings, we should have dealt with current issues on the basis of the “key points”, and not discussed the key points themselves. It would be necessary to continue these study evenings in the right way today.

The one who is supposed to eliminate the damage and does not do so sees the same much more clearly. Nothing will change if the working class does not take the “day to come” seriously and closes ranks. We have to find a way to unite our working class, and the others will find each other and agree to work. We can only reach our goal together. What is the minimum subsistence level? You have to tackle the issue on a large scale. If a company introduces the minimum subsistence level, that company will go under and the workers will be out on the street. It is not possible for an individual company to introduce full satisfaction. The proletariat can prevent us from falling into the capitalist system. The working class must support us to such an extent that a solid organization develops from our ranks, to which people cling with the same tenacity with which they still cling to the trade unions in some cases today. Such an organization must come into being. The way to achieve this must be found so that the workers unite to form such a new association. It is only through mutual trust that this union can be achieved, and the workers must take the initiative to do so.

Asking the proletariat to leave the trade unions is not something that can be done overnight, nor is it my intention. However, the trade unions must not be allowed to stand in the way of associative coexistence. Unless as many healthy ideas as possible are introduced into as many minds as possible, nothing will improve.

on the occasion of the introduction of Emil Leinhas as general director

Rudolf Steiner: My dear friends! The development of conditions in the “Coming Day” makes changes necessary at this present moment in time, which, in my opinion, are of far-reaching significance. First of all, I will take the liberty of presenting these changes to you, so to speak, from their historical necessity, and then I will take the liberty of linking some remarks to them. The conditions in an association such as the “Coming Day” is supposed to be are, by their very nature, initially such that they can only gradually take on a permanent form, that is, a permanent form such that one can count on very firm conditions. And so it has become more and more apparent in recent days that changes are necessary at the present time.

You are aware that some time ago the del Monte company joined the “Coming Day”. At the time, del Monte's affiliation with “Der Coming Day” was associated with extraordinary sacrifices on the part of that company. The previous general director of “Der Coming Day,” Mr. Benkendörfer, was one of the driving forces behind del Monte's undertaking at the time, and it was a huge sacrifice, both personally and professionally, for the remaining associates of the del Monte company and for Mr. Benkendörfer himself, to bring about the constellation that was necessary for the takeover of the general management of the “Coming Day” by Mr. Benkendörfer.

Now, over time, it has become clear that the del Monte company, which of course is absolutely calculating – and of course this can only be in the interest of the “Coming Day” – is calculating with an extraordinary expansion. It has become necessary for the del Monte company to approach the supervisory board of the “day to come” and make it that Mr. Benkendörfer is absolutely necessary for the future expansion of the del Monte enterprise, which is of course now an integral part of the “Coming Day”; not only for today's circumstances, but because it is in the most vital interest of the “Coming Day” that the necessary and promising expansion of the former del Monte company can take place. The supervisory board of “The Coming Day” could not ignore the fact that this urgent request on the part of the del Monte company must be accommodated; and we found ourselves in the painful position of having to grant Mr. Benkendörfer, who We were painfully obliged to grant Mr. Benkendörfer his resignation as managing director of “Coming Day” and to continue to provide his valuable services to the del Monte company. Mr. Benkendörfer will therefore turn his labor toward del Monte within the framework of the “Coming Day,” in which the del Monte company will certainly remain.

Thus, my dear friends, after a relatively short time, we were obliged to fill the post of managing director again, and it must be emphasized that this appointment was only possible under conditions that would have been unthinkable some time ago, for the post of general manager of “Kommender Tag” is one of the most difficult positions imaginable, given the position that “Coming Day” occupies in the world among supporters and opponents. It was only because Mr. Molt could see the possibility of now having to lead Waldorf-Astoria alone under the current circumstances and to do without something that he could not have done without a short time ago - namely, the valuable cooperation of Mr. Leinhas - that it was possible to fill the position of our managing director with an appropriate personality again. And I therefore expressly take this opportunity to emphasize that Mr. Molt, in a far-sighted recognition of the overall interests of “Coming Day”, decided to take on the responsibility of managing the Waldorf-Astoria, thereby giving the supervisory board of “Coming Day” the opportunity to make any progress at all under the current circumstances. So we had the necessity and therefore also the opportunity to fill the position of managing director, and at this moment I am able to introduce Mr. Emil Leinhas, who is well known to all of you, as the future managing director. Well, that is the first far-reaching change that is taking place here in the constitution of the “Day to Come”.

And now allow me to tie a few remarks to this presentation of the historical circumstances.

The first thing I have to say – and you will believe that it comes from the bottom of my heart – is that I also have to express to you how much all of us, the supervisory board, the board of directors and the entire staff of “The Coming Day” have reason to feel from the bottom of our hearts our sense of gratitude for what Mr. Benkendörfer has done for “The Coming Day” during the time of his general management, and at great personal sacrifice. Mr. Benkendörfer not only took over the “Coming Day” as general director at great sacrifice, but also took it over at an extraordinarily difficult time for the “Coming Day”, and his tasks were such that one can say of them, especially in these months in which Mr. Benkendörfer presided over the “Coming Day”, the tasks were such that they had to weigh heavily on the shoulders of a personality.

My dear friends, the person who works in a company, especially one like “Kommender Tag”, often has no idea what worries live in the soul of the person who now has to pull the numerous strings from the inside out, who has to ensure the prosperity, the prosperity and the development of such an undertaking . Mr. Benkendörfer has taken on all these difficult tasks, and I can tell you with the utmost conviction that Mr. Benkendörfer has done something for the whole “Coming Day” that cannot be overestimated, and you will understand that this deeply felt gratitude, of which I have spoken, is also expressed here. I expressed it yesterday at the supervisory board of “The Coming Day”, and it was approved by the entire supervisory and management board of “The Coming Day” in the broadest, most undivided way. It is incumbent upon me to say, following on from this, that it was a matter of course that the connection that Mr. Benkendörfer had with the “Coming Day” through the general management developed a connection that must remain; therefore, the supervisory board of “The Coming Day” felt compelled to ask Mr. Benkendörfer to join the supervisory board – a matter that the next general assembly will have to consolidate. Mr. Benkendörfer will thus continue to work in the bosom of the supervisory board itself, also belong to the board of directors and, as a delegate of the board of directors, take care of the work at del Monte. Thus, to the greatest extent, Mr. Benkendörfer's valuable labor will continue to benefit the “Coming Day.” I have asked that, by decision of the Supervisory Board, all thanks and expressions of hope be incorporated into the minutes of the Supervisory Board of the “Coming Day” as a historical fact.

