Social 3 Folding

7/30/2019 Social 3 Folding

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The Threefold Social Order

https://sites.google.com/site/threefoldnow/3n

The Threefold Social Order is a holistic, human orientated, view of society

developed by Rudolf Steiner developed during the difficult financial period

following the first world war.

In Steiner's view society is divided into three areas of activity:

Economics

Some people have skills and some people have a need for those skills. The

role of economics is to match these up with each other for the betterment of

human beings.

The principal value in the economic sphere is: brotherhood and

cooperation

Culture

This is activity which works with the spiritual development of individuals

including spirituality but also wider cultural activity like art, music and other

areas of creativity.

In order to develop, each individual must be free to think for themselves.

Steiner covered this in his major philosophical work “The Philosophy of

Freedom” which proposes the concept of the ethical individualist.

The principal value in the cultural and spiritual sphere is: freedom

Politics

This is the work of the state and the law, which is required to hold society

together. However, the state must act in a just way.

The principal value in the political sphere is: equality

These three principal values mirror the motto of France which originated

during the French revolution: Liberté, égalité, fraternité.

For society to function healthily the three areas of activity (economics, culture

and politics) need to be held in balance.If one dominates then society will not





function properly.

For example:

Under a communist or fascist system where the state is dominant there is nofreedom and the economic system can not match needs with skills. This

incorrect balance can stop society from functioning properly.

Under a capitalist system which puts heavy emphasis on economics and

profit culture and spirituality will be squeezed out and equality will be

threatened as the ability to access certain things is governed by how much

money someone has.

In an anarchistic or libertarian system where there is freedom to do as the

individual pleases, without any ethical consideration then equality and

cooperation will be reduced and society will not function well enough toproduce the food and other resources needed for survival.

The threefold social order seeks to hold the three spheres of activity in

balance so that no one of them dominates and each can support the other. At

the heart of this is the ethical individualist taking responsibility for his own

actions in those spheres through the correct use of money, ensuring his own

spiritual and cultural development and upholding equality. These values can

be seen in the various anthroposophical initiatives in education, social care

and banking.

The challenge of social threefolding is that it puts the emphasis for thewelfare of society back on the individuals within it. It does not seek answers

from government, but from each member of society. For that reason it is

impossible to fit the concept within existing political structures. It is neither

socialist or capitalist, neither left or right wing, neither liberal or conservative.

It is, however, a concept which matches modern society’s move towards

individuals rather than communities. The threefold social order may provide a

framework within which individuals can act to improve the way that society

works without formal political structures and without the vagueness of the

recent "occupy movement".

IN AMERICA, AND IN EACH COUNTRY, there will be three sectors for Economic,

Political, and Cultural affairs, each with their own leadership. The three

sectors will be as structurally independent from each other as foreign

countries are today. There will be three executives, three capital cities, and

three flags for each country. Each individual human being in the country will



be a member of all three sectors: as an entrepreneur, worker, and consumer

in the Business sector, as a citizen in the Political sector, and as a free

participant and patron in the non-commercial/non-governmental Cultural

sector.

The Economic Sector will run the economy without Government interference.

All the Businesses in the country, and their Industry Associations and

Chambers of Commerce—in association with the Labor Unions and Consumer

Federations—will embody an Economic Forum, which will select an executive

Economic Manager to serve as the human face of the Economy. All economic

powers and departments of the present-day Government will be transferred

to this Economic Executive, including the Central Bank ("The Fed" in the U.S.),

the postal service, and the Departments of Commerce, Agriculture,

Transportation, and Energy. This is not some kind of state-planned economy,

but a business-formed, entrepreneurial Association of Associations—and sobecomes an associative economy. This Economic Forum will be responsible

for issuing currency, for negotiating trade agreements with other countries,

for infrastructure and utilities, and for all aspects of our economic livelihood

and prosperity. An Associative Economy is more libertarian than present-day

American-style corporocratic capitalism, because in an Associative Economy

there is literally no Government ownership or management of any economic

activity, including currency issuance. On the other hand, the economy is

freed to fulfill its original mission of meeting real human needs (food,

clothing, shelter). This return to a humane, livable economy might be called

Mutuality, Solidarity, Co-operation, Social Justice, Altruism, Fraternity/Sorority,

or Brotherhood/Sisterhood. These key qualities are not in conflict with

Professionalism and the striving for Success, Prosperity, and Abundance.

The Political (Rights, Legal) Sector is the continuation of what we now know

as Government. It is drastically streamlined to become a pure Rechtsstaat

(Rights-State, or Rule-of-Law Governance). It retains the constitutional powers

of law and human rights Governance, including working conditions,

environmental quality of life, and what police, jails, and military are

necessary. It divests all economic powers and cultural powers (including

education and healthcare) to the other two administrations. The feeding

trough which attracts lobbyists is completely removed—the Economy will

have its own legitimate arena, disentangled from the Rights Sector. The

Political Party Organizations are structurally severed from the Governance.

They are reconceived as free, private associations of individuals who

propagate a particular view of political science and statecraft. Like

membership in any other Cultural Organization, the party membership (if



any) of candidates for Rights Service will not be printed on the ballots;

individuals will offer their service as Individuals, not as party functionaries.

The Governance will have nothing to do with "primary" (in-party) elections; in

the eyes of the Rights Organism, the only election is the General Election.

