{"collection":"philosophy-ethics","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_59257/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_59257","id":"gutenberg_59257","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/59257","summary":null,"tags":["Category: Philosophy & Ethics","Category: Politics","Category: Sociology","Social sciences -- Miscellanea"],"text":"Produced by Jeroen Hellingman and the Online Distributed\nProofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net/ for Project\nGutenberg (This file was produced from images generously\nmade available by The Internet Archive/American Libraries.)\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n                                  THE\n                               THREEFOLD\n                              COMMONWEALTH\n\n\n              Authorized Translation by E. Bowen-Wedgwood\n\n                                   BY\n\n                             RUDOLF STEINER\n\n                 Author of \"The Philosophy of Freedom,\"\n                      \"Die Sociale Zukunft,\" etc.\n\n\n                                 LONDON\n                       The Threefold Commonwealth\n                      46, Gloucester Place, W. 1.\n\n                                NEW YORK\n           The Threefold Commonwealth Publishing Association\n                           701, Carnegie Hall\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nA FOREWORD AS TO THE PURPOSE OF THIS BOOK\n\n\nThe social life of the present day presents grave and far-reaching\nproblems. We are confronted by demands for social reconstruction, which\nshew that the solution of these problems must be sought along paths\nunthought-of hitherto. Borne out by the actual events of the hour, the\ntime has perhaps come for someone to gain a hearing, who is forced by\nlife's experience to maintain, that the neglect to turn our thoughts\ninto the paths that are now needed has stranded us in confusion and\nperplexity. It is under that conviction that this book is written. Its\npurpose is to discuss what needs doing, in order that those demands,\nwhich are being urged by a large part of mankind to-day, may be turned\nin the direction of a determinate social will and purpose.\n\nPersonal likes and dislikes should enter but little into the formation\nof a social purpose. The demands, welcome or unwelcome, are there;\nand they must be reckoned with as facts of social life. This should\nbe borne in mind by those who, from their personal situation in life,\nmay be inclined to be annoyed at the author's way of discussing the\ndemands of the working-class, because in their opinion he lays too\none-sided a stress on these demands, as on something that must be\nreckoned with when determining on a social purpose. But what the author\nwants, is to present life as it exists to-day in all its full reality,\nin so far as he is able from his knowledge of it. He has ever before\nhis eyes the fatal consequences that must ensue, if people refuse\nto see facts, which are actually there, which have arisen out of the\nlife of modern mankind,--and if they accordingly persist in ignoring\na social will and purpose in which these facts find their place.\n\nThose people again will not be pleased with the author's remarks,\nwho regard themselves as experts in practical life,--or in what,\nunder the influence of fond habit, has come to be regarded as\npractical life. They will be of opinion, that whoever wrote this\nbook was not a practical person. These are just the people, who, in\nthe author's opinion, have everything to unlearn and re-learn. Their\npractice of life seems to him the very thing, which is demonstrated\nby the actual facts from which mankind are suffering to be an\nutter mistake,--that very mistake that has led to boundless and\nimmeasurable fatalities. These people will be obliged to recognise the\npracticability of much that has seemed to them absurd idealism. And\nalthough they may condemn this book at the outset, because its opening\npages say less about the economic than about the spiritual life of\nmodern mankind, yet the author's own acquaintance with life forces him\nto the conviction, that, unless people can bring themselves to pay\ndue and accurate attention to the spiritual life of modern mankind,\nthey will only go on adding fresh mistakes to the old ones.\n\nNeither will what is said in these pages altogether please those,\nwho are for ever repeating with endless variations the phrases: that\nman must rise above absorption in purely material interests,--that he\nmust turn to \"ideals,\" to the things of the \"spirit.\" For the author\ndoes not attach much importance to mere references to the \"spirit\"\nor to talk about a vague spiritual world. The only spirituality he can\nacknowledge, is that which forms the substance of man's own life and\nmanifests its power no less in mastering the practical problems of\nlife than in constructing a philosophy of life and of the universe,\nwhich can satisfy the needs of man's soul. The important point,\nis not the knowledge,--or supposed knowledge,--of a spiritual life,\nbut that such a spiritual life shews itself in a practical grip of\nrealities, and is not a special preserve for the inner life of the\nsoul, a backwater alongside the full tide of realities.\n\nAnd so, what is said in these pages will seem to the\n\"spiritually-minded\" too unspiritual, to \"practical persons\" too remote\nfrom practice. But the author's view is, that he may have his own\nspecial use at the present time, for the very reason, that he neither\ntends towards that aloofness from life, which is to be found in many a\nman who thinks himself practical, nor yet can hold in any way with the\nkind of talk about the spirit, which conjures up a mirage out of words.\n\nIt is as a question of economics, of human rights and of the spirit,\nthat the social question is discussed in this book. The author thinks\nthat he perceives, how the true form of the social question emerges\nas an outcome of the requirements of the economic life, the life of\n\"rights\" and the spiritual life. Through such a perception alone can\nthe impulses come, which shall make it possible to give these three\nbranches of social life a shape that permits of healthy life within\nthe social order. In the earlier ages of mankind's evolution, the\nsocial instincts secured these three branches being woven together in\nthe whole life of society in a manner adapted to human nature at that\nperiod. At the present stage of his evolution, man is faced with the\nnecessity of working out this combination of function by conscious,\ndeterminate social will and purpose. Between those earlier ages and the\npresent, in the countries where the question of a social purpose is\nmost immediate, we find the old instincts and the new consciousness\noverlapping and playing through one another in a fashion quite\ninadequate to the needs of modern mankind. In a great deal of social\nthinking, which people believe to be clear-sighted and conscious,\nthe old instincts are still at work and enfeeble men's thought for\ndealing with urgent facts. It requires a much more radical effort\nthan is usually supposed, for the man of the present day to work his\nway out of the husks of what is dead and done with.\n\nOne must first be willing to recognise this fully, before, in the\nauthor's opinion, it is possible to see the forms that industrial\neconomy, human rights, and spiritual life must take, in order to be in\nkeeping with a healthy social life such as the new age demands. What\nthe author feels called on to say as to the lines that these new\nforms must inevitably follow, is submitted to the judgment of the\nday in the following pages. The author's desire, is to give the first\nimpetus along a path, that shall lead to social ends in keeping with\nthe actual realities and exigencies of life at the present time; for he\nbelieves, that it is only through effort thus directed that our social\nwill and purpose can get beyond mere utopianism and wordy sentiment.\n\nAnd if anyone still thinks that this book has somewhat of a utopian\ncharacter, the author would ask him to consider the pictures which\npeople draw in their own minds of the kind of society that they look\nto see arise,--how very wide of life such pictures are, and how apt\nto degenerate into mere moonshine. That is the very reason, why, when\nthese people do meet with something that is drawn from actual reality\nand experience,--as attempted here,--they regard it as a utopia. To\nmany persons, nothing is \"concrete\" outside their own customary line\nof thought; and so the concrete itself is to them an abstraction,\nwhen they are unaccustomed to think it. [1]--Hence they will think\nthis book abstract.\n\nWith people again, whose minds are harnessed hard and fast to a\nparty-programme, the author's views will at first find no favour. Of\nthis he is well aware. Still he believes, that it will not be long\nbefore many party men come to the conclusion, that the actual facts of\nevolution have got far beyond the programmes of the parties, and that\nit is urgently necessary to free oneself from all such party-programmes\nand to form an independent opinion as to the immediate objectives of\nthe social will and purpose.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nTHE THREEFOLD COMMONWEALTH\n\nINTRODUCTORY PREFACE TO THE NEW EDITION OF 1920\n\n\nThe problems presented by social life for solution in our times can be\nunderstood by nobody who approaches them with the thought of any kind\nof utopia in his mind. One's views and sentiments may lead one to the\nbelief, that certain institutions, which one has mapped out according\nto one's own ideas, must be for the happiness of mankind. This belief\nmay carry all the force of passionate conviction; and yet one may be\ntalking quite wide of the actual social question, when one tries to\nobtain practical recognition for what one believes.\n\nOne will find this assertion hold true at the present day, even when\npushed to what may appear an absurd extreme. Suppose, for instance,\nsomebody possessed a perfect theoretical solution of the social\nquestion, he might nevertheless be acting on an utterly unpractical\nconviction, if he tried to press this carefully thought-out solution\nupon mankind. For we are no longer living in an age, when one is\njustified in believing that public life can be affected in such a\nway. Men's souls are differently constituted; and they could never\nsay about public affairs: Here is somebody who understands the social\ninstitutions that are needed; we will take his opinion and act on\nit. Ideas concerning social life simply cannot be brought home to\npeople after this fashion; and it is a fact that is fully recognised\nin this book, which is already known to a fairly large public. Those\nwho have set it down as utopian, have totally missed its whole aim\nand intention. Especially has this been the case with those, who\nthemselves cling to a utopian form of thought:--they attribute to the\nother person what is essentially their own mental characteristic. A\npractical thinker to-day recognises as one of the experiences of\npublic life, that nothing can be done with an utopian idea, however\nconvincing it may be in appearance. Nevertheless, many people have\nsome idea of this type, which they feel impelled to bring before their\nfellow-men, especially in the field of economics. They will be forced\nto recognise that their words are wasted. Their fellow-men can find\nno use for what they have to offer.\n\nThis should be treated as a piece of practical experience; for it\npoints to a fact of importance in public life: namely, the remoteness\nof people's thoughts from real life:--how wide their thoughts are\nfrom what reality,--economic reality for instance,--demands.\n\nCan one hope to master the tangled intricacies of public affairs, if\none brings to them a mode of thought altogether remote from life? This\nquestion is not one likely to find general favour; for it involves\nthe admission that one's way of thought is remote from life. Yet,\nuntil this admission is made, it is not possible to approach the\nother question--the social one. For the remoteness of thought from\nlife is a question of grave concern for the whole modern civilised\nworld; and only when people treat it as such will they see light as\nto what is needed for social life.\n\nThis question brings us to the consideration of the form taken by\nmodern spiritual life. Modern man has evolved a spiritual life,\nwhich is to a very great degree dependent on state institutions\nand on economic forces. The human being is brought whilst still a\nchild under the education and instruction of the state; and he can\nbe educated only in the way permitted by the industrial and economic\nconditions of the environment from which he springs.\n\nIt might easily be supposed, that this would ensure a person's\nbeing well qualified for the conditions of life at the present day,\nfor that the state must possess every opportunity of arranging the\nwhole system of education and instruction (which constitutes the\nessential part of public spiritual life) in the best interests of\nthe human community. It might well be supposed too, that the way\nto make a person the best possible member of the human community is\nto educate him in accordance with the economic opportunities of the\nenvironment from which he comes, and then pass him on, thus educated,\nto fill one of the openings that these opportunities afford him.--It\ndevolves upon this book,--an unpopular task to-day,--to shew, that\nthe chaotic condition of our public life, comes from the spiritual\nlife's dependence on the State and on industrial economy--and to\nshew further, that one part of the burning social question is the\nemancipation of spiritual life from this dependence.\n\nThis involves attacking very widespread errors. That the State should\ntake over the whole system of education, has long been regarded as\na beneficial step in human progress; and persons of a socialistic\nturn of mind find it difficult to conceive of anything else, than\nthat society should educate the individual to its service according\nto its own standards.\n\nPeople are loathe to recognise, what nevertheless, in this field,\nit is absolutely necessary should be recognised; namely, that in the\nprocess of man's historic evolution a thing, that at an earlier period\nwas all right, may at a later period become all wrong. In order that\na new age might come about in human affairs, it was necessary that\nthe whole system of education, and with it public spiritual life,\nshould be removed from those circles that had exclusive possession\nof it all through the middle ages, and entrusted to the State. But to\ncontinue to maintain this state of things, is a grave social mistake.\n\nThis is what the first part of the book is intended to shew. The\nspiritual life has matured to freedom within the framework of the\nstate; but it cannot rightly enjoy and exercise this freedom unless\nit is granted complete self-government. The whole character assumed\nby the spiritual life requires that it should form a completely\nindependent branch of the body social. The educational and teaching\nsystem, lying as it does at the root of all spiritual life, must\nbe put under the management of those people who are educating and\nteaching; and none of the influences at work in state or industry\nshould have any say or interference in this management. No teacher\nshould spend more time on teaching than will allow of his also being\na manager in his own sphere of activity. And in the way that he\nhimself conducts the teaching and education, so too he will conduct\nthe management. Nobody will issue instructions, who is not at the same\ntime actively engaged in teaching and educating. No parliament has any\nvoice in it,--nor any individual, who once on a time may have taught,\nbut is no longer personally teaching. The experience learnt at first\nhand in actual teaching passes direct into the management.--In such\na system, practical knowledge and efficiency must, of course, tell\nin the very highest possible degree.\n\nIt may no doubt be objected, that even under such a selfgoverning\nspiritual life things will not be quite perfect. But then, in real\nlife, that is not to be looked for. All one can aim at, is the best\nthat is possible. With each child of man there are new abilities\ngrowing up, and these will really be passed on into the life of\nthe community, when the care of developing them rests entirely with\npeople who can judge and decide on spiritual grounds alone. How far\na particular child should be brought on in one direction or another,\ncan only be judged in a spiritual community that is quite free and\ndetached. What steps should be taken to ensure their decision having\nits \"rights,\" this too is a matter only to be determined by a free\nspiritual community. From such a community the State and the economic\nlife can receive the forces they need, and which they cannot get of\nthemselves when they fashion spiritual life from their own points\nof view.\n\nIt follows from the whole tenor of the following pages, that the\ndirectors of the free spiritual life will have charge also of the\narrangements and course of teaching in those institutes also, which\nare specially directed to the service of the State or of the economic\nworld.--Law-schools, Trades-schools, Agricultural and Industrial\nColleges, would all take their form from the free spiritual life. Many\nprejudices are bound to be aroused, when the principles stated in this\nbook are pursued to these, their right consequences. But from what\ndo such prejudices proceed? The anti-social spirit in them becomes\nevident, when one recognises, that at bottom they proceed from an\nunconscious persuasion, that people connected with education must\nnecessarily be unpractical persons, remote from life,--not the sort of\npeople whom one could for a moment expect to institute arrangements\nthat would be of any real use for the practical departments of life,\nand that all such arrangements must be instituted by the people\nactively engaged in practical life, whilst the educators must work\non the lines laid down for them.\n\nIn thinking like this, people do not see, that the educators need\nto fix their lines of work themselves, from the smallest things up\nto the biggest, that it is when they cannot do so that they grow\nunpractical and remote from life. And then you may give them any\nprinciple to work on, laid down by apparently the most practical\npersons, and yet their education will not turn out people really\npractically equipped for life. Our anti-social conditions are brought\nabout, because people are turned out into social life not educated\nto feel socially. People with social feelings can only come from\na mode of education that is directed and carried on by persons who\nthemselves feel socially. The social question will never be touched,\nuntil the education question and the question of the spiritual life\nare treated as a vital part of it. An anti-social spirit is created\nnot merely by economic institutions, but through the attitude of the\nhuman beings within these institutions being an anti-social one. And\nit is anti-social, to have the young brought up and taught by persons,\nwho themselves are made strangers to real life by having their lines of\nwork and the substance of their work laid down for them from outside.\n\nThe State establishes law-schools. And it requires, that the substance\nof the jurisprudence taught in these law-schools should be the same\nas the State has fixed for its own constitution and administration,\nfrom its own points of view. When the law-schools proceed wholly\nfrom a free spiritual life, this free spiritual life itself will\nsupply the substance of the jurisprudence taught in them. The State\nwill wait to take its mandate from the spiritual life. It will be\nfertilised by the reception of living ideas, such as can issue only\nfrom a spiritual life that is free.\n\nBut the human-beings, growing up to life, are within the spiritual\ndomain, and will go forth with views of their own to put into\npractice. The education given by people who are strangers to life,\ninside educational institutes planned by mere practicians,--this is\nnot an education that can be realised in practice. The only teaching\nthat can find practical realisation comes from teachers who understand\nlife and its practice from a point of view of their own. In this book\nan attempt is made to give at least a sketch of the way in which a\nfree spiritual organisation will shape its details of working.\n\nIn Utopian minds, the book will rouse all manner of questions. Artists\nand other spiritual workers will anxiously ask whether genius will\nfind itself better off in the free spiritual life than in the one\nat present provided by the State and the economic powers? In putting\nsuch questions, however, they must please to remember, that the book\nis in no respect intended to be Utopian. Hence it never lays down a\nhard and fast theory. This must be so and so, or so and so.\n\nIts aim is to promote the formation of such forms of human social life,\nas, from their joint working shall lead to desirable conditions. And\nanyone, who judges life from experience, and not from theoretic\nprejudice, will say to himself \"When there is a free spiritual\ncommunity, whose dealings with life are guided by its own lights,\nthen anyone who is creating out of his own free genius will have a\nprospect of his creations being duly appreciated.\"\n\nThe \"social question\" is not a thing that has cropped up at this\nparticular point in the life of man, which can be solved straight\naway by a handful of people, or by parliaments, and, once solved,\nwill remain solved. It is an integral part of our new civilised life;\nand it has come to stay. It will have to be solved afresh for each\nmoment of the world's historic evolution. For man's life has entered\nwith this new age upon a phase, when what starts by being a social\ninstitution turns ever and again into something anti-social, which\nhas each time continually to be overcome afresh. Just as an organic\nbody, when it has once been fed and satisfied, passes after a while\ninto a state of hunger again, so the body social passes from one\nstate of order again into disorder. There is no more a panacea for\nkeeping social conditions in good order, than there is a food that\nwill satisfy the body for ever and always. Men can however enter into\nforms of community, which, through their joint action in actual life,\nwill bring man's existence constantly back into the social path. And\none of these forms of community is the self-governing spiritual branch\nof the body social.\n\nAll the experiences of the present time make it plain, that what is\nsocially needed is, for the spiritual life free self-administration,\nand for the economic life associative labour. Industrial economy\nin modern human life is made up of the production of commodities,\ncirculation of commodities and consumption of commodities. These\nare the processes for satisfying human wants; and human beings and\ntheir activities are involved in these processes. Each has his own\npart-interest in them; each must take such a share in them as he is\nable. What any individual actually needs, only he himself alone can\nknow and feel. As to what he himself should perform, this will be\njudged by him according to his measure of insight into the mutual life\nof the whole. It was not always so; nor is it so to-day all the world\nover; but in the main it is so amongst the at present civilised portion\nof the Earth's inhabitants. Economic evolution has kept widening\nits circles in the course of mankind's evolution. Household economy,\nonce self-contained, has developed into town economy, and this again\ninto State economy. To-day we stand before world economy. No doubt,\nin the New much still lingers on of the Old; and much that existed in\nthe Old was already a forecast of the New but the above evolutionary\norder is the one that has become paramount in certain relations of\nlife, and the destinies of mankind are conditioned by it.\n\nIt is altogether a wrong-headed notion to aim at organising the\neconomic forces into an abstract world-community. Private economic\norganisations have, in the course of evolution, become to a very\ngreat extent merged in State economic organisations. But the State\ncommunities were created by other forces than the purely economic\nones; and the endeavour to transform the State communities into\neconomic communities is just what has brought about the social\nchaos of these latter times. Economic life is struggling to take\nthe form its own peculiar forces give it, independent of State\ninstitutions, and independent also of State lines of thought. It\nis only possible through the growth of Associations, having their\nrise in purely economic considerations, and drawn jointly from\ncircles of consumers, traders and producers. The actual conditions\nof life will of themselves regulate the size and scope of these\nAssociations. Over-small Associations would prove too expensive in\nthe working; over-large ones would get beyond economic grasp. The\nneeds of life as they arise will shew each Association the best way\nof establishing interconnections with the others. There need be no\nfear, that anyone, who has to spend his life moving about from place\nto place, will be in any way hampered by Associations of this kind. He\nwill find removing from one group to another quite easy, when it is not\nmanaged by the State-organisations, but by the economic interests. One\ncan conceive possible arrangements within such an associative system,\nthat would work with the facility of a money-currency.\n\nWithin any single Association, where there is practical sense\nand technical knowledge, a very general harmony of interests can\nprevail. The production, circulation and consumption of goods will\nnot be regulated by laws, but by the persons themselves, from their\nown direct insight and interests. People's own active share in the\nlife of the Associations will enable them to acquire the necessary\ninsight; and the fact, that the various interests are obliged to\ncontract a mutual balance, will ensure the goods circulating at their\nproper relative values. This sort of agreed combination, determined\nby economic considerations, is not the same as the form of combination\nthat exists in the modern trades-unions. The activities of the modern\ntrades-unions are expended in the economic field; but the unions are\nnot framed primarily according to economic considerations. They are\nmodelled on the principles taken from practical familiarity in modern\ntimes with political considerations, considerations of state. They\nare parliamentary bodies, where people debate, not where they come\ntogether to consider economic aspects and agree on the services\nto be reciprocally rendered. In these Associations, it will not be\n\"wage-workers\" sitting, using their power to get the highest possible\nwages out of the work-employer; it will be hand-workers, co-operating\nwith the spiritual workers, who direct production, and with those\ninterested in consuming the product, to effect a balance between one\nform of service and another, through an adjustment of prices. This\nis not a thing that can be done by general debate in parliamentary\nassemblies. One must beware of these. For who would ever be at work,\nif an endless number of people had to spend their time negotiating\nabout the work! Everything will take place by agreement between man\nand man, between one Association and another, whilst the work goes\non alongside. For this, all that is necessary is, that the joint\nagreement should be in accordance with the inside knowledge of the\nworkers and with the interests of the consumers.\n\nIn saying this, one depicts no Utopia. No particular way is laid down\nin which this or that matter must be settled. All that is done, is\nto point out how people will settle matters for themselves, when once\nthey set about working in forms of community which are in accordance\nwith their special insight and interests.\n\nThere are two things that operate to bring men together into\ncommunities of this kind: The one, is human nature,--for it is nature\nthat gives men wants. Or, again, a free spiritual life, for this\nengenders the insight that finds scope in communal life. Anyone,\nwho bases his thoughts on reality, will admit, that Associative\ncommunities of this kind can spring up at any time, that there is\nnothing utopian about them. There is nothing to hinder their springing\nup, except that the thought of \"organisation\" has been so suggested\ninto the man of the present day, that he is obsessed with the notion\nof organising industrial and economic life from outside. In direct\ncontrast to such organising of men for the combined work of production,\nis this other kind of economic organisation, that rests on voluntary,\nfree Association. Through this mutual Association, one man establishes\nties with another; and the orderly scheme of the whole is the resultant\nof what each individual finds reasonable for himself.\n\nIt may of course be said: What is the use of a man, who has no\nproperty, Associating himself with a man, who has? It might seem\nbetter for all production and consumption to be regulated \"fairly\"\nfrom outside. But such organising kind of regulation checks the flow\nof free individual creative power, through which economic life is fed,\nand cuts the economic life off from what this source alone can give\nit. Putting aside any pre-conclusions, just make the experiment of an\nAssociation between those, who to-day have no property, and those who\nhave; and, if no forces other than economic ones intervene, it will be\nfound that the \"Haves\" are obliged to render the \"Have-nots\" service\nfor service. The common talk about such things to-day does not proceed\nfrom those instincts of life, that experience teaches, but from certain\nattitudes of mind, that have arisen out of class or other interests,\nnot out of economic ones. Such attitudes of mind had a chance to grow\nup, because, in these latter times, just when economic life especially\nwas becoming more and more complicated, the purely economic ideas were\nunable to keep pace with it. The cramped and fettered spiritual life\nhas acted as a drag. The people, who are carrying on economic life,\nare fast caught in life's routine; they are unable to see the forces\nthat are at work shaping the world's industrial economy. They work\non, without any insight into the totality of human life. But, in the\nAssociations, one person will learn from another what it is necessary\nthat he should know. A collective experience of economic possibilities\nwill arise from the combined judgment of individuals, who each have\ninsight and experience in their own particular departments.