And now, my dear friends, I come to the second part. This is the part that relates to the future. Allow me to make a few remarks about it. The point is that the last few weeks in particular have shown the importance that has been given in the world to that which has grown out of the anthroposophical movement in the most diverse ways. We held an anthroposophical congress in Stuttgart from the end of August to the beginning of September; this anthroposophical congress was attended by 1600 people and went in such a way that any unbiased person must say: Something has happened here that is not happening anywhere else in the world in the same way, and it is precisely one of the signs of the decline of our time that such a fact is not being pointed out to the greatest possible extent in a fitting and appropriate way, that people are not paying attention, that it is being taken for granted in our time, which so urgently needs the opposite. It may be said that, within the framework of this Anthroposophical Congress, what the Anthroposophical movement has been representing in a thoroughgoing way for decades has gone through a kind of fiery trial. At this congress, spiritual achievements were accomplished which, I am firmly convinced, are among those that cannot be found elsewhere at the present time. From the sum of these spiritual achievements, I would like to highlight two that are characteristic of what is happening within the framework of our Anthroposophical Movement – this movement that is so vilified in the world. I do not want to shy away from saying what I believe, because not speaking one's mind is something that many people today already consider their mission. But we will not make any progress if we do not speak the truth, express honest conviction, even where it takes a little courage to do so, and say it where it is needed.

There is much that could be said about this conference, my dear friends. What I have emphasized as an example should not be taken as implying that nothing similar could be said about anything else. Perhaps others will do so. It seems to me appropriate to emphasize some examples from the whole range of spiritual achievements of our Anthroposophical Congress. We may say that what actually emerged from the underground of the Anthroposophical Movement is, first and foremost, the Waldorf School, founded years ago by Mr. Emil Molt. The outside world may think what it will of this school, but the fact remains that a large part of the world looks to this school and another part gasps at the impossibility of founding similar schools all over the world. The spirit of the Waldorf school is longed for in the widest circles. I would like to say that in the field of inner work, this spirit of the Waldorf School was also expressed at the congress. We experienced that a teacher at the Waldorf School, Miss Caroline von Heydebrand, gave a lecture on something that is extremely popular in our time and that plays an extraordinary role in today's school system with the well-known name “experimental psychology and pedagogy”. But for anyone who really understands schooling and teaching, the development of this method in the context of human development means nothing other than that it shows how alien the inner human being has actually become to the human being, the educator to the child. At the conference, Fräulein von Heydebrand provided a detailed critique of this modern education system – or, one might say, this modern aberration. She showed that from a higher perspective, it is possible to carry the essence and spirit of education and teaching out into the world from the very field of the Waldorf School. It was a pedagogical and didactic act of the very first order that happened as a result, and as I said, today we must find the courage to say what needs to be said, where judgments are not made about the value of human achievements, to say what must be said without reserve: that here something has been achieved that has a significance for our time and that can only arise from this spirit.

It must be mentioned in this circle, because much depends on the progress of the “Coming Day”, that one realizes how human achievements that want to prepare themselves to produce rising forces in the face of the forces of decline must be valued. We must not pass by asleep, otherwise we will be trampled underfoot in world history, no matter how much we want to found. What matters is human judgment. We must be able to understand how to put people in the right place, then the right thing will also happen in social relationships.

Now I would like to speak of the second thing. Today we are all obliged to develop a thorough sense of what is to become social. Everything connected with the name of the threefold social organism is based on such a feeling. Most of you will know, my dear friends, that from April 1919 onwards an attempt has been made to make it clear to the world that it is this threefold social organism that can really lead the great social questions of the present to a solution appropriate to our time. It has been tried. What we have experienced is among the most tragic imaginable; we have experienced that what was attempted at that time has reached into the very soul of the proletarian and the depths of the heart. It may have been as imperfect as possible in the beginning - the effect has penetrated into the hearts of the proletarians. We have been able to see that, even if it was imperfect in the beginning, effective forces could gradually develop if all people who are involved - and all people are involved - if all people would work together. In the past, the matter failed in the way it was propagated by us in the most diverse ways, and this word “it has failed” is what should be written in our hearts. In particular, the cause has failed in the proletarian world, and I cannot but mention it truthfully. Now some people come straight from proletarian circles and say: Yes, it was bound to fail because our school education was not such that we could fully grasp the matter. This is a great mistake; the school education would have been quite sufficient; it has also been shown that it was sufficient. What happened at the time was that the terribly domineering proletarian leaders, those who could not or would not understand what it was all about, broke the tip off the whole movement of threefolding. And it will not do to try to overlook, with our inadequate schooling, what is not there, to overlook what could not be broken, the sense of authority towards the established leaders. It is my profound conviction that much of what belongs to the forces of misfortune in the present has arisen from this. And it is likely that precisely those people who have already understood something about the matter will have to feel it deeply and painfully that certain insightful people did not approach the matter more energetically at the time.

What is needed in social life today is not to be alone in the individual company, not only to be able to manage the individual company; what is needed is an overview of the economic situation of the whole world. In the last third of the nineteenth century, the idea of world trade was transformed into world economy, and today the world economy is what we need in economic terms, despite the fact that war has created such terrible, insurmountable boundaries that should not actually exist. Nevertheless, the world economy stands as a challenge that cannot be ignored. And basically, no one can work on a large scale – and it must be – on the smallest scale, who does not have an overview of what the world economy requires.

Now, university science, often based on minds that are so far removed from life and can only theorize, and political economy, are trying to establish all kinds of things from social events, from which one can know what one should actually do in economic practice. And the work of university professors and their followers over long periods in this field has also given rise to the popular theories — you can check this in my “Key Points” — with which people want to reform the world today and which are nothing more than unworldly theories that have grown out of the ivory towers of professors.

