Part 11

The notions, which at the time drove Germany's leaders into war, continued their baneful work. They became the mood of a nation. And these same notions prevented the people in power from acquiring by the bitter experiences of the final terrible years that insight, for want of which the tragedy had come about. These experiences might well have opened men's eyes; and, in this hope, the present writer took what seemed to him an opportune moment in the war calamity, and did his best to bring before various personages the ideas underlying a healthy social organism, and the political attitude that these entail towards the world abroad. He addressed himself to prominent individuals, whose influence at that time might still have been exerted to carry these social impulses into effect; and various persons, who had the destiny of the German people honestly at heart, took pains to gain admission for these ideas. All that was said was in vain. Every old habit of thought was up in arms against social impulses of this kind, which to a purely military cast of thought appeared quite impracticable,--something for which they had no use at all. The farthest they could get was: "Separation of Church and School,"--yes,--there was something in that. The thoughts of the "statesman-like thinkers" had been running on lines of that sort for years, and would not be turned into any direction involving drastic change. Well-meaning people suggested my "publishing" these proposals,--most futile advise at that particular moment. What would have been the good of another treatise on these social impulses, in addition to all the other current literature of the hour,--and coming from a private person too! From the very nature of such impulses, they could, at that time, only have carried weight through the quarter from which they were pronounced. Had a pronouncement in favour of these impulses been made from the right place, the peoples of Central Europe would have recognised the possibility of realising something that was in sympathy with their own more or less conscious tendencies. And the peoples of the Russian districts, East, would at that time most undoubtedly have recognised in these social impulses a practical solution to Czarism. That they could and would have recognised the significance of these impulses, is beyond dispute for anyone able to perceive the as yet unexhausted intellectual vigour of the peoples of Eastern Europe, and how receptive their minds are to healthy social ideas. However, there was no pronouncement in favour of these ideas; and, instead, came Brest-Litovsk.

That military thinking could do nothing to avert the disaster from Central and Eastern Europe, could have been concealed from none but militarist minds. The cause of the German people's disaster was, that people would not recognise that the disaster could not be averted. They would not face the fact, that in those quarters, which had the deciding of affairs, there was no sense of the big, historic necessities. Anyone, who knew anything of these historic necessities, also knew, that the English-speaking races had persons amongst them, who were able to read the forces at work amongst the peoples of Central and Eastern Europe, and that these persons were convinced, that there was something working up in Central and Eastern Europe which must find vent in tremendous social convulsions,--convulsions of a sort for which they believed there to be no necessity nor occasion in the English-speaking regions. They framed their own policy on these conclusions. In Central and Eastern Europe nothing was seen of all this, and the people there shaped their policy on lines which brought the whole thing "like a house of cards" about their ears. The only policy, which could have had a solid foundation, would have been one which recognised, that people in the English-speaking countries were handling the forces of world-history on large lines, and of course, naturally, from the English point of view. But to agitate in favour of such a policy would have been regarded as highly superfluous,--especially by the "diplomatists."

So, instead of adopting a policy, which might have also have ensured the prosperity of Central and Eastern Europe,--despite the large lines of English policy,--before the war-catastrophe swept over everything, the leaders still continued to run along the familiar diplomatic rails. And, even amidst the horrors of war, bitter experience still failed to teach them, when the manifesto came from America announcing the world's mission in political terms, that it must be met by another and a different one from Europe, born of the forces of Europe herself. Wilson had announced the world's mission from the American standpoint. Europe's sense of her mission would have been heard as a spiritual impulse above the roar of the guns. Between the two it would have been possible to effect an understanding. All other talk of mutual understanding rang hollow in face of the historic necessities. But those, whom circumstances brought to the head of affairs in the German Empire, lacked the perception which could make them lay hold on the seeds of new growth in modern human life and embody them in a comprehensive aim. And, therefore, the autumn of 1918 could bring nothing but what it brought. The collapse of military power was accompanied by spiritual surrender. In this supreme hour, at least they might have roused themselves, have sought strength in the will and purpose of Europe, and made good the spiritual forces of the German people. Instead, they abdicated to Wilson's Fourteen Points. Wilson was confronted by a Germany that had nothing to say on her own account. Whatever Wilson may think about his own 14 points, he is nevertheless powerless to help Germany except as Germany is willing. He was bound to await a pronouncement of her will. The beginning of the war had already demonstrated the nullity of German policy. It was again demonstrated in October, 1918. So came that awful spiritual capitulation, at the hands of a man on whom numbers in German lands had staked as it were their last hope.