\n\nWhilst, then, in the free spiritual life the only forces at work\nare those inherent to the spiritual life itself, so in an economic\nsystem modelled on associative lines, the only values that count will\nbe those economic values that grow up under the Associations. The\nparticular part that any individual has to play in economic life will\nbecome clear to him from actual life and work along with his economic\nassociates. And the weight that he carries in the general economic\nsystem will be exactly proportionate to the service he renders within\nit. There will be those who are unfitted to render service; and how\nthese find their place in the general economy of the body social is\ndiscussed in the course of the book. In an economic system, that is\nshaped by economic forces alone, it is possible for the weak to find\nshelter against the strong.\n\nThus the body social falls apart into two independent branches,\nwhich are able to afford each other mutual support owing to the very\nfact, that each has its own special method of working, shaped by the\nforces inherent to itself. But between these two must come a third,\nwhose life lies betwixt both. This is the true \"state\" branch of the\nbody social. Here all those things find a place that must depend upon\nthe judgment and sentiments of every person who is of age to have\na voice. Within the free spiritual life, everyone busies himself\naccording to his special abilities. Within the economic life, each\nfills the place that falls to him through his connection with the\nrest of the associative network. Within the political state-life of\n\"rights,\" each comes into his own as a human being, and stands on his\nsimple human value, in so far as this is apart from the abilities\nwhich he exercises within the free spiritual life, and independent\ntoo of whatever value that the associative economic system may set\nupon the goods he produces.\n\nHours of labour and modes of labour are shewn in this book to\nbe matters for the political \"Rights-life,\" for the state. Here,\nevery man meets his fellow on an equal footing, because, here, all\ntransactions and all control are confined to those fields of life\nin which all men alike are competent to form an opinion. It is the\nbranch of the body social where men's rights and duties are adjusted.\n\nThe unity of the whole body social will spring from the separate,\nfree expansion of its three functions. In the course of the book\nit is shewn, what form the energies of capital and of the means of\nproduction, as well as the use of land, may take under the joint action\nof these three functions of the social organism. To someone, who is\nbent on \"solving\" the social question by a device of economics, by some\neconomic scheme that has come up or been thought out on paper,--to\nhim this book will seem unpractical. But anyone, who is trying from\nlife's experience to promote forms of combination amongst men, in which\nthey may be able to see, what the social problems, and duties are,\nand how best to fulfil them,--he may perhaps admit, that the writer\nof this book is endeavouring after a genuine working-practice of life.\n\nThe book was first published in April, 1919. Since then, I have\npublished a series of articles, explanatory and supplementary to it,\nwhich have now appeared as a separate volume. [2]\n\nIt may be thought, that in both books a great deal is said about the\npaths that should be pursued in social life, and very little about the\n\"ultimate ends\" of the social movement. Anyone, who thinks along the\nlines of life, knows, that, as a matter of fact, particular ends may\npresent themselves in various forms. It is only those who live in\nabstract thoughts, who see things in single outline, and who often\nfind fault with the person in practical life for not putting them\ndefinitely, \"clearly\" enough. There are many such abstractionists to be\nfound amongst people who pride themselves on their practicality. They\ndo not reflect, that life can assume the most manifold forms. It\nis a flowing tide; and if one would travel with it, one must adapt\noneself even in thought and feeling to the flux that is its constant\nfeature. Thought of this kind alone can seize and keep its hold on\nsocial problems.\n\nIt is from the observation of life that the ideas in this book have\nbeen won; it is from the observation of life that they ask to be\nunderstood.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nI.\n\nTHE TRUE SHAPE OF THE SOCIAL QUESTION,\nAS SHEWN IN THE LIFE OF MODERN MAN\n\n\nDoes not the modern social movement stand revealed by the great\ncatastrophe of the war, demonstrating in actual facts how inadequate\nthe thoughts were, which for years have been supposed sufficient to\nan understanding of the working-class movement and its purport?\n\nIt is a question forced upon us by the demands of the workers and all\nthat these involve,--demands which formerly were kept in suppression,\nbut which at the present time are forcing their way to the surface of\nlife. The powers that were instrumental in suppression are partially\ndestroyed; and the position they took up towards the forces of social\ngrowth in a large part of mankind is one that nobody can wish to\nmaintain, who does not totally fail to recognise how indestructible\nsuch impulses of human nature are.\n\nThe greatest illusions in respect to these social forces have been\nharboured by persons, whose situation in life gave them the power,\nby word and voice, either to assist or to check those influences in\nEuropean life, which, in 1914, were rushing us into the catastrophe\nof war. These persons actually believed, that a military victory for\ntheir country would hush the mutterings of the social storm. They\nhave since been obliged to recognise, that it was the consequences of\ntheir own attitude that first brought these social tendencies fully\nto light. Indeed, the present catastrophe,--which is the catastrophe\nof mankind,--has shewn itself to be the very event, through which,\nhistorically, these tendencies gained the opportunity to make\nthemselves felt in their full force. During these last fateful years,\nboth the leading persons and the leading classes have been constantly\nobliged to tune their own behaviour to the note sounded in socialist\ncircles. Could they have disregarded the tone of these circles, they\nwould often gladly have acted differently. And the effects of this\nlive on in the form which events are taking to-day.\n\nAnd now the thing, which for years past has been drawing on in\nmankind's life-evolution, preparing its way before it, has arrived\nat a decisive stage,--and now comes the tragedy: The facts are with\nus in all their ripeness, but the thoughts that came up with the\ngrowth of the facts are no match for them. There are many persons who\ntrained their thoughts on the lines of the growing process, hoping\nthereby to serve the social ideal which they recognised in it; and\nthese persons find themselves to-day practically powerless before\nthe problems which the accomplished facts present, and on which the\ndestinies of mankind hang. A good many of these persons, it is true,\nstill believe that the things they have so long thought necessary\nto the remodelling of human life will now be realised, and will\nthen prove powerful enough to give these facts a possible turn and\nmeet their requirements. One may dismiss the opinion of those, who,\neven now, are still under the delusion, that it must be possible to\nmaintain the old scheme of things against the new demands that are\nbeing urged by a large part of mankind. We may confine ourselves\nto examining what is going on in the wills of those people who are\nconvinced that a remodelling of social life is necessary. Even so,\nwe shall be forced to own to ourselves, that party shibboleths go\nwandering up and down amongst us like the dessicated corpses of once\nanimate creeds,--everywhere flouted and set at naught by the evolution\nof facts. The facts call for decisions, for which the creeds of the\nold parties are all unprepared. These parties certainly evolved along\nwith the facts,--but they, and their habits of thought, have not kept\npace with the facts. One may perhaps venture without presumption\nto hold,--in the face of still common opinion,--that the course of\nevents throughout the world at the present time bears out what has\njust been said. One may draw the conclusion, that this is just the\nfavorable moment to attempt to point out something, which, in its\ntrue character, is foreign even to those who are expert thinkers\namong the parties and persons belonging to the various schools of\nsocial thought. For it may well be, that the tragedy that reveals\nitself in all these attempts to solve the social question, arises\nprecisely from the real purport of the working-class struggle having\nbeen misunderstood,--misunderstood even by those who, themselves with\nall their opinions, are the outcome of this struggle. For men by no\nmeans always read their own purposes aright.\n\nThere may therefore seem some justification for putting these\nquestions: What is, in reality, the purport of the modern working-class\nmovement? What is its will? Does this, its will and purport, correspond\nto what is usually thought about it, either by the workers themselves,\nor by the non-workers? Does what is commonly thought about the \"social\nproblem\" reveal that question in its true form? Or is an altogether\ndifferent line of thought needed? This is a question which one cannot\napproach impartially unless, through personal destiny, one has in\na position oneself to enter into the life of the modern worker's\nsoul,--especially amongst that section of the workers who have most\nto do with the form the social movement is taking in the present day.\n\nPeople have talked a great deal about the evolution of modern\ntechnical science and modern capitalism. They have studied the rise\nof the present working-class in the process of this evolution, and\nhow the developments of economic life in recent times have led on to\nthe workers' present demands. There is much that is to the point in\nwhat has been said about all this. But there is one critical feature\nwhich is never touched on, as one cannot help seeing, if one refuses\nto be hypnotised by the theory that it is external conditions that\ngive the stamp to a man's life. It is a feature obvious to anyone\nwho keeps an unclouded insight for impulses of the soul that work\nfrom within outwards, out of hidden depths. It is quite true, that\nthe worker's demands have been evolved during the growth of modern\ntechnical science and modern capitalism; but a recognition of this fact\naffords no further clue whatever to the impulses that are actuating\nthese demands, and which are in fact purely human in character. Nor,\ntill one penetrates to the heart of these impulses, will one get to\nthe true form of the social question.\n\nThere is a word in frequent use among the workers, which is of striking\nsignificance for anyone able to penetrate to the deeper-seated forces\nactive in the human will. It is this: the modern worker has become\n\"class-conscious.\" He no longer follows, more or less instinctively\nand unconsciously, the swing of the classes outside his own. He knows\nhimself one of a class apart, and is determined, that the relation,\nwhich public life establishes between his class and the other classes,\nshall be turned to good account for his own interests. And anyone,\nwho has comprehension for the undercurrents of men's souls, finds in\nthe word \"class-conscious,\" as used by the modern worker, a clue to\nvery important facts in the worker's view of life,--in particular\namongst those classes of workers, whose life is cast amidst modern\ntechnical industry and modern capitalism. What will above all arrest\nhis attention is, how strongly the worker's soul has been impressed and\nfired by scientific teachings about economic life and its bearing on\nhuman destinies. Here one touches on a circumstance about which many\npeople, who only think about the workers, not with them, have very\nhazy notions,--notions indeed, which are downright mischievous, in\nview of the serious events taking place at the present day. The view,\nthat the \"uneducated\" working man has had his head turned by Marxism,\nand by later labour writers of the Marxist school, and other things one\nhears of the same sort, will not conduce towards that understanding\nof the subject and its connection with the whole historic situation\nof the world, which is so peculiarly necessary at the present day. In\nexpressing such a view, one only shews that one lacks the will to\nexamine an essential feature of the present social movement. For\nit is an essential feature, that the working-class consciousness\nhas thus become filled with concepts that take their stamp from\nthe scientific evolution of recent times. This class-consciousness\ncontinues to be dominated by the note struck in Lassalle's speech on\n\"Science and the Workers.\" Such things may appear unessential to\nmany a man who reckons himself a \"practical person\"; but anyone,\nwho means to arrive at a really fruitful insight into the modern\nlabour movement, is bound to turn his attention to these things. In\nthe demands put forward by the workers to-day, be they moderates\nor radicals, we have the expression, not, as many people imagine,\nof economic life that has--somehow--become metamorphosed into human\nimpulse, we have the expression of economic science, by which the\nworking-class consciousness is possessed. This stands out clearly in\nthe literature of the labour movement, with its scientific flavour and\npopular journalistic renderings. To deny this, is to shut one's eyes to\nactual facts. And it is a fundamental fact, and one which determines\nthe whole social situation at the present day, that everything which\nforms the subject of the worker's \"class-consciousness\" is couched\nfor him in concepts of a scientific kind. The individual working at\nhis machine may be no matter how completely a stranger to science;\nyet those, who enlighten him as to his own position and to whom he\nlistens, borrow their method of enlightenment from this same science.\n\nAll the disquisitions about modern economic life, about the machine\nage and capitalism, may throw ever so instructive a light on the\nfacts underlying the modern working-class movement; but the decisive\nlight on the present social situation does not proceed directly from\nthe fact, that the worker has been placed at the machine, that he\nhas been harnessed to the capitalist scheme of things. It proceeds\nfrom the other, different, fact, that his class-consciousness has been\nfilled with a quite definite kind of thought, shaped at the machine and\nunder the influence of the capitalist order of economy. Possibly the\nhabits of thought peculiar to the present day may prevent many people\nfrom realising the full bearing of this circumstance, and may cause\nthem to regard the stress laid upon it as a mere dialectic play upon\nterms. One can only say in reply: So much the worse for any prospect\nof a successful intervention in social life to-day by people who are\nunable to distinguish essentials. Anyone, who wants to understand the\nworking-class movement, must first and foremost know, how the worker\nthinks. For the working-class movement, from its moderate efforts\nat reform to its most sweeping extravagances, is not created by\n\"forces outside man,\" by \"economic impulses,\" but by human-beings,\nby their mental conceptions and by the impulses of their will.\n\nNot in what capitalism and the machine have implanted in the worker's\nconsciousness, not here lie the ideas and will-forces, that give\nits character to the present social movement. This movement turned\nin the direction of modern science to find its fount of thought,\nbecause capitalism and the machine could give the worker no substance\nwith which to content his soul as a human being. Such substance and\ncontent was afforded to the medieval craftsman by his craft. In the\nkind of connection which the medieval handworker felt between himself,\nas a human being, and his craft, there was something that shewed life\nwithin the whole human confraternity in a light which made it seem, for\nhis individual consciousness, worth living. Whatever he might be doing,\nhe was able to regard it in such a way, that he seemed through it to be\nrealising what he desired, as a \"man,\" to be. Tending a machine under\nthe capitalist scheme of things the man was thrown back upon himself,\nupon his own inner life, whenever he tried to find some principle\non which to base a general outlook on Man and one's consciousness\nof what as a \"man\" one is. Technical industry, capitalism,--these\ncould contribute nothing towards such an outlook. And so it came to\npass, that the working-class consciousness took the bent towards the\nscientific type of thought. The direct human link with actual life\nwas lost.\n\nNow this occurred just at a time, when the leading classes of mankind\nwere working towards a scientific mode of thought, which in itself no\nlonger possessed the spiritual energy to content man's consciousness\nin every aspect and guide it along all the directions of its wants. The\nold views of the universe gave man his place as a soul in the spiritual\ncomplex of existence. Modern science views him as a natural object\namidst a purely natural order of things. This science is not felt\nas a stream flowing from a spiritual world into the soul of man,\nand on which man as a soul is buoyed and upborne. Whatever one's\nopinion may be as to the relation of the religious impulses, and\nkindred things, to the scientific mode of thought of recent times,\nyet one must admit, if one considers historic evolution impartially,\nthat the scientific conception has developed out of the religious\none. But the old conceptions of the universe, that rested deep down\non religious foundations, lacked power to impart their soul-bearing\nforce to the newer form of scientific conception. They withdrew beyond\nits range, and lived on, contenting their consciousness with things in\nwhich the souls of the workers could find no resource. For the leading\nclasses, this inner world of consciousness might still have a certain\nvalue. In some form or other it was bound up with their own position\nin life. They sought for no new substance for their consciousness,\nbecause they were able to keep a hold on the old one, that had been\nhanded down to them through actual life. But the modern worker was\ntorn out of all his old setting in life. He was the man whose life had\nbeen put on a totally new basis. For him, when the old bases of life\nwere withdrawn, there disappeared at the same time all possibility of\ndrawing from the old spiritual springs. These lay far off in regions\nto which he was now become a stranger. Contemporaneous with modern\ntechnical science and modern capitalism,--in such a sense as one can\nspeak of great worldstreams of history as contemporaneous,--there grew\nup the modern scientific conception of the world. To this the trust,\nthe faith, of the modern worker turned. It was here he sought the\nnew substance that he needed to content his inner consciousness. But\nthe working-class and the leading classes were differently situated\nwith regard to their scientific outlook. The leading classes felt no\nnecessity for making the scientific mode of conception into a gospel\nof life, for the support of their souls. No matter how thoroughly they\nmight have permeated themselves with the scientific conception of a\nnatural order of things, in which a direct chain of causality leads\nup from the lowest animals to man, this mode of conception remained\nnevertheless a merely theoretic persuasion. It never stirred their\nfeelings, and impelled them to take life through and through in a\nway befitting such a persuasion. Take naturalists such as Vogt and\nthe popular writer, Buechner; they were unquestionably permeated\nwith the scientific mode of conception; but, alongside this, there\nwas something else at work in their souls which kept their lives\ninterwoven with a whole complex of circumstances, such as can those\nwhose only intelligible justification can be the belief in a spiritual\norder of the world. Putting aside all prejudice, let us just imagine,\nhow differently the scientific outlook affects a man whose personal\nexistence is anchored in such a complex, from the modern artisan, who,\nin the few evening hours that he has free from work, hears the labour\nleader get up and address him in this fashion: \"Science in our time\nhas cured men of believing that they have their origin in a spiritual\nworld. They have learnt better, and know now, that in the far ages,\nlong ago, they climbed about on trees like any vulgar monkey. Science\nhas taught them too, that they were all alike in their origin, and\nthat it was a purely natural one.\" It was a science that turned on\nsuch thoughts as these, which met the worker when he was looking for\na substance to fill his soul and give him a sense of his own place\nas man in the life of the universe. He took the scientific outlook\non the world in thorough earnest, and drew from it his own practical\nconclusions for life. The technical, capitalistic age laid hold of\nhim differently from a member of the leading classes. The latter had\nhis place in an order of life, which still bore the shape once given\nit by soul-sustaining forces; it was all to his interest to fit the\nacquisitions of the new age into this setting. But the worker, in his\nsoul, was torn loose from this order of life. It was not capable of\ngiving him one emotion that could illumine and fill his own life with\nanything of human worth. There was one thing only, which could give the\nworker any sense of what a \"man\" is, one thing only that seemed to have\nemerged from the old order of life endowed with the power that awakens\nfaith, and that was--scientific thought. It may arouse a smile in some\nof those who read this, to be told of the \"scientific\" character of\nthe worker's conceptions. Let them smile, who can only think of the\nscientific habit of mind as something that is acquired by many years\nof application on the benches of \"educational institutes,\" and then\ncontrast this sort of \"science\" with what fills the mind of the worker\nwho has \"never learnt anything.\" What is for him a smiling matter,\nare facts of modern life on which the fate of the future turns. And\nthese facts shew, that many a very learned man lives unscientifically,\nwhereas the unlearned worker brings his whole view of life into line\nwith that scientific learning, of which very likely nothing has fallen\nto his share. The educated man has made a place for science,--it has\na pigeon-hole of its own in the recesses of his soul. But he himself\nhas his place in a network of circumstances in actual life, and it is\nthese which give the direction to his feelings. His feeling is not\ndirected by his science. The worker, through the very conditions of\nhis life, is led to bring his conception of existence into unison\nwith the general tone of this science. He may be very far from\nwhat the other classes call \"scientific,\" yet his life's course is\ncharted by the scientific lines of conception. For the other classes,\nsome religious or aesthetic, some general spiritual principle is\nthe determining basis;--for him, Science is turned into the creed\nof life,--even though often it may be science filtered away to its\nlast little shallows and driblets of thought. Many a member of the\n\"foremost\" classes feels himself to be \"enlightened\" in religion,\na \"free-thinker.\" No doubt his scientific convictions influence his\nconceptions; but in his feelings still throb the forgotten remnants\nof a traditional creed of life. What the scientific type of thought\nhas not brought down from the old order, is the consciousness of\nbeing, as a spiritual type, rooted in a spiritual world. This was\na peculiarity of the modern scientific outlook, which presented\nno difficulty to a member of the leading classes. Life to him was\nfilled by old traditions. For the worker it was otherwise; his new\nsituation in life drove the old traditions from his soul. He took over\nfrom the ruling classes as heritage the scientific mode of thought,\nand made this the basis of his consciousness of the life and being of\nman. But this \"spiritual possession,\" with which he filled his soul,\nknew nothing of its derivation from an actual life of the spirit. The\nonly spiritual life, that the workers could take over from the ruling\nclasses, was of a sort that denied its spiritual origin.\n\nI well know, how these thoughts will affect people outside as well as\ninside the working-class, who, believing themselves to have a thorough\npractical acquaintance with life, regard the view here expressed as\nquite remote from realities. The language of actual facts, as spoken\nby the whole state of the world to-day, will more and more prove\nthis belief of theirs to be a delusion. For anyone able to look at\nthese facts without prejudice, it will be plain, that a view of life,\nwhich never gets beyond their external aspect, becomes ultimately\ninaccessible to any conceptions save such as have lost all touch\nwith facts. Ruling thought has clung on so long in this \"practical\"\nway to facts,--that the thoughts themselves have ended by bearing\nno resemblance whatever to the facts. The present world-catastrophe\nmight have taught many people a lesson in this respect. What did they\nthink it possible might happen? And what really did happen? Is it to\nbe the same with their thoughts about social problems?\n\nI know too, how someone who professes working-class views will feel\nabout what has been said, and can hear him saying: \"Just like the rest\nof them! trying to shunt the real gist of the social question off on\nto lines that promise to be smooth for the bourgeois sort.\" With his\ncreed, he does not see how fate has brought him into this working-class\nlife, and how he is trying to find his way in it with a type of thought\ninherited from the ruling-classes. He lives as a working-man but he\nthinks as a bourgeois. The new age is making it necessary to learn not\nonly a new way of life, but a new way of thought also. The scientific\nmode of conception can only become substantial and life-supporting,\nwhen it evolves, in its own fashion, a power to content the whole of\nhuman life in all its aspects, such as the old conceptions of life\nonce evolved in their way.\n\nThis points the path for the discovery in its true form of one factor\nin the modern labour movement. And having travelled it to the end,\nthe worker's soul utters this cry of conviction: \"I am striving after\nspiritual life. Yet this spiritual life is ideology, is merely man's\nown reflection of what is going on in the world outside, it does not\ncome to us from a spiritual world of its own.\" In the transition to\nthe new age, the old spiritual life had turned to something which,\nfor the working-class sense of life, is ideology. If one wants\nto understand the mood of soul amongst the workers, as it finds\nvent in the social demands of the present day, one must be able to\ngrasp the full possible effects of the theory that spiritual life\nis ideology. It may be retorted: \"What does the average working-man\nknow of any such theory? it is only a will-o'-the-wisp in the brains\nof their more or less educated leaders.\" But anyone who says so is\ntalking wide of life, and his doings in actual life will be wide of\nit too. He simply does not know, what has been going on in the life\nof the working-class during the last half century. He does not know\nthe threads that are woven from the theory, that spiritual life is\nideology, to the demands and actions of the out-and-out socialist,\nwhom he thinks so \"ignorant\";--yes, and to the deeds too of those who\n\"hatch revolution\" out of the blind promptings of the life within them.\n\nHerein lies the tragedy overshadowing all our interpretations of the\nsocial demands of the day, that in so many circles there is no sense\nof what is forcing its way up to the surface out of the souls of the\ngreat masses of mankind,--that people cannot turn their eyes to what\nis actually taking place in men's inner life. The non-worker listens\nwith dismay to the worker setting forth his demands; and this is what\nhe hears:--\"Nothing short of communalising the means of production will\nmake it possible for me to have a life worthy of a human being.\" But\nthe non-worker is unable to form the faintest conception, of how his\nown class, in the transition from the old age to the new, not only\nsummoned the worker to labour at means of production that were not his,\nbut failed even to give him anything to satisfy and sustain his soul\nin his labour. People, who see and act wide of the mark in this way,\nmay say:--\"But, after all, the working-man only wants to better his\nposition in life and put himself on a level with the upper classes;\nwhere do the needs of his soul come in?\" The working-man himself may\neven declare:--\"I am not asking the other classes for anything for\nmy soul; all I want, is to prevent them exploiting me any longer. I\nmean to put an end to existing class distinctions.\" Talk of this\nkind does not touch the essence of the social question. It reveals\nnothing of its true form. For, had the working population inherited\nfrom the leading classes a genuine spiritual substance, then they\nwould have had a different consciousness within their souls, one\nwhich would have voiced their social demands in quite a different\nfashion from the modern workers, who can see in the spiritual life,\nas they have received it, merely an ideology. The workers, as a\nclass, are convinced of the ideologic character of spiritual life;\nbut the conviction renders them more and more unhappy. They are not\ndefinitely conscious of this unhappiness in their souls, but they\nsuffer acutely from it, and it far outweighs, in its significance for\nthe social question to-day, all demands for an improvement in external\nconditions,--justifiable as these demands are too in their own way.\n\nThe ruling classes do not recognise, that they are themselves the\nauthors of that attitude of mind, which now confronts them militant\nin the labour-world. And yet, they are the authors of it, inasmuch\nas, out of their own spiritual world, they failed to bequeath to the\nworkers anything but what must seem to the workers \"ideology.