Now, at our anthroposophical congress, the following also happened: Mr. Leinhas gave a lecture that ties in with the recently published book of an extremely amiable and, among his colleagues, extremely outstanding university professor of economics. It can be said that the book, in addition to having the various computational and other speculative properties of economics, is one of the most appealing phenomena in the social sphere today because it also has a certain human character. It was therefore extraordinarily fortunate that Mr. Leinhas took this book as his starting point and showed in a very thorough way during his lecture how this book, which has grown out of academic scientific thinking, makes it clear that the whole of university science is of no use in economic life. It can also be of no use if the various party secretaries distill their knowledge from the books of university professors. This does not make the theories applicable to life, so that individual party secretaries can write them down and color them somewhat party-wise, which thrives in the unworldly university rooms of the economists, because that is how things are in this field. Mr. Leinhas' lecture, based on a thorough knowledge of the economic conditions of the present, has torn the mask off the face of all this hustle and bustle, and the achievement of the lecture is that university science with all its offshoots will have to lie on the ground precisely because of the further expansion of what is given in the lecture, and we have shown that in this field one will have to work from a completely different angle.

My dear friends, if today, out of unprejudiced human judgment, one were to carry out that which is carried out from the oldest prejudices that still remain today, then the judgments that go out into the world today would be different. Dr. von Heydebrand's lecture on experimental pedagogy and psychology would have to be discussed for a long time in all teachers' circles and at all teachers' conferences as the one that addresses the burning question of the present. What Mr. Leinhas presented would be discussed for weeks in all the most important newspapers, filling entire columns with what was shown. It would be discussed back and forth, pro and contra, in order to evaluate the spiritual results of our time. A different tone must be adopted if one is to characterize the untruthfulness of the world today on the basis of truth. And one would like to hope that among you, my dear friends, there are receptive hearts and minds that are not in a position to have to take out the oldest grist and grain from those people who are supposed to drive the various carts forward. We have indeed had to learn from yesterday to today how, in order to fill one of the most important posts, one of the oldest personalities, who had long since been “dealt with”, had to be resorted to. These are only symptomatic phenomena, because people do not want to form their own judgment about things that are originally created out of life, and then they seek the corresponding positions because they cannot come to any other judgment, out of the oldest prejudices.

We must get away from these things if we want to understand how to evaluate things today; and we evaluate them correctly if we say at this moment: It is one of the greatest blessings that the “Coming Day” can have, that in the personality of Mr. Emil Leinhas, who has shown so extraordinarily what he is capable of, that he gets a corresponding leadership in this personality. And I believe it is the duty of everyone who lives and works in the “Coming Day” to be aware of this fact.

That is what matters, that we are able to measure true human value. If we are not able to do so, then we will not escape the forces of decline. Mr. Leinhas is not a scholar; he knows the practice of life in all its ramifications, he knows it from reality. And such a personality was needed to criticize what grows out of the party leaders' theories, which are divorced from reality. What is close to my heart today is to tell you that all those who understand something of the tasks of “The Coming Day” must consider it a very special piece of luck that a personality who must now be considered an authority in the field of economics thanks to her achievements during the congress is being placed at the head of the board of directors of “The Coming Day”.

In saying this, I am hinting at something, and what I am hinting at is based on my heartfelt feeling that I have to say that the “Day to Come” still has a long way to go before it can achieve the level it needs to reach if it is to emulate the success of the congress held from the end of August to the beginning of September. It is absolutely a matter of discovering a kind of “Columbus' Egg” for the “Coming Day”. Today we are in a position where it is our task to ensure that the whole spirit of our movement can really be brought directly into practical life; and of course we do not achieve that - you must not hold it against me - not by the fact that after all, serious concerns could arise from the inner life of 17 Champignystraße. What is really at issue here is that each and every one of us here be imbued with the new spirit to the very depths of our hearts; and for that we need one thing above all, and I have to say it three times, because these days we have to say things three times: we all need trust, trust, trust among ourselves!

And now I ask you, my dear friends, all of you who are present, whether this trust has been present in the necessary way from each person to each person. I ask you most sincerely to develop this out of a full sense of responsibility: Ask a little less whether this trust is present in the right way in the other person or whether you can place it in the other. Try to approach it from the opposite pole; try to ask yourself more often whether trust can be placed in you, whether it can be justified for each individual, but then as he really is, and whether each person is endeavoring to translate this trust into life in the appropriate way. There is no other way of doing it, my dear friends.

You can't always see life's circumstances so clearly when you're caught up in today's judgments, which are so superficial. Circumstances are very interrelated and very complicated, and if you really want to develop the trust that is so necessary in business and economic life, then the other thing that I have been talking to you about for a few minutes is also important: the envious recognition of human value, not in order to show it to others, but because you are interested in things moving forward.

That this spirit may truly take hold at 17 Champignystraße, that a pure, honest, humane spirit of trust may truly prevail here, which seeks to learn to perceive the value of the human being, depends on whether we can continue to work fruitfully with the “Kommenden Tag” at all, my dear friends. We cannot work today as we are accustomed to working in external matters; we must make progress, even if it is slow. To do that, we need to develop two things: trust and envious recognition of the human value of the person who works alongside us. This can be said to you by someone who was willing to study the circumstances and who knows that we have entered into great social need because, on a large scale throughout the world, trust has gradually been lost. Today we have to say to ourselves: I want, I want, I want to join in trust with the person whom I know can do this or that.

I would not speak to you sincerely and honestly if I had not also given you this speech, which some may feel is an epistle; it is meant to be nothing more than truly heartfelt, friendly advice that, if you consider what I have outlined, can be of great significance for the progress of the “Coming Day”. I am convinced that it contains something of the spirit we need and that it was not superfluous to talk about the most fundamental things during this important, most important change in the “Coming Day”. If we try to develop this trust, if we try to recognize the value of the people living beside us, then the “Coming Day” will gradually become something that can be placed in a healthy way next to what has not yet been achieved to perfection, but at least in its beginnings; we have achieved something after all : we have achieved in the general anthroposophical movement that we were able to organize this substantial congress with 1600 visitors, and we have achieved something in the Waldorf school, where after only two years of activity, something of what I just wanted to express with the two main spiritual forces in human nature has been established. There is something in the Waldorf School among the teaching staff that works out of the trust that one has in the other, and there is also something of the recognition of the value of the personality working alongside one. And for this reason it can be said that especially in the Waldorf school, this extraordinarily commendable creation that Mr. Emil Molt has brought into the world, we can see something of what we need in all areas of our lives, my dear friends.

At this solemn moment, one would like to express the heartfelt wish that the “day to come” could gradually become what was achieved at the congress from the end of August to the beginning of September, what was achieved in the Waldorf school and what is noticeable there to a certain extent. It is difficult to achieve something like this in economic life, but I can say one thing: we must achieve it through human cooperation. Those who work here, and especially Mr. Leinhas, who has a thorough knowledge of the conditions of economic and business and the people associated with it, you will always find a friend who has an open ear for everything that legitimately comes from the bosom of any part of “The Coming Day” in general or from any individual part of “The Coming Day”. We just need the right feeling in working together, then it will work. For myself, the personality of Mr. Leinhas guarantees that.