Want of faith in insight based on the forces at work through history;--unwillingness to seek strength in impulses that proceed from a perception of spiritual facts:--The state of Central Europe was due to these two things.

And now, to-day, the circumstances consequent on the war-catastrophe have created a new situation. The idea that gives its stamp to the new situation can be that of the social impulses of mankind, as conceived in this book. These social impulses speak a language, towards which the whole civilised world has a responsibility. Has thought spent itself, and come to its dead-point before the social question as Central-European policy did before the problems of 1914? Some countries were able to stand aloof from the points that were then at issue. From the social movement they cannot stand aloof. This is a question that admits of no political adversaries and of no neutrals. Here, there must be but one human race working at one common task, willing to read the signs of the times and to act in accordance with them.

NOTES

[1] Beginning of April, 1919.

The author in the following pages has deliberately avoided confining himself to the terms in common use in standard treatises on political economy. He knows quite well the places which a technical economist will pick out as being amateurish. But he has selected his mode of expression, partly because he desires to address himself also to persons who are not familiar with the literature of sociology and economics, but chiefly, because it is his opinion, that most of what is peculiarly technical in such writings will be shewn by a new age to be partial and defective, even in the very form of its expression.

It may also be thought, that some reference should have been made by the author to other persons, whose social ideas bear an incidental resemblance to his own. It must however be remembered, that in the whole conception here put forward,--a conception which the author believes he owes to long years of practical experience,--the essential point is not whether a particular thought has taken this or that form, but what one takes as one's starting-ground, and the road one pursues in giving practical realisation to the impulses which underlie this conception. As may be seen from Chapter IV, the author was already doing what he could to get these ideas practically realised, at a time when ideas that look in some respect similar had as yet attracted no attention.

[2] An English translation of this supplementary volume is in preparation. (Translator's note.)

[3] Author's Note. For the purposes of life, what is wanted in an explanation is not definitions drawn from theory, but ideas that give a picture of a real live process. As used in this sense, "commodity" denotes something that plays an actual part in man's life and experience. Any other concept of it either omits or adds to this, and so fails to tally exactly with what really and truly goes on in life.

[4] Author's note. It is quite possible in life for a transaction not only to be interpreted unreally, but also to take place unreally. Money and labour are not interchangeable values, but only money and the products of labour. Accordingly, if I give money for labour, I am doing something that is unreal. I am making a sham transaction. For in reality I can only give money for the product of labour.

[5] Author's Note. The "rights of the matter" becomes the axiomatic basis for all economic activity under this relation of labour to the "rights" system; and the associations will have to accept these as a given premise in economic life. What this does, however, is to make economic organisation dependent upon man, instead of man being dependent upon the system of economics.

[6] Author's Note. A sound proportion between the prices of made goods can only be achieved in economic life as an outcome of social administration, that springs up in this way from the free co-operation of the three branches of the body social. The proportion between prices must be such, that anyone working receives as counter-value for what he has produced so much as is necessary to satisfy his total wants and the wants of those belonging to him, until he has again turned out a product of equivalent labour. It is impossible to fix such a price-relation officially in advance; it must come as the resultant of living co-operation between the associations actively at work in the body social. Prices will however certainly settle down into such a normal relationship, provided the joint work of the associations rests on a healthy co-operation between the three divisions of social life. One may rely on the result as securely as on having a safe bridge, when it is built according to the proper laws of mathematics and mechanics. It may be said, that social life does not invariably obey its own laws, like a bridge. This facile objection however will not be made by anyone able to recognise, that it is primarily the laws of life, and not the laws of mathematics, which all through this book are conceived as underlying social life.

[7] Author's Note. It may be urged, that the "rights" relations and the economic relations form one indivisible whole in actual reality. This however misses the point of what is meant by the threefold division. Of course, in the mutual intercourse and exchange that goes on between the various social organisms, taken as a collective process, the two different sorts of relations,--between their "rights" systems and their economic systems,--work together as a single whole. But it is a different matter, whether one makes rights regulations to suit the requirements of economic intercourse, or whether one first shapes them by the common sense of right, and then takes the combined result, whatever it may be.

[8] Author's Note. Some people think these things "Utopias," because they fail to see that, in reality, actual life itself is struggling towards the very kind of arrangement which seems to them so Utopian, and that the actual mischief going on in real life is due precisely to the fact that these arrangements are nowhere to be found.

End of Project Gutenberg's The Threefold Commonwealth, by Rudolph Steiner