\"\n\nWhat gives to the present social movement its essential stamp, is\nnot the demand for a change of conditions in the life of one class\nof men,--although that is the natural sign of it. Rather, it is\nthe manner in which this demand is translated by this class from a\nthought-impulse into actual reality. Consider the facts impartially\nfrom this point of view. One will find persons who aim at keeping\nin touch with labour tendencies in thought, smile at any talk of\na spiritual movement proposing to contribute anything towards the\nsolution of the social question. They dismiss it with a smile, as\nideology, empty theory. From thought, from the mere life of the spirit,\nthere is nothing, they feel certain, to be contributed to the burning\nsocial problems of the hour. And yet, when one looks at the matter\nmore closely, it is forced upon one, that the very nerve, the very\nroot-impulse of the modern movement,--especially as a working-class\nmovement,--does not lie in the things about which the modern worker\ntalks, but in thoughts. The modern working-class movement has sprung,\nas perhaps no other similar movement in the world before it, out of\nthoughts. When studied more closely, it shews this in a most marked\ndegree. I am not throwing this out as an aper\u00e7u, the result of long\npondering over the social movement. If I may venture to introduce a\npersonal remark I was for years lecturer at a working-man's institute,\ngiving instruction to working men in a wide variety of subjects; and\nI think that it taught me what is living and stirring in the soul of\nthe modern proletarian worker. And from this starting point, I had\noccasion to go on, and follow up the tendencies at work in the various\ntrades unions and different callings. I think I may say, that I am\nnot approaching the subject merely from theoretical considerations,\nbut am putting into words the results arrived at through actual\nliving experience.\n\nAnyone,--only, unfortunately, so few of the leading intellectuals are\nin this position,--but anyone, who has learnt to know the modern labour\nmovement where it was carried on by the workers themselves, knows how\nremarkable a feature it is in it, and how fraught with significance,\nthat a certain trend of thought has laid intense hold on the souls of\nlarge numbers of men. What makes it at the present moment hard to adopt\nany line as regards the social conundrums that present themselves, is\nthat there is so little possibility of an understanding between the\ndifferent classes. It is so hard for the middle-class to-day to put\nthemselves into the soul of the worker,--so hard for them to understand\nhow the worker's still fresh, unexhausted intelligence opened to\nreceive a work such as that of Karl Marx,--which, in its whole mode\nof conception, no matter how one regards its substance, measures the\nrequirements of human thought by such a lofty standard. One man may\nagree with Karl Marx's intellectual system,--another may refute it;\nand the arguments on either side may appear equally good. In some\npoints it was revised, after the death of Marx and his friend Engels,\nby those who came later and saw social life under a different aspect\nfrom these leaders. I am not proposing to discuss the substance of\nthe Marxian system. It is not this that seems to me the significant\nthing in the modern working-class movement. The thing that to me\nseems significant above all others is, that it should be a fact,\nthat the most powerful impulse at work in the labour world is a\nthought-system. One may go so far as to put it thus:--No practical\nmovement, no movement that was altogether a movement of practical life,\nmaking the most matter-of-fact demands of every-day humanity, has ever\nbefore rested so almost entirely on a basis of thought alone, as the\npresent working-class movement does. Indeed it is in a way the first\nmovement of its kind to take up its stand entirely on a scientific\nbasis. One must however see this fact in its proper light. If one\nconsiders everything that the modern worker has consciously to say\nabout his own views and purposes and sentiments, it does not seem to\none, from a deeper observation of life, to be by any means the thing of\nmain importance. What impresses itself as of real importance is, that\nwhat in the other classes is an appendage of one single branch of the\nsoul's life,--the thought-basis, from which life takes its tone,--has\nbeen made by proletarian feeling into the thing on which the whole\nman turns. What has thus become an inward reality in the worker is,\nhowever, a reality that he cannot acknowledge. He is deterred from\nacknowledging it, because thought-life has been handed down to him\nas ideology. He builds up his life in reality upon thoughts; yet\nfeels thoughts to be unreal ideology. This is a fact that one must\nclearly recognise in the human evolution of recent years, together\nwith all that it involves,--otherwise it is impossible to understand\nthe worker's views of life and the way those, who hold these views,\nset about realising them in practice.\n\nFrom the picture drawn of the worker's spiritual life in the preceding\npages, it will be clear that the main features of this spiritual life\nmust occupy the first place in any description of the working-class\nsocial movement in its true form. For it is essential to the worker's\nway of feeling the causes of his unsatisfactory social condition and\nendeavoring to remove them, that both the feeling and the endeavour\ntake the direction given them by his spiritual life. And yet, at\npresent, he can only reject with contempt or anger the notion, that in\nthe spiritual foundations of the social movement there is something\nthat presents a remarkable driving force. How should he recognise\nin spiritual life a force able to bear him along, when he is bound\nto feel it as ideology? One cannot look to a spiritual life, that\none feels as ideology, to open up the way out of a social situation,\nwhich one has resolved to endure no longer. The scientific cast of\nhis thought has turned not only science, but religion, art, morality,\nand right also for the modern worker into so many constituent parts\nof human ideology. Behind these branches of the spiritual life he\nsees nothing of the workings of an actual reality, which finds its\nway into his own existence, and can contribute something to material\nlife. To him, these things are only the reflected shine, or mirrored\nimage of the material life. Whatever reflex influence they may have\non the shaping of this material life,--whether roundabout, through\nthe conceptions of men's brains, or through being taken up into the\nimpulses of the will, yet, originally, they arise out of the material\nlife itself as ideologic emanations from it. These of themselves can\ncertainly yield nothing that will conduce to the removal of social\ndifficulties. Only out of the sphere of material processes themselves\ncan anything arise that will lead to the desired end.\n\nModern spiritual life has been passed on from the leading classes of\nmankind to the working population in a form which prevents the latter\nfrom being aware of the force that dwells in it. This fact above all\nmust be understood, when considering what are the forces that can help\ntowards the solution of the social question. Should it continue to\nexert its present influence, then mankind's spiritual life must see\nitself doomed to impotence before the social demands of our day and\nthe time to come. Its impotence is in fact an article of faith with\na large part of the working-class, and openly pressed in Marxism and\nsimilar creeds. \"Modern economic life\"--they say--\"has evolved out\nof its earlier forms the present capitalistic one. This evolutionary\nprocess has brought the workers into an unendurable situation as\nregards capital. But evolution will not stop here, it will go on,\nand kill capitalism through the forces at work in capitalism itself\nand from the death of capitalism will spring the emancipation of\nthe workers.\" Later socialist thinkers have divested this creed of\nthe fatalistic character it had assumed amongst a certain school of\nMarxists. But even so its essential feature remains, and shews itself\nin this way:--that it would not occur to anyone, who wishes to be a\ntrue socialist to-day, to say: \"If we discover anywhere a life of the\nsoul, having its rise in the forces of the age, rooted in a spiritual\nreality, and able to sustain the whole man,--then such a soul life as\nthis could radiate the power needed as a motor-force for the social\nmovement.\" The man of to-day, who is obliged to lead the life of a\nworker, can cherish no such expectation from the spiritual life of the\nday; and this it is which gives the key-note to his soul. He needs a\nspiritual life from which power can come,--power to give his soul the\nsense of his human worth. For when the capitalist economic order of\nrecent times caught him up into its machinery, the man himself, with\nall the deepest needs of his soul, was driven for recourse to some\nsuch spiritual life. But the kind of spiritual life which the leading\nclasses handed on to him as ideology left his soul void. Running\nthrough all the demands of the modern working-class, is this longing\nfor some link with the spiritual life, other than the present form\nof society can give; and this is what gives the directing impetus in\nthe social movement to-day. This fact however is one that is rightly\nunderstood neither outside nor inside the working-class. Those outside\nthe working-class do not suffer from the ideologic cast of modern\nspiritual life, which is of their own making. Those who are inside the\nworking-class do suffer; but the very ideologic character of their\ninherited spiritual life has robbed them of all belief in the power\nof spiritual possessions, as such, to sustain and support them. On\na right insight into this fact depends the discovery of a path out\nof the maze of confusion into which social affairs have fallen. The\npath has been blocked by the social system that has arisen with the\nnew form of industrial economy under the influence of the leading\nclasses. The strength to open it must be achieved.\n\nPeople's thoughts in this respect will undergo a complete change, when\nonce they come really to feel the full weight of this fact: That, in\na human community where spiritual life plays a merely ideologic role,\ncommon social life lacks one of the forces that can make and keep it\na living organism. What ails the body social to-day, is impotence of\nthe spiritual life. And the disease is aggravated by the reluctance\nto acknowledge its existence. Once the fact is acknowledged, there\nwill then be a basis on which to develope the kind of thinking needed\nfor the social movement.\n\nAt present, the worker thinks that he has struck a main force in his\nsoul, when he talks about his \"class-consciousness.\" But the truth is,\nthat ever since he was caught up into the capitalist economic machine\nhe has been searching for a spiritual life that could sustain his soul\nand give him a \"human-consciousness,\"--a consciousness of his worth\nas man,--which there is no possibility of developing with a spiritual\nlife that is felt as ideology. This \"human-consciousness\"--was what\nhe was seeking. He could not find it; and so he replaced it with\n\"class-consciousness\" born of the economic life. His eyes are rivetted\nupon the economic life alone, as though some overpowering suggestive\ninfluence held them there. And he no longer believes that elsewhere,\nin the spirit or in the soul, there can be anywhere a latent force\ncapable of supplying the impulse for what is needed in the social\nmovement. All he believes is, that the evolution of an economic life,\ndevoid of spirit and of soul, can bring about the particular state\nof things, which he himself feels to be the one worthy of man. Thus\nhe is driven to seek his welfare in a transformation of economic\nlife alone. He has been forced to the conviction, that with the mere\ntransformation of economic life all those ills would disappear, that\nhave been brought on through private enterprise, through the egoism\nof the individual employer, and through the individual employer's\npowerlessness to do justice to the claims of human self-respect in\nthe employee. And so the modern worker was led on to believe, that\nthe only welfare for the body social lay in converting all private\nownership of means of production into a communal concern, or into\nactual communal property. This conviction is due to people's eyes\nhaving been removed, as it were, from everything belonging to soul\nand spirit, and fixed exclusively on the purely economic process.\n\nHence all the paradox in the working-class movement. The modern\nworker believes, that industrial economy, the economic life itself,\nwill of necessity evolve all that will ultimately give him his\nrights as man. These rights of man in full are what he is fighting\nfor. And yet, in the heart of the fight something different makes\nits appearance,--something which never could be an outcome of the\neconomic life alone. It is a significant thing, which speaks most\nforcibly, that here, right at the centre of the many forms which\nthe social question assumes under the needs of human life to-day,\nthere is something that seems, in men's belief, to proceed out of\neconomic life, which, however, never could proceed from economic life\nalone,--something, that lies rather in the direct line of evolution;\nleading up through the old slave system, through the serfdom of the\nfeudal age, to the modern proletariat of labour. The circulation of\ncommodities, of money, the system of capital, property-ownership,\nthe land system, these may have taken no matter what form under\nmodern life; but at the heart of modern life something else has\ntaken place, never distinctly expressed, not consciously felt even\nby the modern worker, but which is the fundamental force actuating\nall his social purpose. It is this:--The modern capitalist system of\neconomy recognises, at bottom, nothing but commodities within its\nown province. It understands the creation of commodity-values as a\nprocess in the body economic. And in the capitalistic processes of\nthe modern age something has been turned into a commodity, which the\nworker feels must not and cannot be a commodity.\n\nIf it were only recognised what a fundamental force this is in the\nsocial movement amongst the modern workers: this loathing that the\nmodern worker feels at being forced to barter his labour-power to the\nemployer, as goods are bartered in the market,--loathing at seeing his\npersonal labour-power play part as a factor in the supply and demand\nof the labour-market, just as the goods in the market are subject to\nsupply and demand. When once people become aware what this loathing\nof the \"labour-commodity\" means for the modern social movement, when\nonce they straightly and honestly recognise, that the thing at work\nthere is not even emphatically and drastically enough expressed in\nsocialist doctrines,--then they will have discovered the second of the\ntwo impulses which are making the social question to-day so urgent,\none may indeed say so burning,--the first being that spiritual life\nthat is felt as an ideology.\n\nIn old days there were slaves. The entire man was sold as a\ncommodity. Rather less of the man, but still a portion of the\nhuman-being himself was incorporated in the economic process by\nserfdom. To-day, capitalism is the power, through which still a\nremnant of the human-being,--his labour-power,--is stamped with the\ncharacter of a commodity. I am not saying, that this fact has remained\nunnoticed. On the contrary, it is a fact which in social life to-day\nis recognised as a fundamental one, and which is felt to be something\nthat plays a very important part in the modern social movement. But\npeople in studying it keep their attention solely fixed on economic\nlife. They make the question of the nature of a commodity solely an\neconomic one. They look to economic life itself for the forces that\nshall bring about conditions, under which the worker shall no longer\nfeel that his labour-power is playing a part unworthy of him in the\nbody social. They see, how the modern form of industrial economy came\nabout historically in the recent evolution of mankind. They see too,\nhow it gave the commodity character to human labour-power. What they\ndo not see, is, that it is a necessity inherent in economic life,\nthat everything incorporated in it becomes a commodity. Economic life\nconsists in the production and useful consumption of commodities. One\ncannot divest human labour-power of its commodity character, unless\none can find a way of separating it out from the economic process. It\nis of no use trying to remodel the economic process so as to give\nit a shape in which human labour may come by its rights inside that\nprocess itself. What one must endeavor, is to find a way of separating\nlabour-power out from the economic process, and bringing it under\nsocial forces that will do away with its commodity character. The\nworker sets his desire upon some arrangement of economic life, where\nhis labour-power shall find a fitting place; not seeing, that the\ncommodity character of his labour is inherently and essentially due\nto his being bound up in the economic processes as part and parcel\nof them. Being obliged to surrender his labour-power to the economic\nprocesses, the whole man himself is caught up into them. So long\nas the economic system has the regulating of labour-power, it will\ngo on consuming labour-power just as it consumes commodities,--in\nthe manner that is most useful to its purposes. It is as though the\npower of economic life hypnotised people, so that they can look at\nnothing except what is going on inside it. They may look for ever in\nthis direction without discovering how labour-power can escape being\na commodity. Some other form of industrial economy will only make\nlabour-power a commodity in some other manner. The labour question\ncannot find place in its true shape as part of the social question,\nuntil it is recognised that the considerations of economic life which\ndetermine the laws governing the circulation, exchange and consumption\nof commodities, are not such whose competence should be extended to\nhuman labour-power.\n\nNew age thought has not learned to distinguish the totally different\nfashions in which the two things enter into economic life: i.e.,\non the one hand, labour-power, which is intimately bound up with the\nhuman-being himself; and, on the other hand, those things that proceed\nfrom another source and are dissociated from the human-being, and which\ncirculate along those paths that all commodities must take from their\nproduction to their consumption. Sound thinking on these lines will\nshew both the true form of the labour-power question, and the place\nthat economic life must occupy in a healthily constituted society.\n\nFrom this, it is obvious that the \"social question\" will divide\nitself into three distinct questions. The first is the question of\na healthy form of spiritual life within the body social; the second,\nthe consideration of the position of labour-power, and the right way\nto incorporate it in the life of the community. Thirdly, it will be\npossible to deduce the proper place and function of economic life.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nII.\n\nHOW ACTUAL LIFE REQUIRES THAT WE SHOULD\nSET ABOUT SOLVING SOCIAL NEEDS AND PROBLEMS\n\n\nThe characteristic feature, then, to which the special form of\nthe social question in recent times is directly traceable, may be\nexpressed as follows: The modern life of industrial economy, grounded\nin technical science,--modern capitalism,--all this has acted in a\nsort of instinctive way, like a force of nature, and given modern\nsocial life its peculiar internal structure and method. But whilst\nmen's attention grew thus absorbed in all that technical industry and\ncapitalism brought with them, it became at the same time diverted from\nother branches, other departments of social life,--departments whose\nworkings no less require direction by conscious human intelligence,\nif the body social is to be a healthy one.\n\nI may perhaps be allowed to start by drawing a comparison, in\norder the better to describe what here, in any really comprehensive\nstudy of the social question, reveals itself as a powerful, indeed\na main, actuating impulse. It must however be borne in mind, that\nthis comparison is intended as a comparison only, used to help out\nthe human understanding and give it the turn of thought needed for\npicturing what health in the body social implies. Accepting this\npoint of view, then, if one turns to the study of that most complex\nof all natural organisms, the human organism, it is noticeable,\nthat, running through the whole structure and life of it, there\nare three systems, working side by side, and each functioning to\na certain extent separately and independently of the others. These\nthree neighbour systems may be distinguished as follows: One system,\nforming a province all to itself in the natural human organism, is\nthat which comprises the life of the nerves and senses. It may be\nnamed, after the principal part of the organism where the nerve and\nsense-life is more or less centred,--the head-system. Second comes\nwhat I should like to call the rhythmic system, which, to arrive at\nany real understanding of man's organisation, must be recognised as\nforming another branch to itself. This rhythmic system comprises the\nbreathing, the circulation of the blood,--all that finds expression in\nrhythmic processes within the human organism. The third system, then,\nmust be recognised as comprising all those organs and functions that\nhave to do with actual matter-changes--the metabolic process. These\nthree systems together comprise everything which, duly co-ordinated,\nkeeps the whole human complex in healthy working order.\n\nIn my book, \"Riddles of the Soul,\" I have already attempted to\ngive a brief description of this threefold character of the natural\nhuman organism in a way that tallies completely with what scientific\nresearch has as yet to tell us on the subject. It seems to me clear,\nthat biology, physiology, and natural science in general as it deals\nwith man, are all rapidly tending to a point of view which will shew,\nthat what keeps the whole complex process of the human organism in\nworking order is just this comparatively separate functioning of its\nthree separate systems, the head system, the circulation, or chest\nsystem and the metabolic system,--that there is no such thing as\nabsolute centralisation in the human organism, and, moreover, that\neach of these systems has its own special and distinct relation to\nthe outer world, the head system through the senses, the rhythmic\nor circulatory system through the breathing, the metabolic system\nthrough the organs of nourishment and organs of movement. What\nI have here indicated goes much deeper down to spiritual sources\nthat I have tried to utilise for natural science. In natural-science\ncircles themselves, it is a fact not yet so generally recognised as\nmight perhaps be desirable for the advancement of knowledge; but that\nmerely means that our habits of thought, our whole way of picturing\nthe world to ourselves, is not yet completely adapted to the inner\nlife and being of nature's workings, as manifested, for instance,\nin the human organism. People of course may say, \"No matter. Natural\nscience can afford to wait. She will come to her ideals bit by bit,\nand views such as yours will gain recognition all in good time.\" But\nthe body social cannot afford to wait, neither for the right views\nnor for the right practice. Here an understanding is necessary,--if\nonly an instinctive one,--of what the body social needs,--and not\nmerely an understanding amongst a handful of experts, but in every\nsingle human soul;--for every human soul takes its own share in the\ngeneral working of the body social. Sane thinking and feeling, sane\nwill and desires as to the form to be given the body social,--these\nare only to be developed, when one comes to recognise,--even though\nonly instinctively,--that, in order to thrive, the social organism,\nlike the natural one, requires to be threefold.\n\nNow, since Sch\u00e4ffle wrote his book on the structure of the social\norganism, all sorts of attempts have been made to trace out analogies\nbetween the organic structure of a natural creature,--a human being,\nsay,--and of a community of human beings. People have tried to map\nout the body social into cells, network of cells, tissues and so\nforth. Only a little while ago, there was a book published by M\u00e9ray,\n\"World Mutations,\" in which various natural science facts and laws\nwere simply transferred to what is supposed to be man's social\norganism. That sort of analogy-game has nothing whatever to do with\nwhat is meant here; and anyone who mistakes what is said above for\njust such another play upon analogies between the natural and the\nsocial organism, has plainly not entered into the spirit of these\nobservations. The present comparison is not an attempt to take some\nnatural science truth and transplant it into the social system. Its\nobject is quite different:--namely, to use the human body as an\nobject lesson for training human thought and feeling to a sense\nof what organic life requires, and then to apply this perceptive\nsense to the body social. If one simply transfers to the body social\nsomething one thinks one has found out about the human body,--as is\ncommonly done,--it merely shews that one is not willing to acquire\nthe faculties needed for studying the social organism in the way one\nhas to study the natural organism,--that is, as a thing by itself,\nwith special laws of its own.\n\nIt might again be thought, that this manner of depicting the social\norganism arises from the belief that it should be \"built up\" after\nsome cut-and-dried theory borrowed from natural science. Nothing could\nbe further from all that is here in question. What I am trying to\nshew is something very different. The present crisis in the history\nof mankind demands the development in every single human being of\ncertain faculties of apprehension, of which the first rudiments must\nbe started by the schools and system of education,--like the first\nfour rules of arithmetic. Hitherto, the body social received its\nolder forms from something that never entered consciously into the\nlife of the human soul; but in the future this force will cease to be\nactive. Fresh evolutionary impulses are coming in, and from now on will\nbe active in human life; and it is part of them, that every individual\nshould be required to have these faculties of apprehension, just as\neach individual has long been required to have a certain measure of\neducation. From now on, it is necessary that the individual should\nbe trained to have a healthy sense of how the forces of the body\nsocial must work in order for it to live. People must learn to feel,\nthat it would be unhealthy, anti-social, not to possess such sense\nof what the body social needs and to want to take one's place in it.\n\nOne hears much talk to-day about \"socialisation\" as the thing that\nthe age needs. But this socialisation will prove no true cure but a\nquack remedy, possibly even a fatal one for social life, unless in\nmen's hearts, in men's souls, there dawns at least an instinctive\nperception of the necessity for a threefold division of the body\nsocial. If the body social is to function healthily, it must regularly\ndevelope three organic divisions such as here described.\n\nOne of these three divisions is the economic life. It is the best\none to begin with here, because it has obviously, through modern\ntechnical industry and modern capitalism, worked its way into the\nwhole structure of human society, to the subordination of everything\nelse. This economic life requires to form an independent organic branch\nby itself within the body social,--relatively as independent as the\nnervous and sensory system within the human body. Its concern is with\neverything in the nature of production of commodities, circulation\nof commodities, consumption of commodities.\n\nNext comes the life of public right,--political life in the proper\nsense. This must be recognised as forming a second branch of the\nbody social. To this branch belongs what one might term the true life\nof the State,--taking \"State\" in the sense in which it was formerly\napplied to a community possessing common rights.\n\nWhilst economic life is concerned with all that a man needs from Nature\nand what he himself produces from Nature,--with commodities and the\ncirculation and consumption of commodities,--the second branch of the\nbody social can have no other concern than what is involved in purely\nhuman relations, in that which comes up from the deep-recesses of the\ninner life and affects man's relation towards man. It is essential\nto a right understanding of the composition of the social organism,\nthat one should clearly recognise the difference between the system\nof \"public right,\" which can only deal from inner and purely human\ngrounds with man-to-man relations, and the economic system, which is\nconcerned solely with the production, circulation and consumption of\ncommodities. People must become possessed of an instinctive sense for\ndistinguishing between these two in life, so that in practice the\neconomic life and the life of \"right\" will be kept distinct;--just\nas, in man's natural organism, the lungs' function in working up the\nouter air keeps distinct from the processes going on in the nervous\nand sensory life.\n\nAs the third division, alongside the other two and equally independent,\nare to be understood all those things in the social organism which are\nconnected with mental and spiritual life. The term \"spiritual culture,\"\nor \"everything that is connected with mental and spiritual life,\"\nis scarcely a term that accurately describes it in any way. Perhaps\none might more accurately express it as \"Everything that rests on the\nnatural endowments of each single human being--everything that plays\na part in the body social on the ground of the natural endowments,\nboth spiritual and physical, of the individual.\"\n\nThe first function,--the economic one,--has to do with everything\nthat must exist in order that man may keep straight in his material\nadjustments to the world around him. The second function has to do\nwith whatever must exist in the body social because of men's personal\nrelations to one another. The third function has to do with all that\nmust spring from the personal individuality of each human being,\nand must be incorporated as personal individuality in the body social.