And our Rights Servants will be seated in our legislative chambers

alphabetically by last name, instead of by their allegiance to the Organizationof the Left or the Organization of the Right. The Political Sector also legislates

what basic rights or "benefits" the Economic sector and the Cultural sector

must provide citizens, such as the Right to a Dignified Livelihood (in the

Economic sphere) and the Right of School Choice and the Right to

Preventative Wellness and Medical Care (in the Socio-Cultural sphere). Yet the

Governance itself will not own, operate, or determine the professional praxes

of any Economic or Cultural endeavor. The Political sector consists of the

Political Legislative branch (the U.S. Congress in America) and Political

Executive branch headed by the President (or Prime Minister in parliamentary

countries). Voting, town meetings, substantial consensus, referendums, direct

democracy, and sortition (random selection of citizens to serve political

office) are key practices of this sector. The guiding principles of the Political

sphere are Equality before the Law, Balance, and Democracy, or better yet,

Humanocracy.

The Cultural (or Civil Society) Sector is composed of the non-commercial/non-

governmental organizations of the country. Freedom, Liberty, Diversity, and

Individualism (even "Anarchy" in its benevolent sense of Autarchy and Self-

Reliance) are key cultural qualities. To be a part of this sector, theorganization must accept no Government money and no Advertising money—

it must be funded solely by freely given donations. It must be working in a

Cultural field such as education, art, science, religion, medicine, sports, and

media. And it must offer its services for no fee. A country-wide Socio-Cultural

Council will select an executive Cultural Leader to serve as the face of Civil

Society and Culture. The Cultural administration is not a Government—it is an

Initiative of Initiatives. No cultural initiative even has to participate in the

Council, and they will be free to form competing Cultural Councils. The

service areas of Cultural Councils of two different countries could even

territorially overlap. All government-owned cultural assets are divested to

become the core of this Free Cultural Sector. Most notably, all Government(public) Schools are divested as non-commercial, secular Community Schools.

Yet Universal Education is maintained: the same amount of money that is

presently being funneled into Compulsory Government Schools ($5,000 to

$15,000 per child per year, depending on the state), is instead issued directly

to every parent as a Pedagogical Scholarship which they may use towards

their child’s tuition at any school, whether it be a secular Community School,



an academia-oriented College Preparatory School, a Religious School

(Christian, Muslim, Jewish, Buddhist), Philosophical School (Montessori,

Waldorf, Paideia, Sudbury), Nature- or Farm-based School, Arts or Craft

School, Language School (Francophone Lycée or Indigenous language

immersion school), or Homeschool Co-operative. The Separation of Religion

and State is maintained because a parent choosing to use the scholarship fora Religious School is not essentially different than a retiree using Social

Security funds to donate to a church or mosque, or for elder care at a

religion-based nursing home. The Individual is entrusted and empowered.

Likewise, all the money which is presently going to Governmental Medicine,

such as Medicare, is instead issued directly to every citizen as a yearly

Wellness and Healthcare Coupon which can be used for the allopathic or

alternative healthcare of the Individual’s choice, including preventative care

such as counselling, yoga classes, and gym membership. To our wealthiest

1%, these two Educational and Healthcare coupons are no more than a tax

rebate. To our 99%, they’re a pedagogical and wellness revolution, which will

provide soil and sunlight for the little ones of today to blossom into the most

ethical, nuanced, and vibrant generation in the history of America.

THE SEPARATION OF NATION AND STATE:

One salient feature of a Tri-Sector Society is the structural severance of

Nationality (cultural identity) and Citizenship (political identity). The

ownership of all the cultural programs and assets which are divested from theGovernment (such as the State School Systems and Universities, the National

Park System, and the National Library) is transferred to a new kind of entity

called a "national-cultural organization" (NCO), which will serve as the body

of the National Identity, and will retain the national flag as its organizational

symbol. The NCOs (such as "The American People") will then be free to offer

cultural initiatives throughout the world and depict their cultural territory on

maps however they wish. National homelands will freely overlap in the same

way that the ecclesiastical territories and provinces of the various religious

denominations have been free to overlap since America initiated the

Separation of Church and State. The "stateless nations" in Threefold America—such as the Lenape/Delaware Indian Nation, the Haudenosaunee/Iroquois

Confederacy, the Lakota People, the Native Hawai’ian Kingdom, and Puerto

Rico—will be free to declare cultural independence as NCOs, with their own

Olympic teams and distinct membership in UNESCO and other international

cultural bodies. The Individual will be free to belong to one or more NCOs, or

to formally participate in no National Culture at all. Regardless of our

ancestral or chosen Nationalities, we remain Citizens of our united Rights-



State, and workers and consumers within our united Associative Economy. A

Threefold Society structurally transcends the Nation-State model. This

concrete Pluriationalism will end many wars.

THE THREEFOLD IDEA WILL BE ACHIEVED in America through three

constitutional amendments describing the Separation of Business and State(which is the unspoken aim of the Occupy Wall Street movement), the

Separation of Culture and State, and the Separation of the Economy and

Culture.

The Quest for the Threefold Declaration

On July 4th, 2012, in Independence Hall, Philadelphia, I walked right up to

John Hancock's desk and signed my own Threefold Declaration. I was held for

the day in the Federal Detention Center:

Here's the text of the Threefold Declaration itself, and an overview of my

approach to Independence Hall.

And my news article at Occupied Stories: "Imprisoned for a Declaration of

Interdependence".

At the national trial in October, I told the judge that I would practice refusing

to pay the $375 fine:

When I got home, I wrote a Letter on the Nation's Probation to the Federal

Probation Office in Albany.

In November, the Judicial Branch sent a SWAT team of Federal Marshals into

my bedroom:

A friend at the Institute for Societal Holism wrote a letter "In Solidarity with

Travis Henry".

I went on an adventure through the County Jail in Troy, and from inside the

jail, I wrote a "Letter from a County Jail: who will stop the Nation?"