But I also have something else to say: even the most valuable personality cannot achieve anything if it does not find the appropriate collaborators in the world. One must be able to judge human value, but one must also know that the most valuable personality cannot achieve anything if it does not find the appropriate collaborators. Let me also express the heartfelt wish that all of you may find Mr. Leinha's right co-workers at 17 Champignystraße! The latter is a basic condition; then, at Champignystraße, one will at least be able to try everything that is necessary for prosperity and further development – otherwise not, my dear friends. Otherwise, if this condition is not met by the energetic and willing staff, Champignystraße will gradually degenerate into some backwater that only “quacks” about associative life without being able to carry out the story.

I have only given you a rough outline of the conditions necessary for the prosperity of the “Day to Come”. I would like to entrust this to you, now in this solemn moment, when I stand before you as Chairman of the Supervisory Board not only out of duty but also out of the innermost desire of my heart to express my heartfelt thanks to the outgoing General Director, which those who know Mr. Benkendörfer will certainly want to join in.

Thank you very much for everything you have done for the “Coming Day”, and rest assured that we hope to see your efforts bear fruit for us in a different field in the future. And you, my dear friend Emil Leinhas, I hereby transfer the office of General Director of “The Coming Day” to you in front of the assembled staff of “The Coming Day”. I have said how I rely on you, and I believe that I can rely on you with the utmost conviction. I am convinced that if you find the appropriate support here from the staff, we will have in you the personalities that we so urgently need for the management of the “day to come”. So, good luck to you and all your staff! May the most blessed things within the “day to come” arise from your work!

And so, my dear friends, I have come to the end of my remarks, which were intended to inform you of the changes that have become necessary for the “coming day”.

[Emil Molt also gives a speech, after which Rudolf Steiner takes the floor again.

Rudolf Steiner: My dear friends! I would like to take this opportunity to express my heartfelt thanks for the expression of trust that the second chairman of the supervisory board has just expressed, and I may well take this opportunity to say that I am deeply convinced that I can only achieve everything I do with my limited strength if I truly have the trust of each and every colleague. In view of this, please allow me to say a few more words.

I would now like to address the members of the Supervisory Board, the co-chairman Mr. Emil Molt, and thank you in particular for the trust you have shown me in so many ways, but most of all I would like to address my dear friend Mr. Uehli, who is so closely connected with all that happens here at Champignystraße 17 in his work. Mr. Uehli, my dear friends, also took over his position here in a leading role at a time when the most difficult tasks imaginable had to be placed on his shoulders. It is only thanks to his subtle and at the same time energetic zeal for everything that the anthroposophical movement stands for – a zeal that, precisely because of its nature, it is so easy for colleagues to join and all that is striven for by this zeal —, my dear friends, it is precisely this zeal that must be attributed in the first place to a large extent to the fact that the Anthroposophical Congress in Stuttgart took the course that I have indicated. Therefore, at this moment, I may still say that it is my most heartfelt wish, but also my hope, that the most beautiful collegial relationship will develop between friend Leinhas and friend Uehli here in these rooms. But that will develop, because it has the very best foundations; it will develop, it has been developing for a long time and we can build on it. This cooperative relationship is there, but such things also bear fruit when they are understood. May it be well understood what can develop from the interaction of two such personalities here at 17 Champignystraße, and therefore let me also say my greeting at last to what fills me with very special joy and satisfaction: the prospect of the cooperative interaction of the two friends!

[Short speeches by Ernst Uehli, Eugen Benkendörfer and Emil Leinhas follow, and finally a word of thanks from the employees at the headquarters at 17 Champignystraße.]

Strictly confidential!

Futurum and Coming Day require a reflection on the principles given at their creation. Only in these do they find their justification and the possibility of their success. In both cases, these principles are included in the first issue prospectuses. In practice, however, they have been abandoned. The essence lies in the interaction of the banking and the entrepreneurial aspects, with the latter working with real assets.

Therefore, at the center of each undertaking there cannot be a management that functions as a mere directorate, but one that combines the effectiveness of the individual managers into a whole. There should not be a single manager who is not connected with his interests to the whole “futurum” or “coming day.” The present system of “affiliation” of enterprises, especially in the case of “Futurum”, places the individual enterprise too far away from the central management. Under such a system, “Futurum” can never flourish. For it is not at all clear on what grounds the individual manager should have an interest in earning money for the “Futurum” company as a whole. This merit remains an incomprehensible “added value” for him.

This can already be seen in practice. The directors at headquarters must be fully involved in every single undertaking. They must not only be familiar with the financial course of the companies and the conditions of this course, but also with the introduction of the business process itself. Only in this way can they get close enough to the individual company managers to have a heart for the company as a whole. It should not happen that a sole proprietorship slips away from the company as a whole, as has happened with the office organization.

The moment the central office succumbs to bureaucracy, the individual companies will slide from the first point, where they only look out for themselves, to the stage where they become unproductive and let the central office take care of them. Anyone who disputes that this is justified to say, forgets that this aberration is already beginning in some respects.

Without the lively interaction between management and individual companies, “Futurum” and “Tomorrow” have failed in their purpose. I cannot see that the initiative is a great one in the sense of the first principles. The nature of the interaction is always very loose. If it continues like this, it is quite certain that imbalances will arise. Because with this affiliation system, the management department gradually turns out to be a superfluous apparatus.

What would be necessary for control first is a precise overview of how much is invested in the initially unproductive enterprises and how this figure relates to the prosperity of the productive ones. If the expenses for the former only consume capital without the latter bringing anything significant in return, then the whole point is not fulfilled.

What must the cooperation between the Stuttgart headquarters and the Guldesmühle have been like, for example, if it is now possible for such a damning report to be submitted to the supervisory board, as has happened? How has it become possible for the confusion with the office organization to have reached the present state?

Only if changes are made in this regard can the supervisory board continue to bear responsibility. The way things have been handled so far must not continue.

R. St.

Rudolf Steiner opens the meeting by saying that it was no longer possible for him to attend the works council meeting in person; however, he asks that everything that is deemed necessary be brought forward at this moment.