\n\nThe more true it is that our social life has of recent years taken its\nstamp from modern technical industry and modern capitalism, the more\nnecessary it is, that the injury thus unavoidably done to the body\nsocial should be healed by bringing man, and man's communal life, into\nright relation to these three systems of the body social. Economic\nlife has, in recent times, singly and of itself, taken on quite\nnew forms. And because it has worked all alone, unbalanced, it has\nasserted undue power and preponderance in human life. The two other\nbranches of social life have not until now been in a position to work\nthemselves in this matter-of-course way into the social organism and\nbecome incorporated with it according to their own proper laws. Here\nman must step in, with the instinctive sense I spoke of, and set to\nwork to evolve the threefold order, each individual working on the\nspot and at the spot where he happens to be. To attempt to solve the\nsocial problem in the way meant here, will leave not one individual\nwithout his task, now and in the days that are coming.\n\nTo begin with the first division of the body social, the economic\nlife:--This is grounded primarily in conditions of Nature,--just as\nthe individual man starts with special qualities of mind and body\nas the basis for what he may be able to make of himself by study,\neducation and the teaching of life. This nature-basis sets a unique\nstamp on economic life, and through economic life on the whole\norganism of society. It is there, this nature-basis, and no methods\nof social organisation, no manner of socialising measures, can affect\nit,--at least, not radically. One must accept this nature-basis as\nthe groundwork of life for the body social,--just as, in educating an\nindividual, one must take his natural qualities as groundwork,--how\nnature has endowed him in this or that respect, his mental and physical\npower. Every experiment in socialisation, every attempt at giving\nman's communal life an economic form, must take this nature-basis\ninto account. At the bottom of all circulation of commodities,\nof all human labour, and of every form of spiritual life too, there\nlies something primal, elementary, basic, which links man to a bit of\nnature. The connection between a social organism and its nature-basis\nis a thing that has to be taken into consideration,--just as one has\nto consider an individual in regard to his personal endowment, when\nit is a question of his learning something.--This is most obvious in\nextreme cases. Take, for instance, those parts of the earth, where the\nbanana affords man an easily accessible form of food. Here, it will\nbe a question of the amount and kind of labour that must be expended\nto bring the banana from its place of origin to a convenient spot\nand deliver it ready for consumption; and this will enter into all\nconsiderations of men's communal life together. If one compares the\nhuman labour, that must be exerted to make the banana ready for human\nconsumption, with the labour that must be exerted in Central Europe,\nsay, to make wheat ready for consumption, it is at least three hundred\ntimes less for the banana than for the wheat.\n\nOf course that is an extreme case. But similar differences in\nproportion to the nature-basis exist between the amounts of labour that\nare requisite in the other branches of production represented in the\nvarious social communities of Europe. The differences are not so marked\nas in the case of bananas and wheat,--still, they exist. Accordingly,\nit is inherent to the body economic, that the amount of labour-power\nwhich man has to put into the economic process is proportionate to\nthe nature-basis of his economic activities. Compare the wheat-yields\nalone:--In Germany, in districts of average fertility, the returns\non wheat cultivation represent about a sevenfold to eightfold crop on\nthe seed sewn; in Chile, the crop is twelvefold; in Northern Mexico,\nseventeenfold; in Peru, twenty fold. (See Jensen.)\n\nThe whole of this living complex of processes, that begin with man's\nrelation to nature, and continue through all that man has to do to\ntransform nature's products, down to the point where they are ready for\nconsumption,--these processes, and these alone for a healthy social\norganism, comprise its economic system. In the social organism, the\neconomic system occupies somewhat the same place as is occupied in\nthe whole human organism by the head-system, which conditions the\nindividual's abilities. But this head-system is dependent on the\nlung-and-heart system; and in the same way the economic system is\ndependent on the services of human labour. The head, however, cannot\nof itself alone regulate the breathing; and neither should the system\nof human labour-power be regulated by the forces that are operative\nwithin the economic life itself. It is through his interests that man\nis engaged in economic life, and these have their foundation in the\nneeds of his soul and spirit.--In what way can a social organism most\nexpediently incorporate men's interests, so that on the one hand the\nindividual may find in this social organism the best possible means of\nsatisfying his personal interest, whilst being economically employed\nto the best advantage?--This is the question that has to be practically\nsolved in the institutions of the body economic. It can only be solved,\nif these individual interests are given really free scope, and if at\nthe same time there exists the will and possibility to do what is\nnecessary to their satisfaction. These interests arise in a region\noutside the confines of the economic life. They grow up as man's\nown being unfolds its soul and physical nature. It is the business\nof economic life to make arrangements for their satisfaction. The\nonly arrangement however that the economic life can make, are such\nas are limited to the delivery and exchange of commodities,--that is\nof goods which acquire their value from men's wants. The value of a\ncommodity comes from the person consuming it. And owing to the fact,\nthat its value comes from the consumer, a commodity occupies quite a\ndifferent position within the social organism from other things that\nhave a value for man as part of that organism. Study the whole circle\nof economic life, putting aside all preconceptions,--the production,\ncirculation and consumption of commodities going on within it. One\nobserves at once the difference in character between the relation\nthat arises when one man makes commodities for another, and that human\nrelation that has its foundation in mutual right. One will not however\nstop short at merely observing the difference; one will follow it up\npractically, and insist that economic life and the life of \"right\"\nshould be kept completely separate within the body social. Institutions\ndevoted to the production and exchange of commodities require men\nto develope forms of activity that are not immediately productive of\nthe very best impulses for their mutual relations in \"right.\" Within\nthe economic sphere man turns to his fellow because it suits their\nreciprocal interests. Radically different is the link between man\nand man in the sphere of \"right.\"\n\nIt may be thought perhaps, that the distinction which life requires\nbetween the two things is adequately recognised, if the institutions\nestablished for the purposes of economic life also make provision\nfor the \"rights\" that are involved in the mutual relations of the\npeople engaged in it. But such a notion has no root in reality. The\nrelation \"in right,\" that necessarily exists between a man and his\nfellows, is one that can only be rightly felt and lived outside the\neconomic sphere, on totally different soil, not inside it. In the\nhealthy social organism, therefore, there must be another system\nof life, alongside the economic life and independent of it, where\nhuman rights can grow up and find suitable administration. But the\n\"rights\" life is, strictly, the political sphere,--the true sphere of\nthe State. If the interests that men have to serve in their economic\nlife are carried over into the legislation and administration of the\n\"rights\" State, then these rights as they grow up will merely be an\nexpression of economic interests; whilst, if the \"rights\" State takes\non the management of economic affairs, it is no longer fitted to rule\nmen's \"life of rights\"; since all its measures and institutions will\nbe forced to serve man's need for commodities, and thereby diverted\nfrom those impulses which make for the life of rights.\n\nA healthy social organism, therefore, requires, as a second branch\nalongside the body economic, the independent political life of the\nState. In the separate body economic, the forces of economic life\nitself will guide men to such institutions as best serve the production\nand interchange of commodities. In the body politic, the State,\ninstitutions will arise, where dealings between individuals and groups\nwill be settled on lines that satisfy men's sense of right. This demand\nfor complete separation of the \"rights-State\" from the economic sphere\nproceeds from a standpoint of reality. Reality is not the standpoint of\nthose who seek to combine the life of rights and economics in one. The\npeople engaged in economic life of course possess the sense of right,\nbut they will only be able to legislate and administrate in the\nway \"right\" requires,--i.e., from the sense of right alone without\nany admixture of economic interests,--when they come to consider\nquestions of right independently, in a \"rights\" State that takes,\nqu\u00e2 State, no part in economic life. A \"rights\" State, such as this,\nhas its own legislative and administrative bodies, both constructed\naccording to those principles that ensue from the modern sense of\nright. It will be built up on those impulses in human consciousness,\nwhich go to-day by the name of \"democratic.\" The legislative and\nadministrative bodies in the economic domain will arise out of the\nforces of economic life. Such transactions as are necessary between\nthe executive heads of the legislative and administrative bodies of\n\"rights\" and economics respectively, will be carried on pretty much as\nbetween the governments of sovereign states to-day. This co-ordination\nof the two systems will make it possible for developments in the one\nbody to exert the needful influence on the other. This influence of\nthe two spheres on one another is prevented, when one of them tries\nto develope within itself the element that should come to it from\nthe other.\n\nThe economic life, then, is dependent on the one hand on those\nrelations in \"right,\" which the State establishes between the persons\nand groups of persons engaged in economic work, just as, on the other\nhand, it is subject to the conditions of the nature-basis (climate,\nlocal features, presence of mineral wealth, etc.). The bounds are\nthus marked out on either side for the proper and possible activities\nof economic life. Just as nature creates predetermining conditions,\nwhich lie outside the economic sphere, and must be accepted by the\nman at work in it as the given premises on which all his economic\nwork must be based,--so everything in the economic sphere that\nestablishes a \"relation in right\" between man and man, must, in a\nhealthy social organism, be regulated by the \"rights-State,\" which,\nlike the nature-basis, goes on alongside and independently of the\neconomic life. In the present social organism,--as developed in the\ncourse of mankind's historic evolution up till now,--economic life\noccupies an unduly large place, and sets the peculiar stamp that it\nhas acquired from the machine-age and modern capitalism upon the whole\nsocial movement. It has come to include more than it should include\nin any healthy society. In the present day, trafficking to and fro\nwithin the economic circuit, where only commodities should traffic,\nwe find human labour-power, and human rights besides. At the present\nday, within the body economic, one can truck not only commodities for\ncommodities, but commodities for human labour,--and for human rights\nas well, and all by the very same economic process. (By \"commodity\"\nI mean everything which through human activity has acquired the form\nin which it is finally brought by man to its place of destination for\nconsumption. Economists may perhaps find this definition objectionable\nor inadequate; but it may be serviceable towards an understanding of\nwhat properly belongs to economic life. [3])\n\nWhen anyone acquires a plot of land by purchase, one must regard it as\nan exchange of the land for commodities for which the purchase money\nstands proxy. The plot of land however does not act as a commodity in\neconomic life. It holds its position in the body social through the\n\"right\" the owner has to use it. There is an essential difference\nbetween this right of use, and the relation of a producer to the\ncommodity he produces. From the very nature of the producer's relation\nto his product, it cannot possibly enter into the totally different\nkind of man-to-man relation created by the fact that someone has been\ngranted the sole right to use a certain piece of land. Other men are\nobliged to live on this land, or the owner sets them to work on it\nfor their living; and thus he brings them into a State of dependence\nupon himself. The fact of mutually exchanging genuine commodities,\nwhich one produces or consumes, does not establish a dependence that\naffects the man-to-man relation in the same kind of way.\n\nTo an unprejudiced mind it is clear, that a fact of actual life,\nsuch as this, must, in a healthy society, find due expression in\nits social institutions. So long as there is simply an interchange\nof commodities for commodities in economic life, the value of these\ncommodities is determined independently of the relations-of-right\nexisting between individuals or groups. Directly commodities are\ninterchanged for rights, the \"rights relation\" is itself affected. It\nis not a question of the exchange in itself; such an exchange is the\ninevitable life-element of the modern social organism, resting as it\ndoes on division of labour. The point is, that through this interchange\nof rights and commodities, \"right\" itself is turned into a commodity,\nwhen the source of \"right\" lies within the economic life. The only way\nof preventing this, is by having two sets of institutions in the body\nsocial,--one, whose sole and only object it is to conduct commodities\nin the most expedient manner along its circuit, the other regulating\nthose human rights involved in commodity-exchange which arise between\nthe individuals engaged in producing, trading and consuming. Such\nrights are not distinct in their nature from any other rights that\nnecessarily exist in all relations between persons, quite independent\nof commodity-exchange. If I injure or benefit my fellow-man by the\nsale of a commodity, it falls within the same social category as\nan injury or benefit due to some action or negligence not directly\nexpressed in an exchange of commodities.\n\nIn the organisation of economic life, that familiarity with business,\nwhich comes from practical experience and specialist training,\nwill give the point of view needed by the person at the head of\naffairs. In the \"rights\" organisation, the laws and administration\nwill give effect to the general sense of right in the dealings\nof persons and groups with one another. The economic organisation\nwill assist the formation of Associations amongst people who from\ntheir calling, or as consumers, have the same interests or similar\nrequirements. And this network of Associations, working together,\nwill build up the whole fabric of industrial economy, The economic\norganisation will grow up on an associative basis, and out of the\nlinks between the Associations. The work of the Associations will be\npurely economic in character, and be carried on on a basis of \"rights\"\nprovided by the rights-organisation. These Associations, being able\nto make their economic interests recognised in the representative and\nadministrative bodies of the economic organisation, will not feel any\nneed to force themselves into the legislative or executive government\nof the \"rights-State\" (as, for instance, a Landowners' League, or\nManufacturers' Party, or a Socialist party representing an industrial\nprogramme), in order to effect there what they have no power to achieve\nwithin the limits of the economic life. If the \"rights-State\" again\ntakes no part whatever in any branch of industrial economy, then the\ninstitutions it establishes will be such only as spring from the sense\nof right amongst its members. Although the persons who sit on the\nrepresentative body of the rights-State may, and of course will, be\nthe same as are taking an active part in economic life, yet, owing to\nthe division of function, economic life will not be able to exert such\nan influence on the \"rights life,\" that the health of the whole body\nsocial is undermined,--as it can be, when the state itself organises\nbranches of economic life, with representatives of the economic world\nas state-legislators, making laws to suit economic interests.\n\nA typical example of the fusion of the economic life with the\nrights-life was afforded by Austria. According to the constitution\nadopted by Austria in the eighteen-sixties, the representatives of the\nimperial assembly, the \"Reichsrat,\" of that compound territory, were\nelected from the communities representing the four branches of economic\nlife:--the landed proprietors,--the chambers of commerce,--the towns,\nmarkets and industrial centres,--and the rural areas. Obviously, in\nthis composition of the representative State-assembly, the first and\nonly idea was, that of playing off the economic interests against one\nanother, in the belief that a system of political rights must be the\noutcome. No doubt the disruptive forces of her divers nationalities\ncontributed largely to Austria's downfall. But it may be taken as no\nless certain, that if an opportunity had been given for developing\na system of \"rights,\" working alongside and outside of the economic\none, it would, from the common sense of right, have evolved a form\nof society in which the different nationalities could have lived\ntogether in unity.\n\nA person engaged in public life to-day usually turns his attention\nto things in it that are only of secondary consideration. This is\nbecause his habits of thought lead him to regard the body social as\nuniform in structure. As a uniform structure, there is no form of\nsuffrage he can devise that will fit it; for the economic interest\nand the impulses of human rights will come into mutual conflict\nupon the representative body, however it may be elected; and the\nconflict between them will affect social life in a way that must\nresult in severe shocks to the whole organism of society. The first\nand indispensable object to be worked for in public life to-day\nmust be the radical separation of economic life from the \"rights\"\norganisation. And as the separation becomes gradually established,\nand people grow into it, the two organisations will each in the\nprocess discover its own most appropriate method of selecting its\nlegislators and administrature. Amongst all that at the present moment\nis clamouring for settlement, forms of suffrage, although they bear\non fundamental issues, are nevertheless of secondary consideration.\n\nWhere the old conditions still exist, these can be taken as the basis\nfrom which to work towards the new separation of function. Where the\nold order has already melted away, or is in process of dissolution,\nthere individuals and little groups of people must find the initiative\nto start reconstructing along the new lines of growth. To try in 24\nhours to effect a transformation in public life, is recognised by\nthoughtful socialists themselves as midsummer madness. They look to\ngradual opportune changes to bring about what they regard as social\nwelfare. The light of facts, however,--must make it plain to any\nimpartial observer, that a reasoning will and purpose are needed to\nmake a new social order, and are imperatively demanded by the forces\nat work in mankind's historic evolution.\n\nThese remarks will be regarded as \"unpractical\" by someone who regards\nnothing as practicable outside the narrow horizon of his customary\nlife. Unless he can see things differently, any influence he may\nretain in any sphere of life will not tend to heal the disease\nin the body social, but only to make it worse. It was people of\nhis way of thinking who helped to bring about the present state\nof affairs. There must be a reversal of the movement which has\nset in in leading circles, and which has already brought various\ndepartments of economic life (e.g., the postal and railway services,\netc.), within the workings of the State. Its opposite must begin:\na movement towards the elimination of all economic activity from the\ndomain of politics and State organisation. Thinkers, whose whole will\nand purpose, as they believe, is directed to the welfare of society,\ntake this movement towards State control, started by the hitherto\ngoverning circles, and push it to its logical extreme. They propose to\nsocialise all the materials of economic life, in so far as they are\nmeans of production. A healthy course of development, however, will\ngive economic life its independence, and will give the political State\na system of \"right\" through which it can bring its influence to bear\non the body economic,--so that the individual shall not feel that his\nfunction within the body social gives the lie to his sense of right.\n\nWhen one considers the work that a man does for the body social\nby means of his physical labour-power, it is plain that the above\nreflections are grounded in the actual life of men. The position which\nlabour has come to occupy in the social order under the capitalistic\nform of economy, is such, that is purchased by the employer from the\nemployed as a commodity. An exchange is effected between money (as\nrepresenting commodities) and labour. But in reality no such exchange\ncan take place; it only appears to do so. [4] What really happens is,\nthat the employer receives in return from the worker commodities that\ncannot exist, unless the worker devotes his labour-power to creating\nthem. The worker receives one part, the employer the other part of\nthe commodity so created. The production of the commodity is the\nresult of a co-operation between employer and employed. The product\nof their joint action is that which first passes into the circuit of\neconomic life. For the product to come into existence, there must\nbe a \"relation in right\" between worker and \"enterpriser\"; but the\ncapitalist type of economy is able to convert this \"rights\" relation\ninto one determined by the employer's superiority in economic power\nover the employed. In a healthy social order, it will be obvious that\nlabour cannot be paid for, that one cannot set an economic value upon\nit comparable to the value of a commodity. The commodity produced by\nthis labour first acquires an economic value by comparison with other\ncommodities. The kind of work a man must do for the maintenance of the\nbody social, how he does it, and the amount, must be settled according\nto his abilities and the conditions of a decent human existence. And\nthis is only possible when such questions are settled by the political\nstate, quite independently of the provisions and regulations made in\nthe economic life.\n\nThis settlement of labour conditions outside economics, pre-establishes\na basis of value for commodities comparable to the basis already\nestablished by the conditions of nature. The value of one commodity,\nas measured by another, is increased by the fact that its raw material\nis more difficult to procure; and, similarly, the value of a commodity\nmust be made dependent on the kind and amount of labour which the\n\"rights\" system allows to be expended on its production. [5]\n\nThus economic life has its conditions fixed on two sides. On one,\nthere is the \"nature-basis,\" which man must take as he finds it;\non the other, will be the \"rights-basis\" which has to be created on\nthe free and independent ground of the political State,--detached\nfrom economic life, and out of the common sense of right.\n\nIt is obvious, that in a social organism conducted in this way the\nstandard of economic well-being will rise and fall with the amount of\nlabour which the common sense of right expends upon it. This however\nmust be so in a healthy society. Only the subordination of the general\neconomic prosperity to the common sense of right can prevent man from\nbeing so used up and consumed by economic life that his existence\nno longer seems to him worthy of his humanity. And it is this sense\nof an existence unworthy of human beings that is, in reality, at the\nbottom of the convulsions in the body social.\n\nShould the general standard of economic well-being be too greatly\nlowered on the \"rights\" side, there is a way of preventing this,\njust as there is a way of improving the nature-basis. One can employ\ntechnical means to make a less productive soil more productive; and,\nif prosperity declines over much, the mode and amount of work can\nbe changed. Only, such changes should not be a direct consequence of\nprocesses in the economic life; they must be the outcome of insight,\narrived at on the free ground of \"rights,\" independent of economic\nlife.\n\nThere is, however, another element again, which enters into everything\nthat is contributed towards the organisation of social life, whether by\nthe economic life or by the \"rights-consciousness.\" This element comes\nfrom a third source: the personal abilities of the individual. This\nthird domain includes everything from the loftiest achievements of\nthe human mind to that element in all the works of men which comes\nfrom their bodily ability to render greater or less service to the\nbody social. A healthy social organism must necessarily receive\nand assimilate whatever comes from this source in quite a different\nmanner from what comes to it from the life of the State or that finds\nexpression in the interchange of commodities. To absorb this element\nhealthily into social life can only be done in one way, and that is,\nby leaving it entirely to men's free receptivity and to the impulses\nwhich personal ability itself brings with it. What is performed at\nthe promptings of personal ability, loses to a great extent the very\ngroundwork of its existence, when subjected to artificial influences\nfrom the State organisation or from the economic system. For the\nonly true groundwork of such performances lies in that inherent force\nthat finds its evolution through human performance itself. If again\nthe way in which such individual performances are taken up into\nthe body social directly depends on the economic life,--or if the\nState organises it,--there is then a check upon that free spontaneous\nreceptivity, which is the only sound and wholesome channel for their\nreception. For the spiritual life of the body social, there is but one\npossible line of healthy evolution;--and it must not be forgotten,\nby what innumerable fine threads this spiritual life is connected\nwith the evolution of all other individual potentialities in human\nlife. What it does, must be the outcome of its own impulses; and those\nwho receive its services must be closely bound up with it in sympathy\nand understanding. Such, as here sketched, are the requisite conditions\nfor a sound evolution of the spiritual life of the body social. What\nprevents them from being clearly perceived, is that people's eyes\nare blurred through constantly seeing the spiritual life in great\npart fused and confounded with the political State system. The\nfusion has been taking place through several hundreds of years,\nand they have grown accustomed to it. They talk, it is true, about\n\"freedom of knowledge\" and \"freedom of education\"; but, all the same,\nthey consider it a matter of course that the political State should\nhave control of this \"free\" knowledge and \"free\" education. They do\nnot see nor feel, how in this way the state is bringing all spiritual\nlife into dependence on state requirements. The notion is, that the\nState provides the educational posts, and that the spiritual life\nthen unfolds \"freely\" under the hands of the people who fill these\nState posts. Through long thinking in this way, people come to forget\nwhat an intimate connection there is between the inmost nature of\nman and the substance of the spiritual life growing up within him,\nand how impossible it is for the growth of this spiritual substance\nto be really free, if it owes its place in the body social to any\nother impulses than those alone which proceed from the spiritual\nlife itself. Science, with all that part of spiritual life which it\naffects, has received its whole cast from the fact of its management\nforming part of the State system in recent centuries. And not only\nso, but this fusion with the State has set its stamp on the substance\nof science as well. Of course, the results of mathematics or physics\ncannot be directly influenced by the State. But consider history and\nother subjects of general culture:--Have not they come to reflect\nthe connection of their professional representatives with the State\nsystem?--to be an obedient mirror of State requirements?