Then I traversed through the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn and

to the Philadelphia FDC (again). I was in prison for 18 days, and then therewas a hearing, and I was released because some friends paid the $375 in

tribute to my effort. I gave them $375 when I got back, in tribute to our

friendship. Caesar got $375 that he doesn't need; yet it was in conscious

spite of him, not in tribute.

I never wrote the full story of that adventure, but here's some rough notes of

observations gathered from prison.



And during the time in solitary confinement, I conceived a Threefold

Rebellion: a practical vision of building towards a full-blown supersessionist

governance, economy, and culture.

Threefold Now: The Illustrations

Crossing Over from the Uniform Statist System to the Threefold Societal

Organism

(A fragmentary work in progress)

Book One: Advanced Threefolding

Chapter One: Societal Names and Flags (slideshow)

Chapter Two: Societal Maps (slideshow) (These maps show the service areas

of the Economic Forum, the Political Governance, and the trans-ethnic, trans-

national Cultural Council of each country. At least initially, they retain the

present-day Nation-State boundaries.)

Chapter Three: Organograms (slideshow)

Chapter Four: Sub-societal Entities (slideshow)

Chapter Five: The End of Autonomies and Dependencies (slideshow)

Chapter Six: Threefold Seas and Seabeds (slideshow)

Chapter Seven: Inter-societal Organizations (slideshow)

Book Two: The Heart of Nations and Peoples [this chapter is in the midst of

being renamed from the older name: "The Concert of Peoples"]

Chapter One: The 193 Civic Nations and their Homelands (slideshow) (Don't

be alarmed at these maps. These maps show how all the Nations and Peoples

will be divested as a particular kind of non-commercial, non-governmental

organization called a National-Cultural Organization (NCO). Their Homelands

—as strictly cultural service areas—will then be free to overlap with eachother, in the same way that the ecclesiastical provinces of the various

religious denominations have been free to overlap since the Separation of

Church and State. The Nations and Peoples will be free to offer their national

school system and other cultural initiatives across political State borders. Like

any cultural organization, NCOs will be free to delineate the boundaries of

their cultural-pedagogical service regions however they wish. The Separation



of Nation and State is the very opposite of statist Nationalism. It is cultural

Plurinationalism.)

Chapter Two: The Twelve and Twelve (slideshow)

Chapter Three: A Gallery of Nations and Peoples (slideshow)

Chapter Four: Families of Nations and Peoples (slideshow)

Book Three: Reconciliation

Chapter One: Symbolic Condominiums (slideshow)

Chapter Two: Reunions (slideshow)

(placeholder) Chapter Three: The Threefold Idea and the 33 Ongoing Military

Conflicts

Chapter Four: The Middle East (slideshow)

Details of a Threefold Societal Organism

The Threefold Social Organism is detailed:

"Today it is already possible to elaborate at length upon the necessity of the

social organism and to establish a scientific basis for it in every detail."

The Renewal of the Social Organism, Appendix

A "Social Organism" is another name for "Country", and a Threefold Social

Organism is a tri-sector transformation of a Country:

"The social goals described here, although valid for humanity in general, canbe realized by each individual social organism regardless of other countries'

initial attitudes."

Basic Issues of the Social Question, Chapter 4: International Relations

Between Social Organisms



All the details necessary to pioneer a full-blown Threefold country are already

available:

"Just take this concrete fact, that our weekly paper, Dreigliederung des

sozialen Organismus, has already brought out 49 issues—49 issues. Take

these 49 issues [many of which are available in the compilation Renewal of

the Social Organism], read them through in succession, and you will see what

an amount we have collected in them of practically all the things which it is

more immediately necessary for mankind to know about the Threefold

question."

In a Threefold Country, instead of a National Government, there are threeindependent sectors for Economic, Political, and Cultural affairs:

"The health of the organism requires its division into three independent

systems: a spiritual, a legal and an economic."

The Threefold Division of the Social Organism: A Necessity of the Age

The three sectors in one country will be as independent from each other as

are present-day national governments:

"These three should confront one another just as independent States do

today. They should deal with one another through their representatives,

ordering their mutual relationships, but in themselves they should enjoy

independent sovereignty."

The Fundamental Social Demands of Our Times, Lecture 3

"The necessary contact between the responsible persons of the legal and

economic bodies will ensue in a manner similar to that at present practiced

by the governments of sovereign states."

Basic Issues of the Social Question, Chapter 2



Each of the three sectors has its own leadership, so that there are Economic

and Cultural equivalents of the Political legislature and Political executive:

"Healthy cooperation cannot be attained by means of a single legislative and

administrative organ, but by each system having its own mutually

cooperating legislature and administration."

Basic Issues of the Social Question, Appendix

"The economic area will form its legislative and administrative bodies in

accordance with economic impulses."


"These two spheres of the social organism must now be joined by a third that

is shaped quite independently, from within its own life-possibilities — the

cultural sphere, with its own legitimate order and administration."


"Today you will always see one Cabinet, one Parliament. Indeed, it seems an

ideal for the people of today to gather everything together chaotically into a

single Parliament. But as I said, the reality of things is tending to hold apart

what is here being concentrated into one. The spiritual life (including judicial

— I do not mean general administration, but the administration of civil and

criminal law) constitutes one member by itself. The economic life a second

member; and the life that regulates the two, constitutes the third — general

administration, public security, and the like."

The Fundamental Social Demands of Our Times, Lecture 3

The Economic administration and the Cultural administration are not

parliamentary—they are not democratically elected. Whereas the Political

administration is formed by democratic elections, with all adult citizens

having an equal voice, the Economic and Cultural administrations are

founded on different principles. "Parliamentary" and "Democratic" are not the



key qualities of the Economic and Cultural sectors.