[The question of the rights and duties of the works councils within the “coming day” is raised and Rudolf Steiner is asked to clarify this.]

Rudolf Steiner remarks that it is indeed very important and very good to bring about such discussions, and it will always be very good. He would also be willing, as far as possible, to accept such invitations to discuss, only it would be necessary to be able to determine what the subject of the discussion actually is.

He says: I believe you are still suffering to a great extent from the assumption that the “Coming Day” could somehow be a realization of what was expressed as an idea in the lectures back then. I can only say that the idea that was expressed has, of course, not been realized in the slightest today. Just consider what would have been needed to realize this idea: in those days, it would have taken a united labor force – without that, nothing could have been done – and that did not materialize. And one can only say: the idea that was expressed has basically been dropped for the time being. And today, we must be particularly sorry about that, because in reality, we are now in a position in German economic life that we can say: what is present in German economic life today is actually only an illusion, a sham.

The world today can no longer exist as anything other than a unified economic entity. There must be unified economic entities that combine to form a distinct world economy. The artificial borders of national and state economies today make it all the more clear that it is no longer possible to manage without a world economy. In today's world economy, which nevertheless exists, the situation is such that basically the whole of economic life today is based on appearances. Take the following: we still have a wage economy today; it finds its opposite pole, as does the capitalist economy in general, in that idea which I tried to propagate at the time. As long as we have a pure wage economy, the whole economy is dependent on the wage economy. Wages are, so to speak, a barometer of what is happening in the economy as a whole.

You see, the working class is pretty much the largest number of people on earth, as far as economic life is concerned. If you convert today, for example – and somehow you have to convert – if you convert wages today according to the value of the Swedish krona, the American worker receives a daily wage of about 120 to 123 Swedish kronor, the German worker 19 to 21 Swedish kronor. This is roughly true, even though some small changes have occurred in recent weeks. The workers of all other countries or states fall between these two limits. Now, I ask you: the American worker receives a wage six times higher than the German worker, although it has been proven that he does not produce more than the German worker if he works accordingly.

In this way, it is impossible to speak of being within economic life; all this is conceived under the assumption that we have a world economy, because the fact that we still have a country or state economy should mean nothing at all, since a large part of the available values circulates throughout the world. It is clear that major disruptions must occur as a result.

We are living today in impossible economic conditions, in Central Europe in the most impossible of all. And one can feel sorry when one considers that our ideas were propagated at that time out of this realization. These ideas have actually fallen by the wayside to this day, because, as you will understand, the “Coming Day” cannot be much different from any other undertaking, as capitalist as all other undertakings are. We can only plan to be there for a future where something can perhaps be done, to intervene, so that a number of people are together who can intervene. As long as conditions remain as they are now, the economic principle itself will not allow the “Day to Come” to bring about many changes.

The whole world is curious to see how the “Day to Come” will cope with the very idea of how the working class can work in the “Day to Come”. Basically, no information can be given yet, nothing essential can be shown. And so I thought we could very well talk about what your individual complaints are, what could be different in detail. Realized what was propagated as ideas back then – I would not want this misunderstanding to arise, as if it were said of me that the “Coming Day” [had] realized something of the ideas of threefolding: That is nonsense! We should talk about what is bothering you, because there seem to be some pressing shoes that could cause discomfort. But if we talk about what is bothering you, then I also want everything to come out and nothing to remain closed. And so, before I say anything, I would like the gentlemen to speak freely.

[They do not want to raise complaints, but to discuss whether “statutory” works councils should be elected, since the existing works councils had been elected from the threefold social order movement before the Works Councils Act came into force. If these do not work to satisfaction, new ones would have to be elected.

Rudolf Steiner means the same. The question is whether the employees of Waldorf-Astoria at the time the law came into force agreed to the continued existence of the old, previously elected works council. But this was the case here.

[Further comments on this.]

Rudolf Steiner: Today it is certainly difficult to ask the question of whether statutory works councils should be introduced or not, because the Works Councils Act simply prescribes works councils that are elected in accordance with the law. As long as this law is not changed, no works councils as envisaged by the idea of threefolding can actually be considered, because this would then only be a corporate body that exists alongside a statutory corporate body. We would then have to resume the whole threefolding movement in the first place, because basically we no longer have an actual threefolding movement. If we want to elect works councils based on the idea of threefolding, then we also have to assign them a task, because in the current economic life these works councils have or would have no task to fulfill.

[Further discussion and expressions of dissatisfaction to the effect that the works councils are not taken seriously enough by the plant managers.

Rudolf Steiner points out that it depends on the degree to which the employees are convinced that things can go better with the “Coming Day” than with any other undertaking, and says: I myself am not an entrepreneur myself and therefore cannot take the entrepreneurial point of view in my personality, but on the other hand, when questions arise, I have to take a position on them so that what is said is really meaningful. What I mean is that if you are arguing, if you are arguing about something, then you have to know what you are arguing about, because for me it is not the argument that is important, but what we are arguing about. If I am to speak about the rights and duties of the workers' councils, I cannot do so in general terms, about any workers' councils that may be on the moon. I would have to do it for the workers' councils that are in the 'coming day'. And I can only do that based on very real circumstances. And here it is urgently necessary that we talk about it today, because you will have been informed about how you feel that the “dawning day” cannot do anything in the coming economic struggles and that the workers in our individual companies will therefore be forced to proceed with the rest of the working class. Then you will get a real character. Before that, it is of course something that cannot be said one way or the other – I will tell you later why I think so, one can look at it that way. We can talk about it today in such a way that none of the labor-friendly ideas of the “Coming Day” have been realized, even though the general attitude is benevolent. But as long as we don't go into individual things, nothing comes of it. And I would therefore like to see it as a condition for me to speak, that you present very specific, concrete complaints, which I will then address. Without knowing what your concerns are, I will not be able to say anything about them.

[Further comments to the effect that people wonder whether the “coming day” could give the working class a secure existence, that the works council is not trusted enough, that one is only seen as a worker, not as an equal human being.

Rudolf Steiner: Yes, my dear friends, that is the feeling I meant; I wanted to be aware of it before I go into the question raised in more detail.

[Further discussion about this and about trade union issues.]