\n\nThe peculiar stamp thus acquired by our present-day mental conceptions,\nin which the scientific turn of thought predominates over every\nother, is just what makes them a mere ideology as they affect the\nworking-class. The workers have observed, how men's thoughts acquire a\ncertain character, arising out of the requirements of state life,--a\nState life that suits the interests of the ruling classes. It was a\nreflection of material interests, and of the war of interests, that\nthe worker saw when he looked into his thoughts. Thus there arose in\nhim a sense that all spiritual life whatever was ideology, a mirrored\nimage of the economic order of affairs. Such a view of things works\nhavoc with men's spiritual life. But its blighting effects will cease,\nonce it becomes possible for them to feel that in the spiritual domain\nthere reigns a reality that transcends material outward life and\nbears its own substance within itself. No such sense of a spiritual\nreality can, however, possibly arise, unless the spiritual life is\nfree within the body social to expand and govern itself according\nto the impulses inherent in it. Only those, who have their part in a\nspiritual life thus freely expanding and freely governed, can represent\nit with that strength and vigour which shall ensure it its due place\nwithin the body social. Such an independent position within human\nsociety is indispensable for art, science and a philosophy of life,\nwith all that goes with these. The freedom of one cannot prosper\nwithout the freedom of all. Although in their substance mathematics\nand physics may not be influenced directly by State requirements,\nyet how they are applied, the estimate people form of their value,\nthe effect their pursuit has upon the rest of spiritual life, all\nthese and many other points are determined by State requirements,\nwhenever some of the branches of spiritual life are under State\ncontrol. It is one thing, when the teacher of the lowest grade in\nthe school follows the line along which the State impells him; it is\nanother, when he takes his line from a spiritual life that rests on\nits own independent footing. Here again, social democracy has done\nno more than take over a habit of thought and conventions inherited\nfrom the ruling classes. Social democracy sets before itself as\nan ideal the incorporation of spiritual life in a social structure\nbased on a system of industrial economy. But, were its aim attained,\nit would be only a further step along the same road that has led to\nthe present depreciation of spiritual life. It was a right feeling,\nbut a one-sided one that found expression in the socialist maxim:\n\"Religion is a man's private affair\"; for, in a healthy society,\nall spiritual life must in this sense be a private affair, so far\nas concerns the State and economic life. Only, social democracy does\nnot relegate religion to the sphere of private affairs with any idea\nof thus establishing its status as spiritual wealth, and giving it a\nposition within the social order where it may attain to a higher and\nmore worthy development than under the State's influence. No; it's\nidea in so doing is, that the resources of the body social should\nonly be used to cultivate what it needs for its own existence, and\nthat the religious kind of spiritual wealth does not come under this\nhead. This is not the way in which one branch of spiritual life can\nprosper, singled out as an exemption from public life, whilst all the\nrest remain in bondage. The religious life of mankind in this new age\nwill go hand in hand with emancipated spiritual life in every form, and\ngrow to a force able to bear up the souls of the men of the new age.\n\nIt is a matter for the soul's own free demand, how the spiritual\nlife is received into men, no less than how it comes forth from\nthem. Teachers, artists and others will find, that they have an\naltogether different influence, and are able to awaken an understanding\namongst the public for what they are creating, when they themselves\nhave a place in the social order which has no direct connection\nwith any legislature or government, but only with such as arise from\nimpulses that lie in the course of the spiritual life itself; when too\nthey are appealing to people, who are not simply under compulsion to\nlabour, but for whom an autonomous and independent political State\nalso ensures the right to leisure,--leisure which awakens the mind\nto an appreciation of spiritual values. Here one will very likely\nbe told by someone, that his own \"practical experience,\"--of which\nhe has a great opinion,--convinces him, that if this notion were\ncarried out,--if the State made definite provision for leisure\nhours, and if school attendance were left to people's own sense,\nit would simply mean that people would spend all their leisure in\nthe public house and relapse into a state of brute ignorance. Well,\nlet such \"pessimists\" wait and see what will happen when the world\nis no longer under their influence. Their line of action is all too\noften prescribed by a subtle feeling, a secret voice, that whispers\nin their ear, how they themselves like to spend their leisure hours,\nand the steps that were necessary to ensure themselves having a decent\neducation. Of the free spiritual life, of its power to fire and kindle,\nwhen left to itself within the body social,--of this such persons\nnaturally take no account. They know the spiritual life in bondage\nonly, and so it has no power to kindle any spark within themselves.\n\nBoth the political State and the economic system will obtain from the\nbody spiritual, when under its own self-administration, that steady\ninflow from the spiritual life, of which they are in need. Practical\ntraining too for economic life will for the first time fully develope\nits full possibilities, when the economic system and the body spiritual\ncan co-operate in freedom. People will come with a suitable training\ninto the economic field and will put life into all they meet with\nthere, through the strength that comes from spiritual endowment set\nfree from restraint. And people, who have won their experience in the\neconomic field, will find their way into the spiritual organisation,\nand help to fertilise what there needs fertilising.\n\nThe effect within the political State of spiritual abilities being left\nfree, will be the growth of sane and sound views, such as are needed\nin this field. The man who works with his hands will be able to feel\ncontented with the place his own labour fills in the body social. He\nwill come to realise that the body social cannot float him, unless\nhis hand-work has the guidance requisite for its organisation. He\nwill acquire a sense of the solidarity of his own labour with those\norganising forces which he can trace to the development of personal\ntalent. The political State will afford him a ground on which he can\nestablish the \"rights\" that secure to him his share in the proceeds of\nthe commodities he produces; and he will freely allot to the spiritual\nproperty, from which he benefits, a portion sufficient to keep it\nproductive. There will be a possibility for producers in the spiritual\nfield, too, to live on the proceeds of their work. What anyone chooses\nto do in the matter of spiritual work, will be nobody's affair but his\nown; but for any service he may render to the body social he will be\nable to count on willing recompense from people to whom spiritual goods\nare a necessity. Anyone, who is not satisfied with the recompense he\nreceives under the spiritual organisation, must have recourse to one of\nthe other fields, either to the political state, or to economic life.\n\nInto the economic life pass those technical ideas which originate\nin the spiritual life. Their origin is in the spiritual life, even\nalthough they proceed directly from persons belonging to the State or\nto the economic world. In the spiritual life originate all those ideas\nand organising capacities that enrich the life of the State and of\nindustrial economy. For everything thus supplied to both these fields\nof social life from the spiritual source, the recompense will either,\nas in the other cases, be raised through voluntary recognition on the\npart of those who directly draw from this source, or else it will\nbe regulated by the \"rights\" that gradually become built up in the\npolitical sphere. What the political State itself needs for its own\nmaintenance, will be raised by a system of taxation, which will be the\noutcome of a harmonious co-ordination of the claims of economic life,\non the one hand, and those of the \"rights-consciousness\" on the other.\n\nAlongside the political sphere and the economic sphere in a healthy\nsociety, there must be the spiritual sphere, functioning independently\non its own footing. The whole trend of the evolutionary force of\nmodern mankind is in the direction of this threefolding of the social\norganism. So long as the life of the community could be guided in all\nessentials by the instinctive forces at work in the mass of mankind,\nso long there was no urgent tendency towards this definite separation\ninto three functions. At bottom, there were always these three distinct\nsources; but in a yet dim and dully conscious social life they worked\ntogether as one. Our modern age demands conscious co-operation on\nthe part of man, and that he should take his place open-eyed in the\nworkings of the body social. This new social consciousness must,\nhowever, be directed from three aspects, if it is to shape men's life\nand conduct healthily. It is this threefold line of evolution towards\nwhich modern humanity is striving in the soul's unconscious depths;\nand what finds outlet in the social movement is but the stormy light\ncast up from the fires below.\n\nAt the end of the eighteenth century, under different circumstances\nfrom those in which we are living to-day, there went up a cry from\nthe hidden depths of human nature for a re-formation of human social\nrelations. Through all the scheme of the new order ran like a motto\nthe three words, Fraternity, Equality, Liberty. Of course, no one\nwith an unprejudiced mind and normal human feeling for the realities\nof human evolution can fail to sympathise with all that these three\nwords imply. But still, in the course of the nineteenth century there\nwere keen thinkers who were at pains to point out the impossibility\nof realising the three ideas of brotherhood, equality and freedom in\nany homogeneous and uniform order of society. It seemed to them clear,\nthat these three impulses must contradict one another in social life,\nif carried actually into practice. It was, for instance, very cleverly\ndemonstrated, that if the impulse towards equality were realised\nthere would be no possible room for that freedom which is so inherent\nin every human being. And whilst one cannot but agree with those who\nsee the contradiction between them, yet at the same time, one's human\nsympathies must go out to all and each of these three ideals in itself!\n\nThese three ideals appear contradictory, until one perceives the\nnecessity for establishing a threefold order of society; and then\ntheir real meaning for social life first becomes apparent. The three\ndivisions must not be artificially dovetailed together and centralised\nunder some theoretical scheme of unity, parliamentary or other. They\nmust be one living reality. Each of the three branches of the body\nsocial must centre in itself; and the unity of the whole will first\ncome about through the workings of the three, side by side and in\ncombination. For in actual life it is the apparent contradictories\nthat make up a unity. Accordingly, one will come to comprehend what\nthe life of the body social is, when one fully perceives the part\nplayed by these three principles of brotherhood, equality and freedom\nin a real, workable form of society. It will then be recognised, that\nmen's co-operation in economic life must rest on that brotherhood\nthat springs out of the Associations. The second system is that of\n\"common rights,\" where one is dealing with purely human relations\nbetween one person and another; and here one must strive to realise\nthe idea of equality. Whilst in the spiritual field, which stands\ncomparatively alone within the body social, it is the idea of freedom\nthat needs to be realised. Seen in this way, these three ideals reveal\ntheir value for real existence. Thy cannot find their realisation in a\nchaotic stream of social life, but only in the threefold working of a\nhealthy social organism. No social state, constructed on an abstract\ncentralised scheme, can carry freedom, equality and brotherhood pall\nmall into practice. But each of the three branches of the body social\ncan derive its strength from one of these ideal impulses; and then\nall three branches will work fruitfully in conjunction.\n\nThose people who, at the end of the eighteenth century, first demanded\nthe recognition of these three ideas, Freedom, Equality, Brotherhood,\nand those who took up the cry again later on,--they had already a dim\nsense of whither the forces of human evolution were tending in modern\ntimes. But they had not got beyond belief in the onefold State. And\nin the onefold State these ideas involve a contradiction. They\npinned their faith to the contradiction, because, deep-down in the\nsub-conscious depths of their souls, there was this striving towards\nthe threefold order of society, in which their trinity of ideas can\nactually achieve a higher unity. To lay hold on those evolutionary\nforces, which through the growth of mankind all through these latter\ntimes, are working towards the threefold order,--to make of them a\nconscious social will and purpose,--this is what is demanded of us\nat the present day in unmistakeable language by the hard facts of\nthe social situation.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nIII.\n\nCAPITALISM AND SOCIAL IDEAS\n(CAPITAL AND HUMAN LABOUR)\n\n\nTo form an opinion as to what the course of action is in the social\nfield, which the facts of the day are so loudly demanding, is only\npossible, if one is willing to be guided in one's opinion by an insight\nwhich goes below the surface, to the fundamental forces of the social\norganism. The following introductory remarks are the outcome of an\neffort to arrive at such an insight. Nothing profitable can be done in\nthe present day with social measures based on opinions that are drawn\nfrom a restricted sphere of observation. The facts that have grown\nout of the social movement reveal disturbances at the foundations\nof the social order, not merely surface ones. And to cope with these\nfacts one needs an insight that also goes to the root of things.\n\nCapital and Capitalism, as talked of to-day, indicates something\nin which the working-class portion of mankind look for the cause\nof their grievances. But to come to any profitable conclusion as\nto the part played by capital within the social processes, whether\nfor good or ill, one must first be perfectly clear as to the way in\nwhich capital is produced and consumed, through the agency of men's\nindividual abilities, of the \"rights\" system, and of the forces of\neconomic life. Human labour one talks of, as the thing that, together\nwith capital and the nature-basis of industry, goes to the creation\nof economic values, and through which the worker becomes conscious\nof his social position. To arrive however at any conclusion, as to\nthe proper way of working human labour into the whole social organism\nwithout injuring the worker's sense of self-respect as a human being,\none needs to keep clearly in sight the relation that human labour\nbears, on the one hand to individual ability and its development, and\non the other to the common sense of right, the \"rights-consciousness.\"\n\nAt the present moment people are very justly asking: What is the most\nimmediate step to be taken in order to satisfy the claims that the\nsocial movement has brought to the front? But there is no taking even\nthe most immediate step to good purpose, without first knowing how\nwhat one is trying to do is related to the fundamental principles of a\nhealthy social order. And once one knows this, then, in whatever place\none may find oneself, or whatever place one may select to work in,\none will discover the particular task that requires doing under the\ncircumstances. The obstacle to acquiring the kind of insight implied\nhere, lies in that element of human will-power, which during the slow\ncourse of years has crystallised into social institutions. Men have\nso grown into these institutions, that the institutions themselves\nform the standpoint from which they view them and consider, what to\nchange and what to leave. Their thoughts follow the lead of the facts,\ninstead of mastering them.\n\nTo-day, it is necessary to see, that one cannot form any judgment\nadequate to the facts, without going back to those primal creative\nthoughts which underlie all social institutions. The body social\nrequires a constant fresh supply of the forces that reside in\nthese primal thoughts; and if the suitable channels are not there,\nthrough which these forces can flow, then social institutions assume\nforms which impede life, instead of furthering it. But although the\nconscious thoughts of men may go astray, although they may,--and\nhave,--created facts that impede life, yet these primal thoughts live\non in men's instinctive impulses. Tumultuously and destructively\nthey break against the world of established facts that hem them\nin; and these primal thoughts it is, which open or disguised, find\ntheir way out in convulsions that threaten to overthrow the social\norder. Such revolutionary convulsions will not cease to occur, until\nthe body social takes a form, in which there may be always both an\ninclination to notice when any institution is beginning to deviate\nfrom its first intention in those primal thoughts, and at the same\ntime the possibility of counter-acting every such deviation before\nit becomes strong enough to be a danger. In our times, the actual\nconditions, throughout a wide range of human life, have come to\ndeviate very widely from what the primal thoughts require. And these\nprimal thoughts, as they live on in the impulses of the human soul,\nare a commentary,--a commentary that voices itself loudly enough\nin facts,--of what has been taking shape in the body social during\nthe last few centuries. What is wanted, is good will and vigorous\nresolution to turn again to these primal thoughts. We must not be\nblind to the mischief that is done, especially at this moment, by\ndismissing these primal thoughts from the field of actual life as\n\"unpractical generalities.\" The facts of life itself, and the claims\nof the working-class masses, afford a practical commentary on what the\nmodern age has made of the body social. The task of our age, in face\nof these facts, is not merely to criticise, but to set about remedying\nthem; which means going to the primal thoughts for the direction in\nwhich we must now consciously guide them. For the time is gone by,\nwhen the old instinctive guidance could suffice for mankind; what it\ncould accomplish up till now, is now no longer enough.\n\nOne of the main questions raised by the practical criticisms of\nthe times is this:--How is a stop to be put to the oppression which\nworking-class humanity suffers under private capitalism. The owner,\nor controller, of capital is in a position to press other men's\nbodily labour into the service of any work he takes on hand? In\nthe social relation that arises in the co-operation of capital and\nhuman labour-power, there are three elements to be distinguished:\nthe enterprising activity, which must rest on the basis of individual\nability in some one person or group of persons;--the relation of the\n\"enterpriser\" to the worker, which must be a \"relation in right\";--and\nthe production of an object which acquires a commodity value in the\ncircuit of economic life. For the \"enterprising\" activity to find\nits scope in a healthy way in the social order, there must be forces\nat work in social life which afford men's individual abilities the\nbest possible mode of manifesting themselves; and therefore there\nmust be one province of the body social which secures a person of\nability free occasion for the employment of his abilities, and makes\nit possible to leave the estimation of their value to other people's\nfree and voluntary understanding.\n\nIt is obvious, that the social activities, which a man is enabled to\nexercise by means of capital, fall within that domain of the body\nsocial which takes its laws and administration from the spiritual\nlife. If the political State interferes to influence these personal\nactivities, then it is unavoidable that its influence should involve\na disregard of individual abilities. For the political State is\nnecessarily based on what is similar and equal in all men's claims\nin life; and it is its business to translate this equality into\npractice. Within its own domain, the State must ensure every man\nhaving a fair chance to make his personal opinion tell. For the work\nthe State has to do, the question of understanding or not understanding\nindividualities does not come in; and therefore whatever the State does\ntowards realising its own principles ought not to have any influence\nupon the exercise of men's individual abilities. Nor should it be\npossible for the prospect of economic advantage to determine the\nexercise of individual ability where capital is needed. Many persons\nin weighing the pros and cons of capitalism lay great stress upon this\neconomic advantage. In their opinion, it is only through the incentive\nwhich this gives to individual ability that individual ability can be\ninduced to exert itself; and they refer, as \"practical men\" to the\n\"imperfections of human nature,\" with which they claim to be well\nacquainted. No doubt, in that social order, under which the present\nstate of things matured, the prospect of economic advantage has come\nto play a very important part, and is in no small measure the very\ncause of that state of things, of which we are now feeling the effects,\nand which calls for the development of some other, different incentive\nto the exercise of individual ability. This incentive must lie in the\n\"social sense,\" that will spring from a healthy spiritual life. Strong\nin the freedom of the spiritual life, a man's education and schooling\nwill send him forth equipped with impulses, that will lead him, thanks\nto this social sense, to realise the bent of his personal abilities.\n\nThere is not necessarily anything high-flown or visionary about such\na belief. No doubt high-flown illusions have wrought immeasureable\nharm in social endeavour, as in other fields. But all that has been\nsaid before is enough to shew, that the view here urged is not based\non any fanciful notion that \"the spirit\" will work wonders, provided\nthe \"spiritually-minded\" only talk enough about it. It is the outcome\nof observation, of watching how people actually work, when they work\ntogether freely in the spiritual field. This work in common, takes,\nof its own nature, a social character, provided it can develope in\nreal freedom.\n\nIt is only the lack of freedom in spiritual life, which has kept\nits social character in abeyance. The fashion in which the forces\nof social life have found expression amongst the leading classes,\nhas restricted their use and value to limited circles of mankind,\nin a way which is anti-social. What was produced in these circles\ncould only be brought artificially within reach of working-class\nmankind. This section of mankind could draw no strength for the support\nof their souls from this spiritual life; for they had no real part nor\nproperty in it. Schemes for \"popular instruction,\" for \"the uplifting\nof the masses,\" \"Art for the People,\" and so forth,--all such things\nare not really the means of spreading spiritual property amongst the\npeople, whilst spiritual property keeps the character it has acquired\nin recent times. For \"the people,\" as regards their inmost life and\nbeing, are not in it. All that it is possible to give them, is as\nit were a bird's-eye view of these spiritual treasures from a point\noutside. And if this is true of spiritual life in its narrower sense,\nit has also its meaning for those offshoots of spiritual activity,\nwhich find their way into economic life on the basis of capital. In a\nsound order of society, the worker will not stand at his machine, and\ncome into contact with nothing but its mechanism; whilst the capitalist\nalone knows what is the destiny of the manufactured commodities in\nthe round of economic life. The workman must share fully in the whole\nconcern, and be able to form a distinct conception of the part that\nhe himself is playing in social life through his work in making the\ncommodity. The enterpriser must hold regular conferences, with the\nobject of arriving at a common field of ideas that shall include both\nemployers and employed. Such conferences must be regarded as being\nas much a part of the business as the actual work. This is a healthy\nway of conducting business, and one that will arouse in the workers\na sense, that by the control of capital, if he uses it properly,\na person benefits the whole community,--including the worker, as\na member of it. The above-board dealing, necessary to a willing\nunderstanding on the part of others, will make the \"enterpriser\"\ncareful to keep his business methods above suspicion.\n\nAll this will not seem negligible to anyone with a sense for the\nsocial effects of that inner community of feeling and experience,\nwhich arises from the prosecution of a common task. Those who possess\nthis sense, will clearly perceive, how greatly it is to the benefit\nof economic activity that the direction of economic affairs, based on\ncapital, should come from the spiritual life, and have its roots in\nthe spiritual domain. This preliminary condition must be fulfilled,\nbefore people's present interest in capital and in increasing it\nsimply for the sake of profits, can give place to an interest in the\nactual business of production and the doing of the job on hand.\n\nPersons of a socialist turn of mind at the present day aim at bringing\nthe means of production under the control of the community. What is\nright and desirable in their aims can only be achieved if this control\nis exercised through the free spiritual domain. Such control through\nthe free spiritual domain will do away with all possibility of that\neconomic coercion, which brings with it such a sense of degradation,\nand which the capitalist exerts when his capitalist activities are\nborn and bred of the forces of economic life; and it will also prevent\nthat crippling of men's individual abilities, which inevitably results\nwhen these abilities are directed by the political State.\n\nEarnings on everything done through capital and individual ability\nmust depend in a healthy social order, like all other spiritual work,\non the free initiative of the doer and on the free appreciation of\nthose who wish the work done. The estimate of what these earnings\nshould be, must, in this field, be in accordance with a man's own\nfree view--on what he is willing to regard as a suitable return\non his work, taking into consideration the preliminary training he\nrequires for it, the incidental expenses to which he is put, etc.,\netc. Whether he finds his claims gratified or not, will depend on\nthe appreciation his services meet with.\n\nSocial arrangements on the lines here proposed will lay the basis\nfor a really free contractual relation between the work-director\nand the work-doer,--a relation resting not on barter of commodities\n(or money) for labour-power, but on an agreement as to the share due\nto each of the two joint authors of the commodity.\n\nThe sort of service, that is rendered to the body social on the\nbasis of capital, depends of its very essence on the part played in\nit by men's individual abilities. Nothing but the free spiritual\nlife can give men's abilities the impulse they need for their\ndevelopment. Even in a society, where the development of individual\nability is tied up with the administration of the political State,\nor to the forces of economic life, even there, real productivity, in\neverything requiring the expenditure of capital depends on as much\nof free individual power as can find its way through the shackles\nimposed upon it. Only, under such conditions, the development is an\nunhealthy one. It is not the free development of individual ability,\nexercised on a basis of capital, that has brought about conditions\nunder which human labour-power can be nothing but a commodity; it is\nthe shackling of these powers through the political life of the State\nor in the circuit of economic processes. An unprejudiced recognition of\nthis fact is at the present day a necessary first step to everything\nthat has to be done in the field of social organisation. For the\nsuperstition has grown up in modern times, that the measures needed\nfor the welfare of society must come from either the political State\nor the economic system. And if we pursue any further the road along\nwhich this superstition has started us, we shall set up all manner\nof institutions, that, far from leading man to the goal towards which\nhe is striving, will increasingly aggravate the oppressive conditions\nfrom which he is seeking to escape.\n\nAt the time when people first began to think about the question of\ncapitalism, this same capitalism had already set up a disease in the\nbody social. The disease is what people feel and are aware of. They\nsee that it is something which has to be counteracted. But one must\nsee further than that; one must recognise, that the origin of the\ndisease lies in the fact, that the creative forces, at work in capital,\nhave been absorbed into the circuit of economic life. If one is to\nwork in the direction already urgently demanded by the evolutionary\nforces of mankind, one must not suffer oneself to be deluded by the\ntype of thought, which regards as an unpractical piece of idealism\nthe demand, that the spiritual life should be set free, and given\ncontrol of the employment of capital.\n\nAt the present moment, certainly, people seem but little disposed to\nconnect the spiritual life in any way directly with that social idea,\nwhich is to put capital on sound lines. They try to connect onto\nsomething that falls within the circuit of economic life. They\nsee, that the manufacture of commodities in recent times has\nled to wholesale dealing, and this again to the present form of\ncapitalism. And now they propose to replace this form of industrial\neconomy by a syndical system, under which the producers will be working\nfor their own wants. But since of course industry must retain all the\nmodern means of production, the various industrial concerns are to be\nunited together into one big syndicate. Here, they think, everyone will\nbe producing to the orders of the community, and the community cannot\nbe an exploiter, because it would simply be exploiting itself. And\nfor the sake, or from the necessity, of linking onto something that\nalready exists, they turn their eyes on the modern State, with a\nview to converting this into a comprehensive syndicate. One thing\nhowever they leave out of their reckoning, namely, that the bigger\nthe syndicate the less possibility there is of its being able to do\nwhat they expect of it. Unless individual ability finds its place\nin the syndical organism in the manner and form already described,\nit is impossible that communal control of labour should result in a\nhealthy commonwealth.\n\nThe reason why people are so ill-disposed to-day to form an unbiassed\nopinion as to the position spiritual life occupies in the social order,\nis that they are accustomed to think of what is spiritual as being\nat the opposite end from all that is material and practical. Not a\nfew will find something rather absurd in the view here put forward,\nthat the employment of capital in economic life must be regarded as\nthe way in which one side of the spiritual life manifests itself. It\nis conceivable, that in characterising what is here said as absurd,\nmembers of the late ruling classes may even find themselves in\nagreement with socialist thinkers. If one would see all that this\nsupposed absurdity means for the health of the body social, one must\nexamine certain currents of thought in the present day,--currents\nof thought, which spring from impulses in the soul, that are quite\nhonest after their fashion, but which nevertheless, wherever they find\nentrance, check the development of any really social way of thinking.