[In the Cultural administration] "Not that the opinion of every person capable

of forming a judgment will be authoritative. Parliamentary administration

must be deprived of all authority over the Cultural body. Whoever believes

that it is intended that a democratic parliament should again rule here quite

misunderstands the impulse for bringing into existence the social organism

consisting of three members."

"The same holds good in the Economic sphere. The Economic life has its own

roots and must be governed in accordance with the conditions of its own

nature. The manner in which business is carried on cannot be allowed to be

judged democratically by every grown-up person, but only by someone who

is engaged in some branch of economic life, who is capable in his branch and

knows the links that connect his own branch with others."

The Social Future, Lecture 2

The names "Economic Council" and "Cultural Council" are offered as

equivalents of the Political Parliament:

"Beside the Political Parliament administering the equitable position of the

individual vis-à-vis the whole, and of the people vis-à-vis the international

world, and beside the Economic Council to deal with the material foundations

of the people's life, we need a Cultural Council for the promotion of spiritual

affairs." [from an article written by a musician friend of Rudolf Steiner, whom

Steiner quotes in this lecture]

"This Cultural Council was founded a year ago this May and it has already

faded out, is forgotten."

The Search for the New Isis, Divine Sophia, Lecture 4

Besides the political Head of State, there is a person or body that serves as

"Head of the Economy", and a person or body which serves as "Head of

Culture":



"(Notwithstanding their mutual independence) the central authorities at the

head of each [of the three sectors] will be able to harmonize their various

measures."


Besides the three "legislatures" and executives, there is an inter-sector body

(perhaps called a "Senate") with a third of its body made up of

representatives from each of the three administrations. This Senate

negotiates the relationship between the sectors.

"A kind of Senate—elected from the three bodies that have the task of

ordering the political-military, the economic, the juridical-education affairs—

looks after the common interests, including, for example, the joint finances."

Memoranda of 1917

"The greatest possible guarantee that one sphere of the threefold organism

cannot be violated by another lies in their union, effected by the total

corporate body consisting of the delegates of the three centraladministrations and agencies."

Renewal of the Social Organism

The Economic functions of the present-day Government are transferred to the

Economic sector:

"The endeavours which have already begun to be realized by those inauthority to turn certain economic functions (post office, railroads, etc.) over

to the state must be reversed; the state must be relieved of all economic

functions."




The Cultural functions of the present-day Government are transferred to the

Cultural sector:

"The cultural portions of the other two spheres belong in this sphere and

must be submitted to it"


Labor Unions are a kind of Economic association, and so participate in the

Economic administration:

"A consequence of this one-sided confinement to politics are the attempts

being made in various quarters to establish Workers' Councils. The current

attempt to create such institutions must be consistent with the afore-

mentioned “new idea,” [the Threefold Idea] if all labor expended on it is not

to be wasted. This “new idea” requires, however, that Workers' Councils

should be the first institutions with which the State has no concern, but which

are free to form according to the purely Economic considerations of those

engaged in Economic life. It should be left to the emerging corporation to

promote associations that will create through Economic cooperation what has

been brought about hitherto by the egotistical competition of individuals. It is

a question of free social coordination between the various complexes of

production and consumption, and not one of centralized control according toPolitical policies. The point is to promote the Economic initiatives of the

workers through such an association, not to submit them to the tutelage of a

bureaucratic hierarchy."

The Renewal of the Social Organism: Socialist Stumbling Blocks

There is no income tax in a Threefold Societal Organism:

"Among all those who at the present day profess to be experts in practical

life, there is not a single individual who doubts that an improvement has been

made by the transition from all kinds of indirect taxation and other sources of

national income to what we call the income tax, especially the graduated

income tax. Everyone thinks it is unquestionably right to pay income tax and

yet, however paradoxical this may sound to the modern mind, the belief that



the imposition of a tax on income is a just measure is only an illusion

resulting from the modern financial system of economy."

"Precisely by this example of taxation, we see how very necessary is a

change in our method of thinking, and how the belief that a tax on income is

first in importance is an accompaniment of that financial system which has

appeared in modern civilization since the Renaissance and Reformation.

When the economic system is once placed upon its own basis, the only

matter to be considered is that capital actually involved in the production of

commodities shall supply the means for the manufacture of the products

necessary to the community. It will then be a case of a tax on expenditure,

but never one on income."

The Social Future, II

Within the Economic sector, there will be special bodies which continually fix

prices through transparent contracts (so that all prices are true and fair

prices, ensuring that producer, distributor, and retailer all receive a fair

livelihood, and that the price is also fair to the consumer):

"There will remain to be regulated by the economic system only the valuation

of commodities and of the service which one person should receive from

another in exchange for his own service. For this purpose certain persons willwithdraw from the Associations composed of producers of various things, or

of producers and consumers, and so on. These people will occupy themselves

with the fixing of prices."

"Institutions must arise out of the social order which form a link between the

value attached to the commodities by human needs, and the right prices. The

prices are now fixed by the market in accordance with the known purchasing

power of potential buyers. A truly social order must be guided by the fact that

those who quite justifiably must have commodities must be able to pay forthem, i.e. the prices must fit the value of the commodities and correspond to

it. Instead of the present chaotic market, there must be an arrangement by

which the tyrannizing over human needs and the interference with

consumption is eradicated."



"So we see that human reason will take the place of chance, that as the result

of the arrangements which will come into existence the price will express the

agreements arrived at, the contracts entered into. Thus we shall see a

revolution of the market accomplished by the substitution of reason for the

chances of the market now prevailing."