Rudolf Steiner: So you meant that we should establish tangible, fixed sentences about the rights and duties of the works councils. This would certainly not be so difficult if we just had the good will to draft such a paragraph, in which we say that these are the rights and these are the duties of our works councils. Unfortunately, however, that is not the case. I believe that if we really managed to create such an ideal paragraph, all employees would agree with it – and not only that, they would also be highly satisfied with it. But in such a short time, conditions will not have changed and the mood will not have changed either. The point is not to take measures, one should have these and these rights and duties. But the point is to achieve something at such meetings that also corresponds to the conditions outside. To give you an idea of my way of thinking, I would like to share the following with you.

Since we last met here, I myself had to initiate a matter that arose from the needs in Dornach. I have also spoken here about lectures, and these have been given in Dornach [to the workers on the Goetheanum building site] by a prominent person. Not much has come of this, except that after we held works council meetings, we realized that the people in Dornach have a strong need to hear something about economic life. I then decided that I would give these myself. You have to bear in mind the circumstances, as I have already described them, at the Dornach building. The Dornach building is not what an economic-capitalist enterprise is. The Dornach building is a prime example of a non-capitalist enterprise and cannot be compared as such with the 'Kommenden Tag' or the 'Futurum AG' in Basel or with any other similar association. The Dornach Building belongs to no one; there is no entrepreneur there. Therefore, everything that is processed in it is transformed into wages for those who work there. Is it not the case that what still comes into consideration at the Dornach Building is that present-day economic life reaches into it from two sides; but there it is “refracted”. On the one hand, it is this: It has to be built with the capital that is made available. If the Dornach building exploits anyone, it is the capitalists, because they have to provide the capital. I would almost like to say that a large part of it goes 'perdu', as a large part of it never gets returned. In any case, the workers can see clearly there, and that is the one side where capital shines in and refracts: capital ceases to be capital as soon as it comes to Dornach.

Secondly, our workers belong to trade unions. And you will admit that, for example, if you yourself have the sense to give our workers 2/3 more wages by exploiting capital even more, it would make no sense in the economy as a whole and would be most strongly opposed by the trade unions. They would then say: There is the Dornach building, it does not want to be characterized as a capitalist enterprise, it wants to realize something of what is present in the idea of threefold social order. So you can see that this cannot be a question of wages or capital, but rather the question of price, as the conditions here protrude from two sides. People would think we were crazy if we paid wages that we were not forced to pay.

But what makes things easier, especially during the lectures, is something that is of course child's play to see: this is not a capitalist enterprise. This kind of mistrust that you have towards the “Kommenden Tag” – and that cannot be denied – cannot exist in the Dornach building. It makes no sense for the workers there to be mistrustful, and the workers there speak out in good faith. Some who are not entirely objective would like to think differently, but this trust is already there; it makes it possible to speak freely. That is why I have – the lectures have only been given recently, in the meantime I also had the trip to Norway, and something like that cannot be done very quickly if you want to achieve something – but the main emphasis is on the workers in Dornach learning about the reality of economic life. I must confess that it gives me the greatest satisfaction to see how more and more people are beginning to understand that we have all been misjudging economic life.

When faced with the task of educating laypeople, one is aware of the current situation. Let us assume, and it would be very interesting if later on a person would like to touch on this point by asking a question, let us assume we have the workers of some company, they draw up some guidelines about the rights and duties of the workers of this company, the management can approve the question or not. I say it is right, and I believe that any honest person must say this: Whatever the employers say, it has no value at all; they can say, 'We agree to everything', or 'We agree to nothing' – the way today's economic life is, the economic structure is nonsense. No entrepreneur today knows how profitable his business is or how it is doing; he does not know what he can promise and what not if he wants to be honest. That is the situation, and if economic struggles are imminent today, then an entrepreneur cannot say whether or not he can offer his workers a guarantee, because he cannot know, because economic life has been ridden into the dirt.

As soon as someone concretely tackles economic life as it is today and addresses such things, something comes out that is tremendously instructive. Imagine someone thinking about calculation and writing an essay about it, which in and of itself is extremely instructive. The content of this essay must, of course, be to assess economic life, but at the end of this essay, there is the very significant question, the conclusion to which he has come by thinking about calculation: Can we calculate or can we not? Does something come of it? — We cannot cope with today's conditions. That is what can be read in the essay, and it is the confirmation of what I have observed for ten years: that we have arrived at a complete deadlock in economic life. In this context, it seems to me to be of little importance whether one can say today that we must reach an agreement with the eight million organized workers if we do not want to be marginalized, or because we cannot reach an agreement and be left hanging in the air.

I tell you that when you understand the nonsense of today's economy, you can say: When the next economic struggles come and go as they will, the eight million organized workers are united, then nothing will happen but that our economic life will be led or pushed even further down its slippery slope and that all the bankrupt enterprises will collapse as a house of cards. The organizations, which comprise eight million people, cannot believe that under the present conditions they can achieve anything at all that needs to be achieved; there is no question of that. Economic life will be destroyed even more.

What is needed first today is to be able to do business at all, because in the business itself, one has really come to the “non-sense” today: There is really no sense to what is being done in economic life, because nothing is in context: we are faced with a brick wall. This can be seen, and the Dornach workers have also seen this; they have gained an appreciation that we have entered into 'non-sense' in economic life. If you look at a business enterprise today, do you think you will find anyone who has any sense of the word when you talk sensibly about economic life? If you take an economist with whom you want to talk about a company, he will point you to the bookkeeping, because everything is in there. In reality, however, nothing is in it; it is nonsense to believe that anything can be seen from the accounting about the course of a business.

These things have become very clear to me through my observations over the last few years, and it is not so easy to talk about them. Take a balance sheet, the result is nonsense. It is similar to that famous Prussian privy councillor who calculated that if you invested the actually small amount of 300,000 marks for three hundred years in interest and compound interest, you could then pay off the entire debt of the Prussian state. You can do the math if you want, but the reality is that after three hundred years you won't find a button made out of the money. Because it is not enough to believe that you can keep adding interest to the accumulated capital; after all, the money cannot come from anywhere other than from economic life, from production, from working with capital, and by then not only the banks that are entrusted with the safekeeping of the money, but also the money itself will have perished. Reality is therefore quite different from the calculation.

Today, the will to such nonsense is present in the whole of economic life; reality wears it down and shatters it. What goes on in a factory today is something completely different in economic life than what is written in the books. No one wants to go into it, no one wants to be bothered with a real insight into economic life, which is needed today. That was also why the idea of the works council had not been maintained at the time. You just have to start from the beginning, but I don't want to talk about how the matter was settled back then. I actually presented it as the most important question.