\n\nThese currents of thought tend more or less unconsciously away from\nall that gives due energy and driving power to the inward life. They\nmake for a conception of life,--an inner life of thought, of soul,\ndirected to the pursuit of knowledge,--which shall be as it were an\nisland in the common sea of human existence. Thus they are not in a\nposition to build the bridge between this inner life and that other\nwhich binds men to the everyday world. It is not uncommon to-day,\nto find persons who think it rather \"distinguished\" to sit aloft in\ncastles of cloudland, meditating in somewhat pedantic abstractness over\nall manner of ethico-religious problems. One finds them meditating\non virtue and how a man may best acquire it; how he should dwell in\nloving-kindness towards his neighbours, and how he may be so blessed\nas to find \"a meaning in life.\" And, all the time, one recognises the\nimpossibility of bridging the gulf between what these folks call good,\nand sweet, and kindly, and right, and proper, and all that is going\non in the outer world amongst men's everyday surroundings, in the\nmanipulation of capital, the payment of labour, the consumption,\nproduction and circulation of commodities, the system of credit\nbanking, and the stock-exchange. One can see two main streams running\nside by side even in men's very habits of thought, one of which remains\nup aloft as it were in divine spiritual altitudes, and has no desire to\nbuild a bridge from spiritual impulses to life's ordinary affairs. The\nother stream runs on, void of thought, in the everyday world. But life\nis a single whole. It cannot thrive unless the forces that dwell in all\nethical and religious life bring driving power to the most commonplace,\neveryday things of life, into the sort of life that some persons may\nthink rather beneath them. For, if people neglect to build the bridge\nbetween the two regions of life, then not only their religious and\nmoral life, but their social thinking too, degenerates into mere wordy\nsentiment, far removed from commonplace, true realities. And then these\ncommonplaces have their revenge as it were. For there is then still\na sort of \"spiritual\" impulse in man, urging him in pursuit of every\nimaginable ideal and every conceivable thing that he calls \"good\";\nwhilst on the other side there are those different instincts, which\nare in opposition to these ideals,--the instincts that underlie the\nordinary daily needs of life and require an economic system for their\nsatisfaction, and to which he devotes himself minus his spirit. He\nknows no practicable path from his conception of spirituality to\nthe business of everyday life. And so everyday life acquires a form,\nwhich is not even supposed to have any connection with those ethical\nimpulses that remain aloof in the more distinguished altitudes, all\nsoul and spirit. And then, the daily commonplaces are avenged; for\nthe ethical religious life turns to a living lie in men's hearts,\nbecause, all unperceived it is being dissevered from commonplace\npractice and from all direct contact with life.\n\nHow many people there are to-day, who, from a certain ethical or\nreligious distinction of mind, have all the will to live on a right\nfooting with their fellow-men, who desire to act by others only in\nthe best conceivable way, and yet fall short of the kind of feeling\nthat would enable them to do so, because they cannot lay hold upon\nany social conception that finds its outlet in practical habits of\nlife! It is people such as these, who, at this epoch-making moment\nin the world's history when social questions have become so urgent,\nare blocking the road to a true practice of life. They reckon\nthemselves very practical persons, and all the time are visionary\nobstructionists. One can hear them making speeches like this: \"What\nis really needed, is for people to rise above all this materialism,\nthis external material life which drove us into the disaster of the\ngreat war and into all this misery. They must turn to a spiritual\nconception of life.\" And to illustrate man's path to spirituality,\nthey are forever harping upon great men of byegone days, who were\nvenerated for their conversion to a spiritual way of thinking. One\nfinds, however, that directly one tries to bring the talk round to\nthe very thing that the spirit has to do for real practical life,\nand what is so urgently required of the spirit to-day: the creation of\ndaily bread, one is at once reminded, that the first thing, after all,\nis to bring people again to acknowledge the spirit. At this moment\nhowever, the urgent thing is, to employ the powers of the spiritual\nlife to discover the right principles of social health. And for this\nit is not enough that men should make a hobby of the spirit, as a\nbye-path in life. Everyday existence needs to be brought into line\nwith the spirit. It was this taste for turning spiritual life into\nbye-paths, that led the late ruling classes to find their pleasure\nin social conditions that ended in the present state of affairs.\n\nIn the social life of the present day, the control of capital for\nthe production of commodities is very closely bound up with the\nownership of the means of production, amongst which capital is of\ncourse included. And yet these two relations between man and capital\nare quite different as regards the way they operate within the social\nsystem. The control of capital by individual ability is, when suitably\napplied, a means of enriching the body social with wealth which it is\nto everyone's interest should exist. Whatever a person's position in\nlife, it is to his interest that nothing should be wasted of those\nindividual abilities which flow from the fountain-head of human\nnature, and through which things are created that are of use to\nthe life of man. These abilities, however, never become developed,\nunless the human beings endowed with them have free initiative in\ntheir exercise. Any check to the free flow from these sources means\na certain measure of loss to the welfare of mankind. Now capital is\nthe means of making these abilities available for extended fields\nof social life. It must be to the true interests of everybody in a\ncommunity to have the collective property in capital so administered,\nthat individuals specially gifted in one direction, or groups of\npeople with special qualifications, should be able to acquire the\nuse of capital, and should use it in the way their own particular\ninitiative prompts them. Everybody, be he brainworker or labourer, if\nhe consults his own interests without prejudice, must say: \"I should\nnot only wish an adequate number of persons, or groups of persons,\nto have absolutely free use of capital, but I should also like them\nto have access to capital on their own initiative; for they themselves\nare the best judges of how their particular abilities can make capital\na means of producing what is useful to the body social.\"\n\nIt does not fall within the scope of this work to describe how, in the\ncourse of mankind's evolution, as individual human abilities came to\nplay a part in the social order, private property also grew up out of\nother forms of ownership. Ownership has, under the influence of the\ndivision of labour, gone on developing in this form within the body\nsocial down to the present day. And it is with present conditions that\nwe are here concerned, and with what the next stage in their evolution\nmust be. But in whatever way private property arose,--by the exercise\nof power, conquest, etc.,--it is an outcome of the social creativeness\nwhich is associated with individual human ability. And yet socialists\nto-day, with their thoughts bent upon social reconstruction, hold the\ntheory, that the only way to obviate what is oppressive in private\nownership, is to turn it into communal ownership. They put the question\nthus: How can private property in the means of production be prevented\nfrom arising, so that its oppressive effect upon the unpropertied\nmasses may cease? In putting the question in this way, they overlook\nthe fact, that the social organism is something that is constantly\nchanging, growing. One cannot ask about a growing organism. What is\nthe best form of arrangement to preserve it in the state which one\nregards as the suitable one for it. One can think in that way about\nsomething which starts at a certain point and then goes on in the same\nway ever afterwards without any essential change. But that will not do\nfor the body social. Its life is a continual changing of each thing\nas it arises. To fix on some form as the very best, and expect it to\nremain in that form, is to undermine the very conditions of its life.\n\nOne of the conditions of life for the body social is, that whoever\ncan serve the community through his individual abilities should not be\ndeprived of the power to do so freely of his own initiative. Where such\nservice involves free use of the means of production, to hamper free\ninitiative would be to injure the general social interests. I am not\nproposing here to urge the argument commonly used in this connection,\nnamely, that the prospect of the gains associated with the ownership of\nmeans of production is needed in order to stimulate the \"enterpriser\"\nto exertion. The whole form of thought represented in this book,\nwith its conception of a progressive evolution in social conditions,\nmust lead to the expectation, that this kind of incentive to social\nactivity may be eliminated, through the emancipation of the spiritual\nlife from its association with the political and economic system. Once\nit is free, the spiritual life will of itself inevitably evolve a\nsocial sense; and this social sense will provide incentives of a very\ndifferent kind from the hope of economic advantage. But it is not so\nmuch a question of the kind of impulse which makes men like private\nownership of the means of production, as of whether the necessary\nconditions of life for the body social are best fulfilled when the\nuse of the means of production is free, or when it is directed by the\ncommunity. And here, one must always clearly remember, that one cannot\ndraw conclusions for the social organism of the present day from the\nconditions of life supposed to be found in primitive communities, but\nfrom such only as correspond to man's present stage of development. At\nthe present stage, it is not possible for individual ability to find\nfruitful exercise through capital in the round of economic life,\nunless its use of capital is free. For fruitful results in any field\nof production there must be opportunity for the free use of capital;\nnot because it gives an advantage to some individual or group; but\nbecause, opportunely directed by a social sense, it is the best way\nof serving the community. Whether he is producing alone or in company,\nthe material a man is working on is in a manner bound up with himself,\nmuch like the skill of his own arms or legs. To interfere with his\nfree use of the means of production, is like crippling the free\nexercise of his bodily skill. Private ownership, however, is simply\nthe medium for this free use of the means of production. As regards\nownership, all that matters to the body social, is that the owner\nshould have the right to use it of his own free initiative. Clearly,\ntwo things are joined together in social life, that are of quite\ndistinct implications for the body social--one, the free use of the\ncapital basis of social production; the other, the \"relation in right\"\nwhich arises between the user of capital and other people, from the\nfact that his right of use precludes these other people from free\nactivity on this same capital basis.\n\nIt is not the free use of itself in the beginning, which does the\nmischief in society, but the continuance of the right of use after the\ncircumstances have come to an end which linked that use opportunely\nto individual abilities. Anyone who looks upon the social organism as\na changing, growing thing, cannot fail to see what is meant. He will\nlook about for some possible mode of arranging what is helpful to\nlife in one way, so that it may not have bad effects in another. For\na live thing, there is no possible mode of arrangement, that can lead\nto fruition, in which the finished process in its growth will not in\nturn become detrimental. And if one is oneself to collaborate at a\ngrowing organism,--as man necessarily must in the body social,--one's\nbusiness cannot lie in checking necessary developments, for the sake\nof obviating detrimental consequences. That would be to sap every\npossibility of life for the body social. It is solely a question of\nintervening at the right moment, when what was helpful and opportune\nis beginning to turn detrimental.\n\nFree use of the capital-basis through individual ability:--this must\nbe an established possibility. The ownership right involved in it\nmust be shiftable, directly this right begins to turn to a means of\nunrightfully acquiring power. There is one institution, introduced\nin our times, which partially meets this social requirement, though\nonly for what one may call \"spiritual property.\" \"Spiritual property\"\nwhen its author is dead, passes after a while into the ownership of\nthe community for free use. Here we have an underlying conception,\nthat is in accordance with the actual nature of life in a human\nsociety. Closely as the production of a purely spiritual possession\nis bound up with the private endowment of the individual, yet this\npossession is, at the same time, a result of the common social life,\nand must pass at the right moment into the common life. But it is just\nthe same with other property. By aid of his property the individual\nperson produces for the service of the community; but this is only\npossible in co-operation with the community. And accordingly the right\nto the use of a piece of property cannot be exercised apart from\nthe interests of the community. The problem is not, how to abolish\nownership of the capital-basis? but, how can ownership be best turned\nto the service of the community?\n\nThe way to do so, is to be found in the threefold order of society. The\npeople combined in the threefold order act as a collective community\nthrough the \"rights-State.\" The exercise of individual abilities\ncomes under the spiritual organisation.\n\nEverything in the body social indicates the necessity of introducing\nthis threefold organic arrangement, when regarded with a sense of\nactualities, and not from a view entirely dominated by subjective\nopinions, theories, predilections, and so forth;--and this question\nof the relation of individual abilities to the capital-basis of\neconomic life and its ownership, is a special case in point. The\n\"rights-State\" will not interfere with the formation and control\nof private property in capital, so long as the connection of the\ncapital-basis with personal ability remains such, that this private\ncontrol implies a service to the total community. Moreover, it will\nremain a \"rights-State\" in respect to its dealings with private\nproperty. It will never itself take over the ownership of private\nproperty. It will only ensure that the right of use is transferred at\nthe right moment to a person or group of persons, who, again, through\nindividual conditions, are capable of establishing a purely personal\nrelation to this ownership. This will benefit the body social in two\ndifferent aspects. The democratic foundation of the \"rights-State,\"\nbeing concerned with the everything that touches all men equally,\nwill enable a sharp watch to be kept, that property rights do not in\ncourse of time become property wrongs. And again,--(since the State\ndoes not itself administer property, but ensures its transference\nto individual ability),--men's individual abilities will develope\ntheir fructifying power for the whole body of the community. Under\nan organisation of this sort, property rights, or their exercise,\ncan safely be left attached to a personality, for so long as seems\nopportune. One can conceive the representatives in the \"rights-State\"\nlaying down quite different regulations at different times as to\nthe way in which property is to be transferred from one person or\ngroup to another. At the present day, when private property has come\nto be regarded altogether with great distrust, the proposal is, to\nconvert private property wholesale into communal property. If people\nproceed far enough along this road, they will find out, that they\nare strangling the life of the community; and, taught by experience,\nthey will then pursue a different path. But it would undoubtedly be\nbetter now, at once, to take measures that would secure social health\non the lines here indicated.\n\nSo long as an individual alone, or in combination with a group,\ncontinues to carry on that productive activity which first procured\nhim a capital-basis to work on, so long he shall retain the right to\nuse accumulations of capital arising as business gains on the primary\ncapital where the gains are applied to the productive extension of\nthe business. Directly this particular personality ceases to control\nthe work of production, the accumulation of capital shall pass on\nto another person, or group, to carry on the same kind of business,\nor some other branch of productive industry useful to the whole\ncommunity. Capital also, that accrues from a productive industry but\nis not used for its extension, must from the beginning go the same\nway. Nothing shall count as the personal property of the individual\ndirecting the business, except what he receives in accordance with the\nclaim he made when he first took over the business--claims, which he\nfelt able to make on the ground of his personal abilities, and which\nappear justified by the fact, that he was able to impress people with\nhis abilities sufficiently for them to trust him with capital. If\nthrough his personal exertions the capital has been increased, then a\nportion of this increment will pass into his private ownership,--the\naddition so made to his original earnings representing a percentage\non the addition to the capital. Where the original controller of an\nindustry is unable, or unwilling, to continue in charge, the capital\nused to start it will either pass over to the new controller with all\nincumbent obligations, or else will revert to the original owners,\naccording as these latter may decide.\n\nIn such an arrangement, one is dealing with transfers of a right. The\nlegal regulation of the terms on which such transfers shall take place,\nis a matter for the \"rights-State.\" It will be for the \"rights-State\"\nalso to see that these transfers are carried out and to conduct the\nprocess. It is conceivable that, in detail, the regulations laid\ndown for any such transfer of a right will take very various forms,\naccording as the common sense of right (the \"rights-consciousness\")\nvaries in its view of what is right. No mode of conception, which, like\nthe present one, aims at being true to life, will ever attempt to do\nmore than indicate the general direction that such regulation should\ntake. If one keeps to this direction and uses one's understanding,\none will always, in any concrete instance discover what is the\nappropriate thing to do. One must judge always from the special\ncircumstances and according to the spirit of the thing, what the\nright course is in actual practice. The more true to life any mode\nof thought is, the less it will attempt to lay down hard-and-fast\nrules for details, from preconceived notions of what is requisite. On\nthe other hand, the very spirit of such a form of thought will lead\nnecessarily and decisively to one result or another. For instance,\nit results unquestionably from such a mode of thought, that the\n\"rights-State\" must never use its control of rights-transfers to get\nany capital into its own hands. Its only business will be to see,\nthat the transfer is made to a person, or group, whose individual\nabilities seem to warrant it. This at once presupposes also, as a\ngeneral principle, that anyone, who is proposing to effect a transfer\nof capital under the circumstances described, will be at liberty to\nselect his successor in the use of it. He will be free to select a\nperson or group of people, or else to transfer the right of use to a\ncorporate body belonging to the spiritual organisation. For anyone,\nwho has rendered practical services to society through his management\nof capital is a person likely to judge from native ability and with\nsocial sense, what should be done with the capital afterwards. And it\nwill be more advantageous to the community to go upon what he decides,\nthan to discard his judgment, and leave the decision to persons who\nhave no direct connection with the matter.\n\nSome settlement of this kind will be required in the case of capital\naccumulations over a certain amount, which have been acquired\nby persons, or groups, through the means of production (including\nland),--except where these accumulations become private property by the\nterms originally agreed upon for the exercise of individual ability.\n\nIn this latter case, what is so earned, as well as all savings that\nspring from the results of a person's own work, will remain until\nthe owner's death, or some later date, in the private possession of\nthe earner or his descendants. Until this date also, these savings\nwill draw an interest from the person who is given them to procure\nthe means of production. The amount of the interest will be the\noutcome of the general \"rights-consciousness,\" and be fixed by the\n\"rights-State.\" In a social order, based on the principles here\ndescribed, it will be possible to effect a complete distinction between\nproceeds that are due to the employment of means of production, and\nsums accumulated through the earnings of personal labour, spiritual\nor physical. It is in accordance with the common sense of right, as\nwell as to the general social interest, that these two things should\nbe kept distinct. What a person saves and places at the disposal of a\nproductive industry, is a service rendered to the general interests,\ninasmuch as it makes it possible in the first place for personal\nability to direct production. But where, after deducting the rightful\ninterest, there is an increase on the capital, arising out of the means\nof production, such increase is due to the collective working of the\nwhole social organism, and must accordingly flow back into it again in\nthe way above described. All that the \"rights-State\" will have to do,\nis to pass a resolution, that the capital accumulations in question\nare to be transferred in the prescribed way. It will not be called\non to decide, which material or spiritual branch of production is\nto have the disposal either of capital so transferred or of capital\nsavings;--for this would lead to the State tyrannising over spiritual\nand material production, which are best directed for the body social\nby men's individual abilities, as has been shewn. But it will be open\nto anyone to appoint a corporate body of the spiritual organisation\nto exercise the right of disposal over capital that he has created,\nif he does not want himself to select his successor.\n\nProperty acquired through saving, together with the interest on it,\nwill also pass at the earner's death, or a while later, to some person\nor group actively engaged in spiritual or material production,--but\nonly to a producer, not to be turned into an income by someone who\nis not producing. The choice will be made by the earner in his last\nwill. Here again, if no person or group can be chosen direct, it will\nbe a question of transferring the right of disposal to a corporation of\nthe spiritual system. Only when a person himself makes no disposition\nof his savings, then the \"rights-State\" will act on his behalf,\nand require the spiritual organisation to dispose of them.\n\nIn a society ordered on these lines, due regard is paid both to private\ninitiative on the part of the individual and at the same time to the\nsocial interests of the general community. Indeed the latter receive\ntheir full satisfaction through private initiative being set free to\nserve them. Whoever has to entrust his labour to the direction of\nanother person, can at least know, under such an order of things,\nthat their joint work will bear fruit to the best advantage of the\ncommunity, and therefore of the worker himself.\n\nThe social order,--as here conceived,--will establish a proportionate\nrelation, satisfactory to healthy human sense, between the\nprices of manufactured products and the two joint factors of their\nproduction,--namely human labour-power and these rights of use over\ncapital (embodied in the means of production) which are subject to\nthe common sense of right. No doubt all sorts of imperfections may\nbe found in this. Imperfections do not matter. For a mode of thought\nthat is true to life, what is of importance is not to lay down a\nperfect and complete programme for all time, but to point out the\ndirection for practical work. The special instances, discussed here,\nare simply intended as illustrations to map out the direction more\nclearly. Any particular illustration may be improved upon; and this\nwill be all to the good, provided the right direction is observed.\n\nThrough social institutions of this kind, personal and family feelings\nwill admit of being brought into harmony with the claims of general\nhumanity. It may of course be pointed out, that there will be a\ngreat temptation for people to transfer their property during their\nlife-time to their descendants, or to some one of them, and that it\nis quite easy to give such a person the appearance of a producer,\nwhilst all the while he may be quite incompetent compared to others,\nwho would be much better in his place. The temptation to do this,\ncan however be reduced to a minimum under social institutions of the\nabove kind. The \"rights-State\" has only to require, that property,\nwhich is transferred from one member of a family to another, should\nunder all circumstances, be made over to a corporation of the spiritual\nsystem, after the lapse of a certain period from the first owner's\ndeath. Or an evasion of the rule may be prevented in some other way by\nrights-law. The \"rights-State\" will merely see to it, that the property\nis so made over. The spiritual organisation must make provision for\nthe choice of the person to inherit it. In the fulfillment of these\nprinciples a general sense will grow up, that the next generation\nmust be trained and educated to fit them for the body social and that\none must not do social mischief by passing capital on to persons who\nare non-productive. No one, in whom a real social sense is awakened,\ncares to have his own connection with the capital basis of his work\ncarried on by any individual or group whose personal abilities do\nnot warrant it.\n\nThese proposals cannot be regarded as a mere utopia by anybody who has\na sense of what is really practicable. For the kind of institutions\nhere proposed are such as spring directly out of existing circumstances\nanywhere in life. Only, people will have to make up their minds,\ngradually to give up administering spiritual life and industrial\neconomy within the \"rights-State,\" and not to raise opposition, when\nprivate schools and colleges are started and economic life put on its\nown footing,--seeing that this is just what is wanted. There is no\nneed to abolish the State schools and the State economic undertakings\nstraight away. But, beginning perhaps in quite a small way, it will\nbe found increasingly possible to do away with the whole structure\nof State education and State economy.\n\nThis requires, however, first of all, individuals, convinced that\nthese, or some such social ideas as these are the right ones, and\nable so thoroughly to imbue themselves with their rightness, that\nthey will make it their business to spread them. Wherever such ideas\nfind understanding, they will arouse confidence in the possibility of\nchanging the present state of things into a healthy one, where the\nsame evils will not arise. But this is the only kind of confidence\nwhich can lead to a really healthy state of things. For, before one\ncan arrive at any such confidence, one must have a clear perception\nin what way, practically, it is possible to connect new institutions\non to the existing old ones. The essential feature of the ideas here\nput forward would seem to be, that they do not propose to bring about\na better future by destroying the present social order further than\nhas already been done; but that their realisation will come through\nbuilding upon what already exists; and that as the building-up process\ngoes on, what is rotten and unsound will fall away. No new views\nnor teachings, that do not aim at establishing confidence in this\nrespect, will attain the object which it is absolutely necessary to\nattain, namely, an unbroken course of evolution, in which all that\nmen have hitherto achieved, the wealth they have worked for, and\nthe faculties they have won, are not cast to the winds, but stored\nup. Even the most sweeping radical may feel confidence in a form of\nsocial reconstruction that still preserves the old heritage, when\nhe has ideas laid before him which are capable of initiating really\nsane and healthy developments. Even he will have to recognise, that\nwhatever class of men may get into power, they will not be able to\nremove existing evils, unless their impulses are supported by ideas\nthat can put health and life into the body social. To despair,--to\nbelieve it impossible to find a sufficient number of people who, even\nin these days of turmoil will have understanding for these ideas, if\nonly they are spread with enough energy,--this would be to despair\nof human nature and of its openness to healthful and purposeful\nimpulses. Is it desperate? That is not the question to be asked. But\nrather, What must I do to give full force to the teaching and spread\nof ideas that can awaken men's confidence?