The associative economy is a re-establishment of the natural, real economy

before it became a speculative financial economy:

"In such an economic life as this there will be a return to a condition which

has now almost ceased to exist because of the financial system in which

money itself has become an object of economic business, a condition inwhich economic life will be re-established on its natural and worthy

foundation. It will not be possible in future to carry on business by means of

money and for money; for economic institutions will have to deal with the

respective values of the commodities. That is to say, society will again return

to goodness of quality, excellence of workmanship and the capability of the

worker."


The right to use land, and the right to transfer stewardship of a business

corporation and means of production (for example, factories and their

equipment) is determined by legally designated, non-governmental, non-

profit cultural organizations whose primary purpose is to administer capital

(such as Community Land Trusts and independent councils of experienced

industry managers). In other words, the transfer of Capital (land and means

of production) is severed from the Economic sector.

"In my book, The Threefold Commonwealth, the administration of capital wasmade, on the whole, dependent on the spiritual organization in cooperation

with the independent political and legal organization. Whereas we now say

that capital makes business, the impulse for the threefold order of the social

organism requires that, although it should always be possible to accumulate

capital, provision must be made for capital to be administered by some one

who has developed out of the spiritual life the necessary capacity for

business; and that this accumulation of capital may be administered by the



person to whom it belongs only as long as he is able to administer it himself.

When the capitalist can no longer put his own capacities into the

administration of the capital, he must see—or if he should feel himself

incapable of such a task, a corporation of the spiritual organization must

assume the responsibility of seeing — that the management of the business

shall pass to a highly capable successor, able to carry it on for the benefit of the community. That is to say: The transference of a business concern to any

person or group of persons is not dependent on purchase or any other

displacement of capital, but is determined by the capacity of individuals

themselves; it is a matter of transfer from the capable to the capable, from

those who can work in the service of the community to those who can also

work in the best way far the common good. On this kind of transference the

social safety of the future depends. It will not be an economic transference,

as is now the case; this transference will result from the impulses of the

human being, received from the independent spiritual-intellectual life and

from the independent legal-political life. There will even be corporations

within the cultural organization, united with all other departments of the

cultural life, on which the administration of capital will devolve."

The Social Future, V

"The disposal of land, systematized in the laws relating to its ownership, and

the disposal of the finished means of production (for example, a factory with

its machinery and equipment), should be no matter for the economic

organization; they must belong partly to the spiritual and partly to the legal.

That is to say, the transference of land from one person or group of personsto another must not be carried out by purchase or through inheritance, but by

transference through the legal means, on the principles of the spiritual

organization. The means of production through which something is

manufactured — a process which lies at the basis of the creation of capital —

can only be looked at from the viewpoint of its commodity-cost while it is

being built up. Once it is ready for operation, the creator of it takes over the

management because he understands it best. He has charge of it as long as

he can personally use his capacities. But the finished means of production is

no longer a commodity to be bought and sold; it can only be transferred by

one person or group of persons to another person or group of persons by law,or rather, by spiritual decisions confirmed by law. Thus, what at present forms

part of the economic life, such as the laws relating to the disposal of property,

to the sale of land, and to the right of disposal of the means of production,

will he placed on the basis of the independent legal organization working in

conjunction with the independent spiritual organization."

The Social Future, V



Likewise, inherited capital will not be transmitted to the family lineage (or be

confiscated by the State) but will be transferred for use by the most capable

producer. The Political Governance will delineate the legal process for this,

yet a cultural organization devoted to Capital Administration will make theactual decision of which individual or group is to be entrusted with the

capital.

"Such earnings, acquisitions and savings which result from the individual's

own work will remain in his personal possession until his death, or in his

descendants' possession until a later date."

"After the death of the earner, or at a certain time thereafter, assets acquiredthrough savings, along with the corresponding interest, also go to a spiritually

or materially productive person or group — but only to such a person or

group and not to an unproductive person in whose hands it would constitute

a private pension — to be chosen by the earner and specified in his will."

"Justified personal or family interests will be brought into concordance with

the requirements of the human community through such arrangements. It is

of course possible to point out that there will be a strong temptation to pass

on property to one or more descendants during the original owner's lifetime.Also, that although descendants could be made to look like producers, they

would nevertheless be inefficient compared to others who should replace

them. This temptation could be reduced to a minimum in an organization

governed by the arrangements described above. The rights-state has only to

require that under all circumstances property transferred from one family

member to another must, upon the lapse of a certain period of time after the

death of the former, devolve upon an establishment of the spiritual

organization. Or evasion of the rule can be prevented in some other way

through the law. The rights-state will only insure that the transfer takes place;

a facility of the spiritual organization should determine who is to receive theinheritance. Through the fulfilment of these principles an awareness will

develop of the necessity for offspring being made qualified for the social

organism through education and training, and of the socially harmful results

of transferring capital to unproductive persons. Someone who is really

imbued with social understanding will have no interest in his relation to a

capital base passing to a person or group whose individual abilities do not

justify it."




The Economic executive is responsible for determining tariffs:

"The civil service administration for these economic issues, within whose

domain also lies the full administration of tariff laws, is directly responsible

only to the economic parliament."

Memoranda of 1917

All children have the Right to Education, with all children going toindependent, non-governmental schools. All three administrations play a role

in this:

"Children will have the right to education; the working head of a family will

have a higher income than a single person. The ‘more’ will come to him

through arrangements established by agreement of all three social

organizations. The right to education could be arranged in that the economic

organization's administration, in accordance with the general economic

situation, calculates the amount of educational income possible, while therights-state, in consultation with the spiritual organization, determines the

rights of the individual in this respect."