But now we should talk about the rights and duties of the workers' councils. The important thing here is the standpoint that arises from the circumstances. That is precisely the one that says: the way things are going now, they cannot go on like this anyway. The workers will therefore have to remain in the organizations; you cannot tell them to leave because you cannot help them if they leave; the circumstances are not there for that. You cannot look at the movement that has been there for about 25 years, because you won't get anywhere; but you have to look at it that way, and that is what I have to keep drawing your attention to.

Once, as a very young boy, I was standing at the window of our apartment in Neudörfl, near Wiener Neustadt, when a small group of Lassalleans, who at that time still held their meetings in relative secrecy, , because we have to bear in mind that this was at a time when there was nothing of the trade union life that exists today; so there were only a few people. Meanwhile, however, everything that is in this movement in Austria and Germany today has come about. We can say that it has progressed relatively slowly from this small group. We cannot say that the conditions were against our movement, as they were then. It was not that the conditions were against it; the conditions were in favor of it, in that large masses were open to the threefold order. What was against it was the slight deception practised by the labor leaders, and it is certain that the eight million will not do anything either – they cannot do anything. My opinion is this: Regardless of whether we are in the unions or not, it is not a matter of leaving the union, but rather of uniting, however small, in a reasonable way within all those who participate in the “Kommenden Tag”. It would set an example, and we must work towards such examples. I believe that there is something positive in this idea, and this can best be shown if, quite independently of the union principle, the workers of all the companies that belong to “The Coming Day” can do something sensible on their own initiative. But for that, unity is necessary, as well as a real insight into the “non-sense” of the current economic system. A reasonable economic life must be rebuilt, because nothing can be made out of today's economic life.

And so I think – no, I would like to say – you say: Rights and duties of the works councils should be established. If I now say: No, rights and duties can only be granted by someone who has rights and duties to do so. If you were to ask me what rights and duties I have in the “coming day,” I would have to say that I know nothing about it, any more than you do; it also depends entirely on the circumstances. Actually, everyone should have as many rights and duties as they can assert, and that would indeed come about. But if you want to set up paragraphs, if you want to have insights into the course of production, that doesn't have much content, and not much comes of it either. Isn't it true that the point of the course of production is that the person who regulates it also knows how the wind blows – not to keep some secret. First of all, it must be made possible for all those who want to work together to know something about economic life.

You see, if I disregard the “day after tomorrow”, where the most insightful people are – we cannot take our examples from the “day after tomorrow”, but you can take any other company. There you just have to have the insight to be able to have a say in production. I am convinced that if you wanted to ask questions in your way, the people concerned would not be able to provide any insight because they don't have any themselves. Today's economic life is a game of chance, and that is precisely what makes it difficult. Here we come to realize that it is much more important to discuss with the workers, so that we can understand what we are supposed to do in economic life, which is so dependent on the state.

I would also like to remind you of something: [the entrepreneur] Stinnes. When we started the threefold order, Stinnes was not yet there. I did not make light of the threefold order. Stinnes only came about because the threefold order fell through; the whole Stinnes movement is based on that. Stinnes is a really ingenious fellow. I wouldn't want to say that he is a crook; he is just a “seedling” of entrepreneurship, but in any case he has much greater insight than others. Stinnes once said: Yes, we can manage things that way. But if you want to do things the way German workers want to do them, you won't get anywhere. He knows that the workers cannot manage, and this should create insight. They debate all sorts of things, but not production. And so he continued: We can wait until the workers are at our doors begging for work. Stinnes is counting on the workers being at the doors begging for work.

With regard to the rights and duties of works councils, it is certainly true that they can have the most extensive rights; and as soon as something really positive can be put forward here, we can always express ourselves here when the opportunity arises; it can be discussed here. But to set a paragraph about this, in my opinion, is of no use at all, because we are doing it in an economic life in which we have arrived at “positive nonsense”. We live from hand to mouth today; after all, no one can do more than is already being done. But that will soon burst. What the employers are counting on today is the disunity of the workers, and the employers will always have ways and means to maintain the disunity of the workers and ensure its continued existence. Even if there were no economic chaos, the German labor force could only hope to achieve partial success by acting in unison, but something substantial could still be done. However, if things continue as they have done so far – strikes here and there – it will only weaken the labor force, not strengthen it. This non-uniform approach is something that significantly worsens the position of the workers. I don't think much of the fact that there could be fear of the eight million.

Something that could have prospects is if the workers of our companies in Stuttgart really came together, that they could come together and talk sensibly about economic life for once. In my opinion, this is the greatest task that needs to be accomplished. And it cannot be done by finding the lectures a little better or a little worse. Because anyone who wants to talk about economic life today really has to be an experienced person who can see into the circumstances. Today, this experience cannot be drawn from all kinds of writings, because of all the sciences that are practiced today, the one that is presented as political economy is the most “mindless”.

Mr. Leinhas, in his lecture at our anthroposophical congress, did an exemplary job of 'killing off' Robert Wilbrandt, at least in scientific terms. But Wilbrandt is still a perfectly decent guy. If we were to name just one of our other clients, however, we would come up with something much worse. And this is only because we have no economics, no knowledge, and today it must necessarily be formed out of experience. Almost nothing that is said in this field is useful; apart from the individual flashes of light that appear on the basis of the threefold social order. But the possibility should be created for a large number of people to see how things actually are in economic life.

When I gave my lectures here at the beginning, the wife of a socialist minister told me that she could not understand why so many people came to my lectures, that I did not promise people anything and only ever told them what they had to do. And that is how it is, dear attendees. You cannot define the rights and duties of the workers' councils if the circumstances are simply not right. If we really want to start from a center to determine what is worth doing, then this is it: that all of you can help to achieve something from here, how best to operate, by preparing the ground. We can promise ourselves that the matter may have an immense practical value in a year's time, if the working class unites in unity, independently of the trade union question, in order to achieve something. We have seen that in Dornach, for example, it is necessary to first agree on insights. If one were to examine the conditions of economic life independently of whether one is a worker or an entrepreneur, then one would be able to make progress. Then one might also be able to cut Stinnes off at the source. It will depend on whether you come to an agreement with 'Der Kommende Tag'; then perhaps the day will come for 'Der Kommende Tag' when Stinnes takes it over. Such are the circumstances. If you can create something positive by joining forces, then we can talk about the question, then there must be agreement. The managers of our operations are striving to make progress in social relations. The managers of the individual operations are also sighing. But if the workers of the individual operations join forces, then there is a core that can make progress.