\n\nAny effective spread of these ideas will find its first obstacle in the\nhabits of thought of the present age, which will quarrel with them on\ntwo grounds:--Either it will be objected in some form or another, that\nany dismemberment in the unity of the social life is inconceivable,\nthat its three supposed branches cannot be torn apart, seeing that\nin actual practice they are everywhere intertwined. Or else people\nwill opine, that it is quite possible under the onefold state to\ngive each of the three branches its necessary independent character;\nthat all these ideas are mere cobweb-spinning, with nothing in them,\nand quite apart from all reality. The first objection comes from\nthinking unreally, from presupposing that unity of life is only\npossible in a community of human beings, when the unity is introduced\nby ordinance. What life in reality requires is, however just the\nreverse. Unity must be the result, the final outcome of all the\nstreams of activity flowing together from various directions. This\nidea is the one in accordance with life; but it had the evolution of\nthe latter age against it; and so the tide of life in men bore down\nagainst the artificial \"order\" in its path,--and landed in the present\nsocial conditions. The second preconception arises from inability to\ndistinguish the radical difference in the working of the three systems\nof social life. People do not see, that man stands in a separate and\npeculiar relation to each of the three; that, for the full development\nof its special quality, each of these three relations requires a ground\nto itself in actual life, where it can evolve its own form apart from\nthe other two, in order that all three may combine in their working.\n\nThere was a view held in time past by the physiocrats, that,--Either\nmen make artificial government regulations for economic life, which\ncheck its free expansion,--and then these regulations are harmful;--Or\nelse, the laws tend in the same direction as economic life does\nwhen left to itself,--and then they are superfluous. As an academic\ntheory, this view has had its day; but it still crops up everywhere\nas a habit of thought, and plays havoc in men's brains. People\nthink, that if one department of life is guided by its own laws,\nthen everything else whatever that is needed in life must follow\nas a consequence out of this one department. That if, for instance,\neconomic life were regulated in a way to satisfy men's wants, that\nthen this well-ordered economic soil would infallibly produce the\nright sort of spiritual life and \"rights\" life as well. But it is\nnot possible; and only a way of thinking foreign to all reality can\nbelieve it possible. In the circuit of economic life there is nothing\nwhatever that affords of itself any motive to guide that which runs\nall through the relation of man to man and proceeds from the sense of\nright. And if people insist on regulating this relation by economic\nmotive the result will be, that the human being, with his labour and\nhis control of the means of labour, will be bound hand and foot to the\neconomic life. Economic life will go on like clockwork, and man will\nbe a wheel in it,--Economic life has a tendency always to go on in\none course, which needs rectifying from another side. It is neither,\nthat the \"rights\" regulations are good, provided they move in the\ncourse set by economic life--nor, that when they run counter to it,\nthey are bad. But rather, that if the course taken by economic life\nis constantly under the influence of those rules of \"right\" which\nconcern man simply as man, then a human existence within the economic\nlife becomes possible. And not till individual ability grows on its\nown ground, quite detached from the economic system, conveying ever\nafresh to economic life those forces that economics and industry\nare powerless to produce, can economic life itself develope in a\nway beneficial to men. It is a curious thing:--in purely external\nmatters, people are ready enough to see the advantage of a division\nof labour. They do not expect a tailor to milk his own cow. But\nwhen it comes to a general division and co-ordination of human life,\nthen they think that no good can come of anything but a onefold system.\n\n\n\nThat social ideas which follow the line of real life will rouse\nobjections on every side, is a matter of course. For real life\nbreeds contradictions. And anyone, who is thinking in accordance with\nlife, will determine on realising arrangements that involve living\ncontradictions, needing again other arrangements to reconcile them. He\nmust not suppose, that an institution which is demonstrably, to his\nthinking, an \"ideally perfect\" one, will involve no contradictions when\nrealised in practice. The socialism of the present day is absolutely\njustified in laying down the proposition, that the institutions of the\nmodern age, in which production is carried on for individual profit,\nmust be replaced by a different system, under which production shall\nbe carried on for the general consumption. But anyone, who fully and\nwholly accepts this proposition will not arrive at the deduction drawn\nby modern socialism: Ergo, the means of production must be transferred\nfrom private to communal ownership. Indeed, he will be forced to a very\ndifferent conclusion, namely, that right methods must be taken for\nconveying to the general community that which is privately produced\non the strength of individual energy and capacity. The tendency of\nthe economic impulses of the new age has been to obtain revenue by\nmanufacturing in mass. The aim of the future must be, to find out,\nby means of Associations, what, in view of the actual needs of\nconsumption, is the best method of production, and what channels\nare open from producer to consumer. The \"rights\" institutions will\ntake care, that a productive industry does not remain tied up with\nany individual or group of people longer than their personal ability\nwarrants. Instead of communal ownership of the means of production,\nthere will be a circulation of the means of production throughout the\nbody social, bringing them constantly afresh into the hands of those\npersons whose individual ability can employ them to the best service\nof the community. That connection between personality and the means of\nproduction, which hitherto has been effected by private ownership, will\nthus be established for periods of time. For it will be thanks to the\nmeans of production that the head of a business and his subordinates\nare enabled by their personal abilities to earn the income that they\nasked. They will not fail to make production as perfect as possible,\nsince every improvement brings them, not indeed the whole profits,\nbut a portion of the returns. For profits,--as shewn above,--go to\nthe community only to the extent of what is over, after deducting the\nquota due to the producer for improvements in production. And it is\nin the spirit of the whole thing, that, if production falls off, the\nproducer's income must diminish in proportion as it rises with the\nenhancement of production. But always, in every case, the manager's\nincome will come out of the spiritual work he has done. It will not\ncome out of profits, depending on conditions that do not rest with the\nspiritual work of the directing personality, but with the interplay\nof the forces at work in the communal life.\n\nIt will be seen, that with the realisation of social ideas such as\nthese, institutions that we already have will acquire an altogether\nnew significance. The ownership of property ceases to be what it\nhas been up till now. But instead of going back to an obsolete\nform, such as communal ownership would be, it is carried on a\nstep further to something quite new. The objects of ownership\nare brought into the stream of social life. No private owner, for\nhis own personal interests, can control them to the injury of the\ngeneral public;--neither, again, can the general public control them\nbureaucratically to the injury of the private person;--but private\npersons, who are suitable, will have access to them, as a means of\nserving the public.\n\nA sense for the general public interest will have a chance to grow up,\nwhen impulses of this sort are realised, which place production on\na sound basis, and safeguards the body social from sudden crises. An\nadministrature too, which occupies itself solely with the processes\nof economic life, will be able to bring about any adjustments for\nwhich necessity may arise in the course of these processes. Suppose,\nfor instance, a business concern were not in a position to pay its\ncreditors the interest due on the savings of their labour, then,--if\nit is a business that is nevertheless recognised as meeting a want,--it\nwill be possible to arrange for other industrial concerns to subsidise\nit by the voluntary agreement of everyone concerned in them.\n\nSelf-contained, on a basis of \"rights\" determined from outside itself,\nand supplied from without by a constant flow of fresh human ability\nas it comes on the scenes, the economic life, within its own circuit,\nwill concern itself with nothing but its proper work. Accordingly it\nwill be possible for it to facilitate a distribution of wealth that\nwill ensure each person receiving that which he is rightfully entitled\nto receive, according to the community's general prosperity. And,\nif one person appears to have more income than another, it will only\nbe because his individual abilities make this More, this \"surplus,\"\nof advantage to the community.\n\n\n\nThe taxes which are needed for the \"rights\" system can be settled\nbetween the leaders of the \"rights\" life and the economic life\nin a social organism shaped by the light of such conceptions as\nthese. Whilst everything needed for the maintenance of the spiritual\norganisation will come as good-will from the voluntary appreciation of\nthe private members of the body social. The spiritual organisation will\nrest on a healthy basis of individual initiative, exercised in free\ncompetition amongst the private individuals suited to spiritual work.\n\nBut it is only in a social organism of this form, that the \"rights\"\nadministration will find the understanding necessary to a right and\njust distribution of wealth. In an economic life, where the claim upon\nmen's labour is not prescribed by the stresses in single branches of\nproduction, but which has to carry on business with as much as the\n\"rights-law\" allows it, the value of goods will be determined by\nwhat men actually put into it in the way of work. It will not allow\nthe work men do to be determined by goods-values into whose formation\nhuman welfare and human dignity do not enter. An order of economy such\nas this, will not be blind to rights that arise from purely human\nrelations. Children will have a right to education. The father of a\nfamily will be able to have a higher income than a single man. He will\nget his \"surplus\" through a system instituted by agreement between\nall three social organisations. The right to education might be met,\nunder these arrangements, in the following way. The managing body of\nthe economic organisation estimates the amount of revenue that can be\ngiven to education, according to the general economic conditions;\nand the \"rights-state\" fixes the rights of individual persons,\naccording to the spiritual organisation's opinion in each case.\n\nHere again, since we are thinking on lines of reality, this instance\nis merely intended to indicate the direction in which such arrangements\nmight be worked. In detail, it is possible that quite a different sort\nof arrangement may be found to be the right thing. But, in any case,\nthe \"right thing\" will be found only through all three independent\nbranches of the body social conjointly, in working together for a\ncommon end. For the purposes of this sketch, the underlying mode\nof thought is merely concerned to discover the really practical\nthing, (unlike so much to-day that passes for practical),--namely,\na functional division of the body social, such as shall give man a\nbasis on which to work socially to some purpose.\n\nOn a par with a child's right to education, is the right of the\naged, of invalids, widows and sick persons, to a maintenance;\nand the capital-basis for their support will be passed through the\nthree systems of the body social in much the same way as the capital\ncontributed for the education of those who are not yet come to their\nworking powers. The essential point in all this is, that the income\nreceived by anyone who is not personally an earner, should not be\nan outcome of the economic life; but the other way about:--economic\nlife must be dependent on what is the outcome of the common sense of\nright. The people working in any economic organism will have all the\nless from their work, the more has to go to the non-earners; only the\n\"less\" will be borne fairly by all the members of the body social,\nwhen social impulses, of the kind here meant, are really put into\npractice. The education and maintenance of those who cannot work\nconcerns all mankind in common; and under a \"rights-state\" detached\nfrom economic life it will become the common concern in actual\npractice. For the \"rights\" organisation is the field for realising\nthose things in which every grown human being has a voice.\n\nUnder a social order, that follows this line of conception, the surplus\nthat a man performs on the strength of his individual ability will pass\non to the community; and the just maintenance for the deficiency of\nthe less able will also come from the community. \"Surplus value\" will\nnot be created for the unjustified enjoyment of private individuals,\nbut to enhance everything that can give wealth of soul and body to\nthe whole social organism, and to foster whatever is born of it,\neven though not directly serviceable.\n\nIt may be thought, that, after all, except for the idea of it,\nthere is no practical value in keeping the three members of the\nbody social thus carefully distinct, and that the same result would\ncome about \"of itself\" inside a uniform constitution of State,\nor an economic guild covering the same ground as the state, and\nbased on communal ownership of the means of production. One needs,\nhowever, only to look at the special form of social institution that\nmust result from realising the threefold division. For instance,\nthe use of money as a mode of payment will not have to be legally\nrecognised by the state administrature. It will owe its recognition\nto the measures taken by the various administrative bodies within\nthe economic organisation. For money, in a healthy social organism,\ncan be nothing except an order on commodities that other people have\nproduced, and which one can draw out of the common economic pool,\nbecause of the commodities that oneself has produced and paid in. It\nis the money currency that makes a sphere of economic activity into an\neconomic unit. The whole economic life is a roundabout way of everyone\nproducing for everyone else. Within the sphere of economic activity,\ncommodity-values are the only things dealt with; and in this sphere,\nnot only anything made, but also anything done, originating in the\nspiritual or State organisations, also takes on the character of a\ncommodity. What a teacher does for his pupils, is, for the economic\ncircuit, a commodity. The teacher's individual ability is no more\npaid for, than the worker's labour-power is paid for. All that can\npossibly be paid for in either, is that which proceeds from them and\ncan pass as a commodity or commodities into the economic circuit. How\nfree initiative, and what the \"rights-law\" must act, in order to bring\nthe commodity into existence, lies as much outside the economic circuit\nitself as the action of the forces of nature upon the corn yield in a\nbountiful or barren year. For the economic circuit, both the spiritual\norganisation,--as regards its claim on economic returns,--and the\nState also, are simply producers of commodities. Only, what they\nproduce is not a commodity within their own spheres; it first becomes\na commodity, when it is taken up into the economic circuit. Within\ntheir own domains, the spiritual organisation and the state have no\nbusiness dealings;--the economic body, through its administrature,\ncarries on business with their work when it is done.\n\nThe purely economic value of any commodity (or work done, in so far\nas it finds expression in the money that represents its equivalent\nvalue), will depend on the efficiency in economic administration\ndeveloped by the body economic. It will depend on the measures taken\nby the economic administration, how fertile economic life can become\non the basis afforded by the spiritual and \"rights\" systems of the\nbody social. The money-value of a commodity will then indicate,\nthat the economic organisation is producing the commodity in a\nquantity corresponding to the want for it. Supposing the premises\nlaid down in this book to be realised, the body economic will not be\ndominated by the impulse to amass wealth through sheer quantity of\nproduction; but the production of goods will adapt itself to wants,\nthrough the agency of the associative guilds that will spring up in\nall manner of connections. In this way, the proportion, that in each\ncase corresponds to the actual want, will become established between\nthe money-value of an article and the arrangements made in the body\nsocial for producing it. [6] In the healthy social organism, money will\nreally be nothing but a measure of value; since, behind every money\npiece, or money token, there stands the tangible piece of production,\non the strength of which alone the owner of the money could come by\nit. These conditions will, of their nature, necessitate arrangements\nbeing made, which will deprive money of its value for its possessor,\nwhen once it has lost its original significance. Arrangements of this\nsort have already been alluded to. Money property passes back, after\na fixed period, into the common pool, in whatever the proper form may\nbe; and to prevent money, withdrawn from use in industry, being held\nback by its possessors to the evasion of the provisions made by the\neconomic organisation, there can be a new coinage, or re-stamping, from\ntime to time. One result of this will no doubt be, that the interest\nderived from any capital sum will diminish as years go on. Money\nwill wear out, just as commodities wear out. Nevertheless, such a\nmeasure will be a right and just one for the State to enact. There\ncan be no compound interest. If a person lays by savings, he has\ncertainly rendered past services that gave him a claim on future\ncounter-service in commodities,--just as present services claim present\nservice in exchange. But his claims cannot go beyond a certain limit;\nfor claims, that date from the past, require present labour-services\nto satisfy them; and they must not be turned into a means of economic\ncoercion. The practical realisation of these principles will put the\nproblem of safeguarding the money standard upon a sound basis. For,\nno matter what form money may take owing to other conditions, the\nsafeguard of its standard lies in the intelligent organisation of\nthe whole body economic through its administrature. The problem of\nsafeguarding the money standard will never be satisfactorily solved\nthrough any State by means of law. The present States will only solve\nit, when they give up attempting the solution on their own account,\nand leave the body economic to do what is needful, after it is detached\nfrom the State.\n\nThere is much talk of the modern division of labour, of its results\nin time-saving, in perfecting the manufacture and facilitating the\nexchange of commodities. Little attention is paid to its effect on\nthe relation of the human worker to what he is doing. In a social\norder that is based on division of labour, no person at work is ever\nreally earning his income himself, he is earning it through the work\nof everybody employed in the body social. When a tailor makes a coat\nfor his own use, the relation of himself to the coat he is making\nis not the same as that of a man living under primitive conditions,\nwho has all the other necessaries of life to provide for himself. The\ntailor makes the coat in order to enable him to make clothes for\nother people; and its value for him depends solely and entirely on\nwhat services other people render. The coat is, really, a means of\nproduction. Many people may call this \"splitting hairs\";--but one\nsees that it is not so, when one comes to consider the formation of\ncommodity-values in the economic process. It then becomes obvious, that\nin an economic organism based on division of labour it is absolutely\nimpossible to work for oneself. All one can do, is to work for others,\nand set others to work for one. One can no more work for oneself,\nthan one can eat oneself. One can, however, establish practices,\nthat are in direct opposition to the very essence of division of\nlabour;--as, for instance, when the whole system of goods-production\nis based on transferring to the individual as private property what\nhe is only able to produce through occupying a place in the social\norganism. Division of labour makes for a social organism in which the\nindividual shall live in accordance with the conditions of the whole\nbody of the community. Economically, division of labour precludes\negoism. And if, in spite of this, egoism persists, in the form of\nclass privilege and such things, then a State of instability sets in,\nleading to disturbances in the body social. We are living under such\nconditions to-day. To insist that the conditions in the \"rights-State,\"\namongst other things, must bring themselves into line with the system\nof divided labour and its non-egotistic method of production, may\nappear to many people futile. In this case, they may as well draw\nthe deduction from their premises: There is no doing anything. The\nsocial movement can lead to nothing. As respects the social movement,\none can certainly do no good, unless one is willing to give Reality\nher due. It is inherent in the mode of thought underlying the whole\ntreatment of the subject, throughout these pages, that man's doings\nwithin the body social must be brought into line with the conditions\nof its organic life.\n\n\n\nAnyone, who can only form his notions by the system he is accustomed\nto, will be uneasy when he is told, that the relation between the\nwork-director and the worker is to be separated out from the economic\nprocess. He will believe that such a separation is bound to lead\nto depreciation of money and a return to primitive conditions of\nindustrial economy.--(Dr. Rathenau takes this view in his \"After\nthe Flood\"; and from his standpoint it is a defensible one.)--The\nthreefolding of the social order, however, prevents any risk of\nthis. The autonomous economic system, working conjointly with\nthe \"rights\" system, completely detaches the whole state of money\nconditions from labour conditions, which latter rest entirely on the\nrights-law. The \"rights\" conditions cannot have any direct influence\non the money conditions, for these are the result of the economic\nadministration. The \"relation in right\" between work-director and\nworker will not upset the balance or shew itself in money-values at\nall. For, when wages are eliminated, (which represent a relation of\nexchange between commodities and labour-power), money-value remains\nsimply a measure of the value of one commodity (or piece of work)\nas against another. If one studies the threefold division in its\nactual effects upon the body social, one must become convinced that\nsuch a division will lead to institutions unknown to the forms of\nState that have existed up till now.\n\nThese new institutions can be cleared of all that to-day has an\natmosphere of class-struggle. For this struggle comes from the wages\nof labour being tied up with the economic processes. Here, we are\ndescribing a form of social organism, in which the conception of\nwages of labour undergoes a transformation no less complete than the\nold conception of property. But the social relation of human-beings\nbecomes thereby a much more living and healthy one. One must not jump\nto the conclusion, that these proposals amount in practice merely\nto converting time-wages into piece-wages. One might be led to this\nconclusion by a one-sided view of the matter. But this one-sided\nview is not that which is put forward as the right one here. Here,\nwe are considering, in its connection with the whole organisation\nof the body social, the elimination of the wage-relation altogether,\nand the adoption of a share-relation, based on contract in respect to\nthe common work performed by the work-director and the workers. It may\nseem to somebody, that the portion of the proceeds which falls to the\nworker's share is a \"piece-wage\"; but if so, it is because he fails\nto see, that this kind of \"piece-wage\" (which, properly speaking, is\nnot a \"wage\" at all) finds expression in the value of the product in\na way, that puts the worker socially into a position as regards the\nother members of the body social very different from that relation\nbetween him and them, which has sprung out of class supremacy in which\neconomics are the only factor. Class struggle finds no place here;\nand this requirement is satisfied.\n\nAnd for those who hold the theory,--not infrequently to be heard in\nsocialist circles,--that the course of \"evolution\" itself must bring\nthe solution of the social question, that it is impossible to set\nup views and say that they ought to be realised,--to these we shall\nreply: Most certainly evolution will bring about that which must\nbe; but men's ideas are realities and active impulses within the\nbody social. And when time has gone on a little further, and that\nhas become realised which to-day can only be thought, then these\nrealised thoughts will be there in the evolution. With time, when\nthe thoughts of to-day have become part of evolution, then those,\nwho look to \"evolution alone\" and have no use for fruitful ideas,\nmay be better able to form a judgment. Only, when that time comes, it\nwill be too late to accomplish certain things, which are required now\nby the facts of to-day. In the social organism, it is not possible\nto set about observing the evolution from outside, objectively,\nas one does in nature. One is obliged to take an active part in the\nevolutionary process. And it is therefore so disastrous for all sound\nthought on social matters that it is to-day up against views that are\nbent on \"demonstrating\" social requirements as one \"demonstrates\" a\nfact in natural science. In the comprehension of social life, there\ncan be no \"proof,\" unless one takes into account not only what is\nactually present existing, but also that other factor, latent within\nmen's impulses, often unknown to themselves, seed-like and striving\ntowards realisation.\n\n\n\nOne of the ways, in which the threefold system will shew that it is\nbased on the essentials of human social life, will be the removal of\nthe judicial function from the sphere of the State. It will be for\nthe State institutions to lay down the rights that are to be observed\nbetween men or groups of men; but the passing of judgment comes within\ninstitutions proceeding from the spiritual organisation. In passing\njudgment, a very great deal depends on what opportunity the judge\nhas for perceiving and understanding the particular circumstances\nof the person whom he is trying. Nothing can ensure this perception\nand understanding, except those ties of trust and confidence that\ndraw men together in the institutions of the spiritual order, and\nwhich must be made the main consideration in appointing the courts of\nlaw. Possibly, the administrature of the spiritual organisation might\nnominate a panel of magistrates who could be drawn from the widest\nrange of spiritual professions and would return to their own calling\nat the expiration of a certain period. Everybody then would have the\nopportunity, within certain limits, of selecting a particular person\non the panel for five or ten years at a time,--someone in whom the\nrhythmic system, which, to arrive at any he feels sufficient confidence\nto be willing to accept his verdict in a private or criminal suit,\nif it came to the point. There would always be enough magistrates,\nin the neighbourhood where anyone was residing, to give a value to\nthe power of selection. A complainant would always have to apply to\nthe magistrate competent to the defendant.\n\nOnly consider, what such an institution would have meant for the\nterritories of Austria-Hungary! In districts of mixed language, the\nmember of any nationality would have been able to choose a judge of\nhis own race. And anyone acquainted with Austrian affairs will know,\nhow greatly such an arrangement might have contributed to keep the\nbalance in the life of her various nationalities. But apart from\nnationality, there are many fields of life where such an arrangement\nmight have a beneficial effect on healthy development. For more\ndetailed acquaintance with points of law, the judges thus appointed\nand the courts will be assisted by regular officials, whose selection\nwill also be determined by the spiritual administrature, but who will\nnot themselves decide cases. The same administrature will also have to\nconstitute courts of appeal. The kind of life, that will go on under\nthe conditions here supposed, will of its nature bring a judge into\ntouch with the mode of life and feeling of those whom he has to judge;\nhis own life, outside the brief period of judicial office, will make\nhim familiar with their lives and circles. Everywhere and in all its\ninstitutions, the healthy social organism will draw out the social\nsense of those who share its life,--and so too with the judicature. The\nexecution of a sentence is the affair of the \"rights-State.\"\n\n\n\nIt is not necessary for the moment here to go into arrangements,\nentailed in other fields of life as well by the realisation of what\nhas been put forward in these pages. A description of them would\nobviously take up unlimited space.\n\nThe particular instances already given of the forms social life will\ntake, should dispose of a notion, (which I have actually met with when\nlecturing on this subject in various places), that this is an attempt\nto revive the three old \"estates\" of the Plough, the Sword and the\nBook. What is here intended, is just the very opposite to this division\ninto grades. Men will not be divided into functions of the body social,\nneither as Classes, nor Estates. It is the body social itself which\nwill be functionally divided. And thereby man for the first time will\nbe able to be truly man; for the three social divisions will be such,\nthat he himself has his own life's roots in each of them. His calling\ngives him a footing in one of the three, and to this he belongs through\nhis practical interests. And his relation to the other two will be a\nvery actual and living one; for his connection with their institutions\nis of a kind to create such a living relation. Threefold will be the\nbody social, as apart from man and forming the groundwork of his life;\nand each man will unite its three divisions within himself.