The elderly, disabled, and widows have the Right to a Dignified Livelihood:

"Just as children have the right to an education, the elderly, the infirm andwidows have the right to a decent maintenance. The necessary capital must

be provided for in the same way that it is for the education of those who are

not yet productive. The essential point of all this is that the income of the

non-earners Is not determined by the economic sector; on the contrary, the

economic sector becomes dependent upon the results of rights-awareness."




One of the main responsibilities of the Political administration is the

protection of the Right to Leisure for all Citizens (in other words, legislation

ensuring that all workers have holidays, vacations, and that there is a

maximum number of work hours per day and week):

"Teachers, artists and such whose only direct connection with a legislature or

an administration is with those which have their origin in spiritual life itself,

will be able, through their actions, to inspire the development of a receptivity

for their efforts and achievements amongst individuals who are protected by

a self-reliant, independent political state from being forced to exist only for

work, and which guarantees their right to a leisure that can awaken in them

an appreciation of spiritual values. Those persons who imagine themselves to

be ‘practical’ may object that people would pass their leisure time drinkingand that illiteracy would result if the state occupied itself with the right to

leisure and if school attendance were left to free human common sense. Let

these ‘pessimists’ wait and see what will happen when the world is no longer

under their influence all too often determined by a certain feeling which,

whispering in their ear, softly reminds them of how they use their leisure

time, what they needed to acquire a little ‘learning’."


The Political Governance is completely responsible for the regulation and

application of Labor and Working Conditions. The wielding of Human Labor is

no longer controlled by the Economic corporations:

"We can expect an improvement only when the control of working capacity is

separated from economics—that is, when the state, based on democratic

principles, determines the quantity and methods used to accomplish a task."

"Thus even before a worker enters the factory or workshop, the state has

determined his or her work, and the state has heard the worker's voice in the

matter through democratic principles."

Proletarian Demands and How to Put Them in Practice



"I have attempted to show in this book how hours and conditions of labour

are matters to be dealt with by the political rights-state. All are equal in this

area due to the fact that only matters are to be treated in it about which all

men are equally competent to form an opinion."

Basic Issues of the Social Question, Preface

"The idea of the Threefold Order of the Social Organism is to detach labor

completely from the economic process."


The Political Governance retains the police and military:

"The object of a democratic representation of the people can only be purely

political, military, and police matters."

Memoranda of 1917

The Political Governance is funded through taxing the Economic sector; yet

the amount will be devised through discussion between the Political

leadership and the Economic leadership:

"Tax laws will provide this political state with what it needs to maintain itself.

These will be devised through a harmonization of ‘rights awareness’ and

economic requirements."


All the public schools are divested from the government, and together withthe private schools, become participants in the Cultural sector:

"The movement for the threefold social order strives for the complete

disassociation of the educational system from government and industry."



The Threefold Social Organism and Educational Freedom

Even schools which train for economic or political fields (such as agriculturalschools and law schools) are a part of the Cultural sector:

"Even the schools which directly serve the state and the economy should be

administered by the educators: law schools, trade-schools, agriculture and

industrial colleges, all should be administered by the representatives of a free

spiritual life."

"The state establishes law-schools and requires that the law they teach be in

accordance with the state's own view of jurisprudence. If these schools were

established as free cultural institutions, they would derive the substance of

their jurisprudence from this very culture. The state would then become the

recipient of what this free spiritual life has to offer. It would be enriched by

the living ideas which can only arise within such a spiritual environment."

Basic Issues of the Social Question, Preface

Occupational training and retraining is part of the Cultural sector:

"Furthermore, practical economic training will reach full effectiveness through

free cooperation with this [cultural] organism. People who have received the

appropriate training will be able to vitalize their economic experience through

the strength which will come to them from liberated spiritual values."


The Judicial branch (the court system) is transferred to the Cultural sector:

"One of the effects through which the triformation of the social organism will



prove itself to be based on the essential nature of human society is the

severance of judicial activities from state institutions. It will be incumbent on

the latter to establish the rights between persons or groups of persons.

Judicial decisions however, will depend upon facilities formed by the spiritual

organization. This judicial decision making is, to a large extent, dependent on

the judge's ability to perceive and understand the defendant's situation. Suchperception and understanding will be present if the confidence which men

feel towards the facilities of the spiritual organization is extended to include

the courts. The spiritual organization might nominate judges from the various

cultural professions. After a certain length of time they would return to their

own professions. Within certain limits, every person would then be able to

select the nominee, for a period of five or ten years, in whom he has

sufficient confidence to accept his verdict in a civil or criminal case, should

one arise. To make such a selection meaningful, there would have to be

enough judges available in the vicinity of each person's place of residence. A

plaintiff would always be obliged to direct himself to a competent judge in the

respondent's vicinity."

"Appeal-courts will also be formed by this administration. An essential

characteristic of such an arrangement is that a judge, because of his life

outside his judgeship — which he can only hold for a limited period — can be

familiar with the sensibilities and environment of the defendant. The healthy

social organism will everywhere attract social understanding to its

institutions, and judicial activities will be no exception."


The present-day timeliness of the Separation of the Judiciary from the Polity is

visible in the Tim DeChristopher saga: "Are we a community without a

conscience" by Think OutWord

Lawyers will become a Cultural profession in service of the Courts:

"Officials selected by the spiritual organization's administration will assist the

judges and courts with technical points of law, but will themselves not hold

decision-making authority."




Even though the Judicial Branch is transferred to the Cultural Sector, the

Political Governance retains responsibility for assuring that the sentence of a

convicted criminal is fulfilled:

"The execution of sentences is the responsibility of the rights-state."