[In the following comments, reference is made to the difficult situation that also makes it difficult for the plant managers to gain insight into production. Reference is made to the efforts to set up a company health insurance fund and a pension fund and to provide food from the agricultural enterprises of “The Coming Day” to the workers.

Rudolf Steiner: The question of setting up a pension fund and of utilizing the agricultural operations for the workforce is very interesting and can certainly be fruitfully discussed, but it must be ensured that the right people are put in charge.

[It is reported that the company health insurance fund is as good as certain thanks to the benevolent support of the government. With regard to the deliveries of agricultural produce, it should be borne in mind that such things can drive people apart.

Rudolf Steiner expresses his hope that these institutions, which are in preparation and have often been beneficial in other companies, will be well developed here as well. He also mentions, with regard to the company health insurance fund, that it is very desirable in our efforts to achieve a rational art of healing that something be done in this area in particular. With regard to agricultural enterprises and their utilization for the workforce, he points to an example that occurred in the Anthroposophical Society.

He was the owner of a mill and also a baker who baked excellent bread. The circumstances forced the man to make his bread more expensive, and it was clear that no one had the will to make just a small sacrifice to help the cause. On the contrary, they said, “Yes, the bread is so good, you eat so much of it.” And if I take the other bread, you don't use nearly as much.” Now, of course, precisely this bread distribution had to be stopped due to the war conditions; otherwise, however, the attitude would have been the same.

Rudolf Steiner continues by saying that an article had recently appeared in an English newspaper about a businessman who owned a large farm and wanted to prove that it was no longer possible to make a profit. He calculated all the profits that the business could bring him in a year and then came to the conclusion that only 17 pence would remain for him at the end of the year.

[Emil Leinhas adds another example. It is hoped that the works councils will now be able to work productively after these explanations, which Rudolf Steiner confirms.

Rudolf Steiner: You see, Mr. Biehler was right to speak of the tax issue, which the workers must oppose. But now, you have woven in a small sentence, to which I must actually attach a little significance. You said: If the workers unite, then the eight million organized people will achieve something from the government. I must say that today the government basically does not care what it taxes; it just wants to have taxes. Only through this senselessness has the entire economy come to where it is today, by simply caring about how something is done. As long as this government lasts, it is also out of the question that the working class will achieve even a fraction of what it really needs.

The most important question today is the question of unemployment, and a lot has been said about it, but ultimately no one has yet considered that unemployment as it exists today cannot exist at all in a regulated economic life. Isn't it true that people who work for each other, everyone works for the other. So if unemployment were justified, so many people would no longer need anything at once. On the other hand, there is no correction at all from the current circumstances; one cannot say that unemployment exists to the extent that it exists in Switzerland, at the Entente and so on for this and that reason. The atrocious conditions we are facing can only be appreciated when you consider that so many people have been killed by the terrible war. But unemployment cannot be a consequence of this war, because if so many people are dead, it should only lead to unemployment becoming less and less.

Recently there was an economic meeting; there was talk that there are a number of recipes for remedies that are available to us. Isn't it true that the utilization of these remedies will one day be productive, but today they are just a thought. And then someone came up with the idea that you could simply copy the recipes and include them in the assets of a company. This item would be honestly meant under certain circumstances, because you could really bring it out. On the other hand, however, if no one can be found to support the matter, it is of no value at all.

But there is a way in which it can be safely included in the books, and that is to take out patents for it and pay for them, and then you can put it in the books at that value. After all, that is not what happened here with the recipes for the remedies, and yet a way is provided to exploit the value of the recipes. When someone earns a lot or a little money, they don't want to distribute profits right away, so they make write-offs or set aside reserves. With us, what can be raised under certain circumstances goes into real reserves, which can then, at a time when many of the things being produced today will have collapsed, can then support many things again.

[Words of thanks to Rudolf Steiner for his remarks and emphasis on the will of the workers' council to penetrate the economy.

Rudolf Steiner once again briefly refers to the already mentioned desirable union of all workers in the “coming day” and that something truly valuable for economic life could certainly arise from it in the not too distant future, if everyone has the will to work together in the right way. We must always be mindful of the “non-sense” of our present economic life; this would provide the right incentive for the right work. He would be happy to accept the invitation of the workers again as soon as the opportunity arose, in order to support them with any advice.

Rudolf Steiner: Regarding the 1919 appeal: On the one hand, it was very appropriate, but on the other hand, it had to be clear that it was a challenge to the professors and lecturers. Of course you can do that, but you also have to try to get through to them. It wasn't quite as bad as that, but it was similar to the cultural appeal in May 1919.

I don't think I can say that the positive outcome was what everyone had hoped for. This is not due to any carelessness or lack of activity within the student body, but to our current circumstances, which are really very difficult to overcome. It is all too easy to be seen as a rabble-rouser when characterizing today's conditions. But burying our heads in the sand is not helpful either. We have to be clear about one thing: the world needs anthroposophical will. We have to get through to it. The forms in which this anthroposophical will appears today may need to be replaced by others, and in this respect too, no stone may remain as it is; a breakthrough in this direction is necessary.

On the one hand, we have to admit this to ourselves. On the other hand, we will always be surprised to see the older generation today is afflicted with such indolence, with such a lack of interest in what is actually going on. There is such a terrible blindness, more a blindness of will than of the other powers of the soul. Say what you will about earlier times, but in terms of lack of willpower, our time is the most terrible that has been experienced in the history of humanity. One can only say that some people do not have good will, but good opinions; one experiences it again and again, one does not need to accuse anyone. For example, I spoke about the idea of threefolding in the political science association in Kristiania. You couldn't say that people didn't understand anything about it; it was clear from what was said: the professors, both theorists and practitioners, talked about the issues, but it didn't occur to them that something could follow from what they had absorbed that would be more than reading an interesting essay. People no longer grasp that something must be done in the world. That is the bleak part. It is, after all, the repelling of everything that actually means action. The younger generations, in particular, must feel this, must recognize it. We have a terrible selection process when it comes to leadership positions. I don't care whether someone speaks pro or contra in relation to anthroposophy. But what matters is the spiritual level of the speaker, as was demonstrated this morning by Dr. Tillich. That is why I said before that one looks like a rabble-rouser when one characterizes the times. Such personalities, who are blinded by blinkers, can become associate professors and licentiates. Such [note breaks off].