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nIV\n\nINTERNATIONAL ASPECTS OF THE THREEFOLD COMMONWEALTH\n\n\nThe internal structure of a healthy social organism makes its\ninternational relations also threefold. Each of its three branches\nwill have its own independent relation to the corresponding branch of\nother threefold organisms. All manner of interconnections will spring\nup between the economic network of one district and that of another,\nwithout being directly influenced by the connections between their\n\"rights-States.\" [7] And, conversely, the relations between their\n\"rights-States\" will, within certain limits, develope in complete\nindependence of their economic connections. This independence of origin\nwill enable these two sets of relations to act as a check upon each\nother in cases of dispute. Such a close interweaving of interests\nwill grow up, as will make territorial frontiers seem negligible in\nthe life of mankind.\n\nThe spiritual organisations of the different districts will become\nlinked in a way that only the common spiritual life of mankind can\nmake possible. Detached from the State and placed on its own footing,\nthe spiritual life will develope all manner of connections, that\nare impossible when the recognition of spiritual services does not\nrest with a spiritual corporation, but with the \"rights-State.\" So\nfar as this is concerned, there is no real difference between the\nservices rendered by science,--which are frankly international,--and\nthose rendered in any other spiritual field. The common language\nof a nation, and all that goes along with language, constitutes one\nsuch field of spiritual life,--including the national consciousness\nitself. The people of one language-area do not come into unnatural\nconflict with those of another language-area, except when they try\nto make their national form of civilisation predominant through\nthe use of their State-organisation or their economic power. If one\nnational civilisation spreads more readily, and has greater spiritual\nfertility than another, then it is quite right that it should spread;\nand the process of spreading will be a peaceful one, provided it\ncomes about solely through the agency of the spiritual communities\nof the different social organisms.\n\nAt the present time, the keenest opposition to the threefold order\nwill come precisely from those groups of mankind which have clustered\nround a common origin of speech and national culture. Such opposition\nhowever must break down before the common goal of all mankind,--a goal\ntowards which men will set their faces with increasing consciousness\nfrom the very necessities of life in the modern age. Mankind will\ncome to feel, that each of its many parts can only lead a life worthy\nof their common humanity, when bound in living links to all the\nrest. National affinities, together with other impulses of a natural\norder, are amongst the causes which historically led to the formation\nof communities in \"rights\" and communities of industrial economy. But\nthe forces to which nationalities owe their growth require for their\ndevelopment free mutual interaction, untrammelled by any ties that\ngrow up between the respective bodies of State and the economic\nAssociations. And the way of achieving this, is for the various\nnational communities to develope the threefold order within their own\nsocial structures; and then their three branches can each expand its\nown relation with the corresponding branches of the other communities.\n\nIn this way, peoples, States, economic bodies, become grouped together\nin formations that are very various in shape and character, and every\npart of mankind becomes so linked with the other parts, that each\nis conscious of the life of the other pulsing through its own daily\ninterests. A league of nations is the outcome,--arising out of root\nimpulses that correspond to actual realities. There will be no need to\n\"institute\" one, built up solely on legal theories of right. [8]\n\nTo anyone, who is thinking of these things in terms of real life,\nit must seem of especial importance, that the aims here set before\nthe body social, whilst having a meaning for the whole of mankind\ncollectively, are such as can be put in practice by any single\ncorporate community, no matter what may be the attitude adopted by\nother countries for the time being.--If one corporate community has\norganised itself into its three natural divisions, the administratures\nof the three divisions can act together as a single body, and thus\nperfectly well form relations even with outside communities that are\nnot yet prepared to adopt the threefold order themselves. Whoever leads\nthe way with the threefold order, will be furthering the common aim\nof all mankind. What actually has to be done, will be carried through\nby that strength which an aim brings with it in practical life, when\nit is rooted in the actual guiding forces of humanity,--rather than\nby diplomatic agreements, or drafting schemes at conferences. It is\non a basis of reality that this aim is conceived in thought. It is\none to be pursued in the real action of life at any and every point\namongst the communities of men.\n\nAnyone, watching what was going on in the life of peoples and of\nStates during the last 30 or 40 years from a point of view such as\ngiven in these pages, could see how the State-structures that had been\nbuilt up in the course of history, with their blending of spiritual\nlife, \"rights\" and industrial economy, were becoming involved in\ninternational relations that were heading for catastrophe. At the same\ntime, it was equally plain, that the opposite forces at work within\nmankind's unconscious impulses were tending towards the threefold\norder. Here lies the remedy for those convulsions that have been\nbrought about by the mania for unification. The way of life among the\n\"leaders of mankind\" was not however of the kind to enable them to\nsee what had been for years past slowly working up. In the spring\nand summer of 1914, one still found \"statesmen\" saying, that, thanks\nto the governments' exertions, the peace of Europe was, so far as\ncould be humanly foreseen, assured. These \"statesmen\" simply had\nnot the faintest notion, that all that they were doing and saying\nhad absolutely lost touch with the course of real events. Yet these\nwere the people who were looked up to as \"practical\"; and people were\nregarded as little better than \"cranks\" at that time, who had been\nforming other views during all those years, which differed from those\nof the \"statesmen\";--such views, for instance, as those expressed by\nthe present writer months before the war-catastrophe, when addressing\na small audience in Vienna,--(a large audience would certainly have\nlaughed him down.) He then spoke of the danger menacing, in more or\nless these words:--\"The tendencies prevalent in the life of the present\nday will continue to gather strength, until they end by annihilating\nthemselves. And if one reads social life with the eyes of the spirit,\none can perceive everywhere the ghastly signs of social tumours\nforming. Here is the great menace to our civilisation, manifest to\nanyone able to read below the surface of existence. It is this that\nis so appalling, so overpowering, that--even if one could otherwise\nrepress all zeal on behalf of a science in which spiritual knowledge\nis made instrumental to the knowledge of life's events,--these things\nalone would impell one to speak, to proclaim the remedy, to hurl\none's words as it were in the face of the world. If the body social\nfollows the same line of evolution as hitherto, it will become full of\nsores--sores of civilisation that will be for it what cancers are for\nman's natural body.\"--Such were the foundations upon which life rested,\nand which the ruling circles neither could nor would see. But their\nspecial view of life led them to find in such conditions a pretext\nfor measures that would have been better left undone, but for none\nthat were of a sort to establish confidence between the different\ncommunities of mankind.--Whoever is under the belief that the social\nnecessities of the time played no part amongst the immediate causes of\nthe present world-catastrophe, should ask himself this question:--What\ndirection would political impulses have taken in the States that\nwere rushing into mutual war, if the \"statesmen\" had recognised the\nsocial needs of the times, and embodied these in their aims? And\nhow much that was done would have been left undone, if their efforts\nhad thus been directed to something more substantial than piling up\ninflammable material, that was bound sooner or later to lead to an\nexplosion? As one watched the relations between the States during\nrecent years, and the cancer creeping on in them, owing to the form\nthat social life had taken amongst the leading sections of mankind,\none could understand how a man of broadly human spiritual interests,\nsuch as Hermann Grimm, was led to speak as he did, so early in 1888,\nwhen discussing the form that social aims had taken amongst the leading\ncircles:--\"The end they set before them, is the ultimate formation of\nmankind into a commonwealth of brothers, who ever afterwards shall go\nforward hand-in-hand, actuated only by the noblest impulses. Merely to\nfollow history on the map of Europe, one would imagine that a general\ninternecine massacre were the next step imminent.\" Only the thought,\nthat a \"road must be found\" to the true riches of human life, this\nthought alone can keep alive a sense of human worth. It is a thought\n\"which hardly seems compatible with the gigantic preparations for\nwar that we and our neighbours too are making. And yet, I believe in\nit. And in the light of this thought we must live; unless indeed\nit were better to put an end to human existence altogether by\ncommon consent, and appoint an official day of universal suicide\"\n(Herman Grimm: \"The Last Five Years,\"--Pub. 1888.)--What were these\n\"preparations for war,\" save steps taken by men who were bent upon\npreserving their old State constructions in one and undivided form,\ndespite the fact that the evolution of the new age had made this\nonefold form incompatible with the very essence of healthy relations\nbetween the peoples. Health can, nevertheless, be brought into the\ncommon life of the peoples, by that form of social order that takes\nits shape from the requirements of the times.\n\nThe State-structure of Austria-Hungary had, for more than half a\ncentury, been struggling towards a new formation. Its spiritual life,\nwhich had its roots in a multiplicity of racial communities, called\nfor a form of development to which the old onefold State, created by\noutworn impulses, offered a continual obstacle. The incident with\nwhich the great catastrophe opened--the quarrel between Austria\nand Serbia--is a conclusive sign, that the political frontiers of\nthe onefold State ought not, after a certain point of time, to have\nformed the cultural frontiers for the spiritual life of its various\nnationalities. Could the spiritual life have been on its own footing,\nindependent of the political State and political boundaries, it would\nhave had a chance to develope regardless of frontiers, in a manner\nbefitting the true purpose of the several nationalities; and the\nstruggle, which was deeply rooted in the spiritual life, need never\nhave found vent in a political catastrophe. Deliberate development\nin this direction seemed an utter impossibility, sheer lunacy indeed,\nto all \"statesman-like\" thinkers in Austria-Hungary. Their habits of\nthought admitted of no other conception than that the boundaries of\nState must also be the boundaries of national community. They could not\nunderstand, how spiritual organisations could be formed, cutting across\nstate frontiers, and comprising the school system and other branches\nof spiritual life. It was against all their habitual conceptions. And\nyet this \"inconceivable\" thing is what international life demands in\nthe new age. A really practical thinker ought not to be held up by\napparent impossibilities, and assume that the obstacles in the way of\ndoing what is requisite are insurmountable. He must simply concentrate\non surmounting them. But instead of turning their statesman-like\nthought along lines that would have been in unison with modern-age\nrequirements, they devoted their whole energies to bolstering up the\nonefold form of State against the demands of the age by all manner\nof institutions. The State grew more and more unwieldy and impossible\nin its structure. And in the second decade of the twentieth century,\nit had reached a point when it could no longer keep itself together\nin its old form, and must either passively await dissolution, or else\nattempt to accomplish externally by force the internally impossible,\nand maintain itself by the power which a war-footing would give to\nit. In 1914 there remained for the Austro-Hungarian \"statesmen\" but\none alternative:--Either they must direct their policy along the lines\nof life in a healthy social order, and make known their intention to\nthe world,--a course which might have revived new confidence,--or else\nthey were absolutely obliged to start a war, in order to keep the old\nstructure from tumbling about their ears.--What happened in 1914 must\nbe judged from these underlying causes; otherwise it is impossible to\nthink correctly and justly about the question of \"blame.\" The fact\nthat many nationalities went to compose the fabric of her State,\nmight well seem to have made it Austria-Hungary's mission in the\nworld's history to lead the way in evolving a healthy form of social\norder. The mission was not recognised. And this sin against the spirit\nof the world's historic life drove Austria-Hungary into war.\n\nAnd what about the German Empire?--The German Empire was founded at\na moment, when the call of the new age for the healthy form of social\nlife was endeavouring to find practical realisation. To have realised\nit, might have given the empire a justification for its existence\nin the world's history. All the social impulses met together in this\nrealm of Central Europe, as if it were the ground allotted to them from\nof old in the world's history for them to work themselves out. The\nsocial tendency in thought was to be found in any number of places,\nbut within the German Empire it assumed a form that plainly shewed\nwhither it was tending. Here lay the work which should have given the\nempire its substance and purport. Here was the field of labour for\nthose who were at the head of its affairs. This empire would have\nrequired no justification in the community of modern nations, had\nit received at its foundation a task and purport such as the forces\nof history themselves seemed to suggest. But instead of dealing with\nthe task on a scale corresponding to its magnitude, those at the head\nof affairs contented themselves with \"social reforms\" arising out of\nthe exigencies of the hour, and were delighted when such reforms as\nthese were held up as models by other countries. And all the time,\nthey were more and more seeking to establish the external prestige of\nthe empire upon a pattern taken from the antiquated conceptions of\nthe power and glory of States. They went on building up an empire,\nwhich was as contrary as the Austro-Hungarian fabric to everything\nthat history shewed to be an active force in the modern life of the\npeoples. But of these forces the empire's governors saw nothing. The\nparticular form of State-structure, that they had in their mind's eye,\ncould only rest on military force. Whereas the form of State, that\nmodern history demanded, must have rested on a practical realisation\nof the impulses that were making for a healthy social organism. In\ngiving these impulses practical realisation, they would have made\nthemselves a different place in the community of peoples from the\nposition they actually occupied in 1914. Through failure to understand\nwhat was demanded by the life of the peoples in this new age, German\npolicy had, in 1914, reached a dead-point as regards any possibility\nof further action. For years past, German policy had been blind to\neverything that ought to have been accomplished; it had busied itself\nwith every conceivable thing that lay outside the forces of modern\nevolution, and that was bound inevitably from sheer hollowness to\n\"tumble down like a house of cards.\"\n\nThe whole tragedy, thus brought about in the course of history\nand summed up in the fate of the German Empire, is to be found very\nfaithfully reflected, for anyone who would take the trouble to examine\nand give the world a true and exact picture of what occurred in the\nleading quarters of Berlin in the last days of July and 1st August,\n1914. Of these occurrences very little still is known, either at\nhome or abroad. Whoever is acquainted with them knows, that German\npolicy at that time was a card-house policy, that it had reached a\ndead-point in action; so that the whole question, as to whether there\nshould be a war, or how it should begin, was inevitably made over to\nthe decision of the military authorities. And the responsible people\namongst the military authorities could not, from a military point\nof view, act otherwise than they did act, because from that point\nof view, the situation could only be regarded as they regarded it;\nfor outside the military department things had got to a pass where\nno further action was possible. This would be a notorious fact in the\nworld's history, if there were any who would make it their business to\nbring to light what went on in Berlin at the end of July and on the\nfirst of August,--in particular on July 31 and August 1. People are\nstill under the delusion, that nothing is to be gained by a minute\nknowledge of these occurrences, if one knows the previous events\nthat led up to them. But it is knowledge that must not be shirked,\nif there is to be any discussion of the question of \"blame,\" as it\nis called to-day. Of course, there are other ways of arriving at the\ncauses, which were already of long standing; but a detailed knowledge\nof these few days reveals the way in which these causes acted.\n\nThe notions, which at the time drove Germany's leaders into war,\ncontinued their baneful work. They became the mood of a nation. And\nthese same notions prevented the people in power from acquiring by\nthe bitter experiences of the final terrible years that insight, for\nwant of which the tragedy had come about. These experiences might\nwell have opened men's eyes; and, in this hope, the present writer\ntook what seemed to him an opportune moment in the war calamity,\nand did his best to bring before various personages the ideas\nunderlying a healthy social organism, and the political attitude\nthat these entail towards the world abroad. He addressed himself to\nprominent individuals, whose influence at that time might still have\nbeen exerted to carry these social impulses into effect; and various\npersons, who had the destiny of the German people honestly at heart,\ntook pains to gain admission for these ideas. All that was said was\nin vain. Every old habit of thought was up in arms against social\nimpulses of this kind, which to a purely military cast of thought\nappeared quite impracticable,--something for which they had no use\nat all. The farthest they could get was: \"Separation of Church and\nSchool,\"--yes,--there was something in that. The thoughts of the\n\"statesman-like thinkers\" had been running on lines of that sort\nfor years, and would not be turned into any direction involving\ndrastic change. Well-meaning people suggested my \"publishing\" these\nproposals,--most futile advise at that particular moment. What would\nhave been the good of another treatise on these social impulses, in\naddition to all the other current literature of the hour,--and coming\nfrom a private person too! From the very nature of such impulses,\nthey could, at that time, only have carried weight through the quarter\nfrom which they were pronounced. Had a pronouncement in favour of these\nimpulses been made from the right place, the peoples of Central Europe\nwould have recognised the possibility of realising something that\nwas in sympathy with their own more or less conscious tendencies. And\nthe peoples of the Russian districts, East, would at that time most\nundoubtedly have recognised in these social impulses a practical\nsolution to Czarism. That they could and would have recognised the\nsignificance of these impulses, is beyond dispute for anyone able to\nperceive the as yet unexhausted intellectual vigour of the peoples of\nEastern Europe, and how receptive their minds are to healthy social\nideas. However, there was no pronouncement in favour of these ideas;\nand, instead, came Brest-Litovsk.\n\nThat military thinking could do nothing to avert the disaster from\nCentral and Eastern Europe, could have been concealed from none\nbut militarist minds. The cause of the German people's disaster\nwas, that people would not recognise that the disaster could not be\naverted. They would not face the fact, that in those quarters, which\nhad the deciding of affairs, there was no sense of the big, historic\nnecessities. Anyone, who knew anything of these historic necessities,\nalso knew, that the English-speaking races had persons amongst them,\nwho were able to read the forces at work amongst the peoples of\nCentral and Eastern Europe, and that these persons were convinced,\nthat there was something working up in Central and Eastern Europe which\nmust find vent in tremendous social convulsions,--convulsions of a\nsort for which they believed there to be no necessity nor occasion\nin the English-speaking regions. They framed their own policy on\nthese conclusions. In Central and Eastern Europe nothing was seen\nof all this, and the people there shaped their policy on lines\nwhich brought the whole thing \"like a house of cards\" about their\nears. The only policy, which could have had a solid foundation, would\nhave been one which recognised, that people in the English-speaking\ncountries were handling the forces of world-history on large lines,\nand of course, naturally, from the English point of view. But to\nagitate in favour of such a policy would have been regarded as highly\nsuperfluous,--especially by the \"diplomatists.\"\n\nSo, instead of adopting a policy, which might have also have ensured\nthe prosperity of Central and Eastern Europe,--despite the large lines\nof English policy,--before the war-catastrophe swept over everything,\nthe leaders still continued to run along the familiar diplomatic\nrails. And, even amidst the horrors of war, bitter experience\nstill failed to teach them, when the manifesto came from America\nannouncing the world's mission in political terms, that it must be\nmet by another and a different one from Europe, born of the forces\nof Europe herself. Wilson had announced the world's mission from the\nAmerican standpoint. Europe's sense of her mission would have been\nheard as a spiritual impulse above the roar of the guns. Between the\ntwo it would have been possible to effect an understanding. All other\ntalk of mutual understanding rang hollow in face of the historic\nnecessities. But those, whom circumstances brought to the head of\naffairs in the German Empire, lacked the perception which could\nmake them lay hold on the seeds of new growth in modern human life\nand embody them in a comprehensive aim. And, therefore, the autumn of\n1918 could bring nothing but what it brought. The collapse of military\npower was accompanied by spiritual surrender. In this supreme hour,\nat least they might have roused themselves, have sought strength in\nthe will and purpose of Europe, and made good the spiritual forces\nof the German people. Instead, they abdicated to Wilson's Fourteen\nPoints. Wilson was confronted by a Germany that had nothing to say on\nher own account. Whatever Wilson may think about his own 14 points,\nhe is nevertheless powerless to help Germany except as Germany is\nwilling. He was bound to await a pronouncement of her will. The\nbeginning of the war had already demonstrated the nullity of German\npolicy. It was again demonstrated in October, 1918. So came that\nawful spiritual capitulation, at the hands of a man on whom numbers\nin German lands had staked as it were their last hope.\n\nWant of faith in insight based on the forces at work through\nhistory;--unwillingness to seek strength in impulses that proceed\nfrom a perception of spiritual facts:--The state of Central Europe\nwas due to these two things.\n\nAnd now, to-day, the circumstances consequent on the war-catastrophe\nhave created a new situation. The idea that gives its stamp to the new\nsituation can be that of the social impulses of mankind, as conceived\nin this book. These social impulses speak a language, towards which\nthe whole civilised world has a responsibility. Has thought spent\nitself, and come to its dead-point before the social question as\nCentral-European policy did before the problems of 1914? Some countries\nwere able to stand aloof from the points that were then at issue. From\nthe social movement they cannot stand aloof. This is a question that\nadmits of no political adversaries and of no neutrals. Here, there\nmust be but one human race working at one common task, willing to\nread the signs of the times and to act in accordance with them.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nNOTES\n\n\n[1] Beginning of April, 1919.\n\nThe author in the following pages has deliberately avoided confining\nhimself to the terms in common use in standard treatises on political\neconomy. He knows quite well the places which a technical economist\nwill pick out as being amateurish. But he has selected his mode of\nexpression, partly because he desires to address himself also to\npersons who are not familiar with the literature of sociology and\neconomics, but chiefly, because it is his opinion, that most of what\nis peculiarly technical in such writings will be shewn by a new age\nto be partial and defective, even in the very form of its expression.\n\nIt may also be thought, that some reference should have been made by\nthe author to other persons, whose social ideas bear an incidental\nresemblance to his own. It must however be remembered, that in the\nwhole conception here put forward,--a conception which the author\nbelieves he owes to long years of practical experience,--the essential\npoint is not whether a particular thought has taken this or that form,\nbut what one takes as one's starting-ground, and the road one pursues\nin giving practical realisation to the impulses which underlie this\nconception. As may be seen from Chapter IV, the author was already\ndoing what he could to get these ideas practically realised, at a\ntime when ideas that look in some respect similar had as yet attracted\nno attention.\n\n[2] An English translation of this supplementary volume is in\npreparation. (Translator's note.)\n\n[3] Author's Note. For the purposes of life, what is wanted in\nan explanation is not definitions drawn from theory, but ideas\nthat give a picture of a real live process. As used in this sense,\n\"commodity\" denotes something that plays an actual part in man's life\nand experience. Any other concept of it either omits or adds to this,\nand so fails to tally exactly with what really and truly goes on\nin life.\n\n[4] Author's note. It is quite possible in life for a transaction not\nonly to be interpreted unreally, but also to take place unreally. Money\nand labour are not interchangeable values, but only money and the\nproducts of labour. Accordingly, if I give money for labour, I am\ndoing something that is unreal. I am making a sham transaction. For\nin reality I can only give money for the product of labour.\n\n[5] Author's Note. The \"rights of the matter\" becomes the axiomatic\nbasis for all economic activity under this relation of labour to the\n\"rights\" system; and the associations will have to accept these as\na given premise in economic life. What this does, however, is to\nmake economic organisation dependent upon man, instead of man being\ndependent upon the system of economics.\n\n[6] Author's Note. A sound proportion between the prices of made\ngoods can only be achieved in economic life as an outcome of social\nadministration, that springs up in this way from the free co-operation\nof the three branches of the body social. The proportion between\nprices must be such, that anyone working receives as counter-value\nfor what he has produced so much as is necessary to satisfy his\ntotal wants and the wants of those belonging to him, until he has\nagain turned out a product of equivalent labour. It is impossible to\nfix such a price-relation officially in advance; it must come as the\nresultant of living co-operation between the associations actively\nat work in the body social. Prices will however certainly settle\ndown into such a normal relationship, provided the joint work of\nthe associations rests on a healthy co-operation between the three\ndivisions of social life. One may rely on the result as securely as\non having a safe bridge, when it is built according to the proper\nlaws of mathematics and mechanics. It may be said, that social life\ndoes not invariably obey its own laws, like a bridge. This facile\nobjection however will not be made by anyone able to recognise, that\nit is primarily the laws of life, and not the laws of mathematics,\nwhich all through this book are conceived as underlying social life.\n\n[7] Author's Note. It may be urged, that the \"rights\" relations and the\neconomic relations form one indivisible whole in actual reality. This\nhowever misses the point of what is meant by the threefold division. Of\ncourse, in the mutual intercourse and exchange that goes on between\nthe various social organisms, taken as a collective process, the\ntwo different sorts of relations,--between their \"rights\" systems\nand their economic systems,--work together as a single whole. But it\nis a different matter, whether one makes rights regulations to suit\nthe requirements of economic intercourse, or whether one first shapes\nthem by the common sense of right, and then takes the combined result,\nwhatever it may be.\n\n[8] Author's Note. Some people think these things \"Utopias,\" because\nthey fail to see that, in reality, actual life itself is struggling\ntowards the very kind of arrangement which seems to them so Utopian,\nand that the actual mischief going on in real life is due precisely\nto the fact that these arrangements are nowhere to be found.","title":"The Threefold Commonwealth","tradition":"philosophy-ethics","translated_text":null,"word_count":41288}