Science is part of the Cultural sector:

"We shall now speak of these three regions of culture: art, science, andreligion. For it is the mission of Anthroposophy or spiritual science to build up

a new structure in these three regions of culture."


Religious organizations are part of the Cultural sector:

"They [the Liberals] were correct, although one-sided, in their demand that

religion be a private affair. In a healthy social organism all spiritual life must

be, in respect to the state and the economy, a ‘private affair’. But the social

democrats' [Liberals'] motive in wanting to transfer religion to the private

sector is not a desire to create a position within the social organism where a

spiritual institution would develop in a more desirable, worthier manner than

it can under state influence. They are of the opinion that the social organism

should only cultivate with its own means its own necessities of life. And

religious values do not belong to this category. A branch of spiritual life

cannot flourish when it is unilaterally removed from the public sector in this

way, if the other spiritual branches remain fettered. Modern humanity'sreligious life will only develop its soul-sustaining strength together with all the

other liberated branches of spiritual life."




The territorial boundaries of the Cultural administration do not have to match

the boundaries of the Economic administration:

"This can be done only if a region, governed by a common cultural life, marks

its own boundaries that will be independent relative to the boundaries that

arise from the given conditions of economic life. Now, of course, the question

immediately presents itself: How is the cultural life to draw necessary support

from the economic life if the administrative boundaries of their two spheres

do not coincide? To find the answer, one need only reflect that a self-

governing cultural life confronts the independent economic life as an

economic corporation. As an economic corporation, it can enter into

agreements for its economic support with the economic administrative bodies

of its regions, regardless of any larger economic region to which these

administrative regions may belong."

The Renewal of the Social Organism, International Aspects of the Threefold

Social Organism

Language bodies (of those languages, such as French, which have regulatory

Language Academies) are a part of the Cultural sector:

"A people's own language and everything related to it also constitute a

spiritual area."


National Identities, including civic nations (present-day "statal nations" such

as the American People, the French People, and the Chinese People) and

ethnic nations (present-day "stateless nations" or "ethnic minorities" such as

the Lakota People, the Basque Nation, and the Tibetan People), are a part of

the Cultural sector:

"National awareness itself belongs to this [spiritual-cultural] area."




The National Identities will be embodied as Cultural Organizations, and so will

be participants in the Cultural sector. The territorial conceptions of these

National-Cultural Organizations do not have to match the borders of the

Political states. Thus the National Homelands will be free to overlap with each

other. The Nations will offer their own National School Systems and other

cultural initiatives in other countries:

"Their thought-habits could not conceive of any other possibility but that the

state borders must coincide with national communities. An understanding of

the fact that spiritual organizations, including schools and other branches of

spiritual life, could be established without regard to state borders was

contrary to their thought-habits. Nevertheless, this ‘unthinkable’ arrangement

constitutes the requirement of modern times for international relations. The

practical thinker should not let himself be restrained by the seemingly

impossible, and believe that arrangements which satisfy this requirementwould meet with insurmountable difficulties; he should rather direct his

efforts toward overcoming these difficulties."


The Separation of Nation and State, and the Separation of Nation and

Economy will end wars:

"The people of one language region do not come into unnatural conflict [war]

with the people of another if political organizations and economic power are

not used to assert their cultures."


A single country can form itself into a Threefold Societal Organism even if

every other country in the world remains a Nation-State:



"Should a social organism form itself according to the three natural sectors,

the representatives of each sector could enter into international relations with

others, even if these others have not yet adopted the same forms."


Each of the three sectors has its own separate embassies, which

independently engage with the economic, political, and cultural organizations

of other countries:

"Each of the three sectors will have an independent relation to the

corresponding sector of another social organism. Economic relations between

countries will exist without being directly influenced by the relations between

their respective rights-states. Conversely, the relations between rights-stateswill develop, within certain limits, completely independent of economic

relations."

"The spiritual/cultural organizations of the various countries will be able to

enter into mutual relations which derive exclusively from the common

spiritual life of mankind. The self-sustaining spiritual sector, independent of

the state, will develop conditions which are impossible to attain when

recognition of spiritual activities is dependent on the rights-state instead of

the spiritual organism's administration."

Basic Issues of the Social Question, Chapter 4: International Relations

Between Social Organisms

The Threefold Idea is for every country:

"The thoughts which underlie these goals are based on reality; they are to be

pursued in all human communities."


International bodies, such as the UN, will also be Threefolded, with three

independent administrations:



"Diversified relations are therewith established between peoples, states and

economic bodies which ally all the parts of mankind so that each, in its own

interest, is sensitive to the life of the others. A league of nations arises from

impulses corresponding to reality."


"So that when we actually spiritualize that which otherwise finds expression

as individualism in the imagination of one people, the single peoples will

become simply the manifold expression of that which, to spiritual perception,

is one. Then, over the whole earth, people will find it possible to tolerate the

different national peculiarities, because there will be no need for an abstract

uniformity everywhere; the concrete one, found through spiritual perception,

will find means of expression in manifold ways. By this means the many will

be able to understand each other in the spiritual unity. Then, from the many

kinds of understanding of the unity, they will be able to frame articles for a

League of Nations, and then, out of the spiritual conditions, out of the

spiritual understanding, legal statutes can arise which will unite the nations.

Then in the individual peoples that will appear which is possible to every

people, namely, interest in the production and consumption carried on by

other peoples. Then through the spiritual life, the legal and rights life of the

peoples, one nation will really be able to develop an understanding of other

nations and peoples over the whole earth."


"A task is still awaiting fulfilment: [...] the forming of humanity into a true and

worthy social body over the whole earth. Michael's aim is to bring about that

true knowledge and understanding of Christ which, living itself out in moral

action, leads [...] the world in its totality to harmony."

Ita Wegman, On the Work of the Archangel Michaël

The Threefold Idea is something to be understood and then implemented,

enacted by willing individuals:



"Today the public must bring to it what it could not have brought a short time

ago: understanding men and women who want to work for what it advocates

—if it is worth being understood and being put into practice. What should

come about now is only possible through the activity of such people."


"The forces by means of which the various peoples grow must develop with a

reciprocity which is not hampered by relations between political states and

economic cooperatives. This will be achieved when the ethnic communities

[nation-states] have implemented their social triformation to the extent that

each of the sectors can cultivate independent relations with other social

organisms."


"If we give a threefold structure to a community, it will not be necessary to

discover formulae for the socialization of life, for this will take place of its own

accord."

What Form Can the Requirements of Social Life Take in the Present Time, Part2

"What is wanted now, would be to set to work and actually propagate the

Threefold Idea, as it is. Of course there are any number of things in the way

of this; but they all reside entirely in the human will."

asic Texts

The three basic texts by Rudolf Steiner:

1) Core Points of the Social Question, in various English translations:

Basic Issues of the Social Question



The Threefold Social Order

The Threefold State

The Threefold Commonwealth

The Triorganic Social Organism

The Steiner Archive has a feature (link) whereby two translations can be

compared side by side with the original text.

2) The Renewal of the Social Organism

3) The Social Future

Other texts on societal issues at the Rudolf Steiner Archive

Hard-to-find threefolding lectures and articles at Think OutWord

Books by other authors which depict the Threefold Societal Organism:

Shaping Globalization by Nicanor Perlas

Functional Threefoldness in the Human Organism and Human Society by

Johannes Rohen

Common Wealth by Martin Large

Functional Threefoldness in the Human Organism & Human Society

$15.00

by Johannes Rohen;

Adonis Press, 2011;

156 pages; paperback;

ISBN 978-0-932776-42-6

After decades of meditating on the human organism leading up to his major



work Functional Morphology, renowned anatomist Johannes Rohen applies his

functional approach to the study of social life. The result is a holistic yet

highly differentiated view of human society as a dynamic organism.

Rohen shows that the same functional principle of threefoldness that informs

the human organism on all of its levels is also inherent in human society –

and in more subtle ways than have been previously described. He points out

that each of the three main aspects of society – cultural, political and

economic – has a threefold structure of its own. His insights suggest that the

dynamic principle of threefoldness provides a key to understanding social life

on ever deeper, more comprehensive levels.

Rohen’s systematic application of organic thinking to social life is spiced by

his often passionate critique of current social forms and practices. His views

are original and refreshing.

Contents

Foreword to the English edition

Introduction

The Threefold Organization of Life-Processes in the Human Organism

The Structure of the Social Organism

The Governmental and Legal System

The Structure of the Cultural-Educational System

The Structure of the Economic System

Threefold Functional Organization in the Social and the Human Organism – a

Comparison

The Legal-Political Sphere in relation to the Rhythmic System

Blood Circulation and the Nature of Money Aberrations

Outline of a Social Order based upon Three Independent Systems, Organized

According to their Inherent Functions

What Can We Do?



Our One-sided World and the concept of the Threefold Social Order

We live in a world dominated by Business backing Government with Civil

Society lagging behind. Civil Society gives birth to our cultural life but is

being overshadowed by Business and Government interests who do not seem

to consider and/or appreciate culture and its central role it plays in life.It is unhealthy if these 3 realms are taken over or dictated by the other, which

we are today witnessing all over the world through financial instability,

unemployment and major unrest.

Threefoldness is the application of 3 separate, independent and self-

organizing realms which mutually negotiate and correct each other on

matters of common concern.

These 3 realms consist of:

1) The ECONOMIC LIFE as an associative co-operation dependent onactual needs, practical knowledge and skills. Economic activities are

organized and carried out in the spirit of brotherhood with the objective of

meeting the needs of every person on the planet. Rudolf Steiner advocated

the view that the entire economic life is embraced by “The Law of True Price”

– in a nutshell: that which is of value to me may not be of value to you..

2) Government/State/Politics/LEGAL regulates and enforces laws

protecting human rights EQUALLY – A rich man cannot buy a politician if the

State and Economic Life is separate; human labour is not a commodity to be

bought or sold. A corporation is not a person. Political questions concerning

human rights and obligations would be the sole duty of this domainindependent of economic concerns AS WELL as defending the human rights

from foreign meddling.

3) FREEDOM in CULTURAL rights includes science, art, religion and

education. Culture can be seen as the cultivation and recognition of human

capacities. Finding the best solutions to unfold these capacities are the task

of the cultural realm. Only spiritual/mental, feelings and insights should be a

requisite. Governments and/or corporations should NOT influence culture,

how we think, learn and do. We should have the freedom to choose.

The above is but a mere sketch of the Threefold Social Order. For a morecomprehensive view please click here

The healthy social life is found when,

in the mirror of each human soul,



the whole community finds its reflection

and when, in the community,

the strength of each individual is living.

- Rudolf Steiner -

Rudolf Steiner's Threefold Social Order

The Threefold Social Organism: An Introduction

By Stephen E. Usher, Ph.D.

Historic Context

A good historian could take us back to the early part of the 20th Century

when Rudolf Steiner developed his idea of the Threefold Social Organism. By

1917, when the idea was first articulated in his two Memoranda, the Great

War was in its third year, a war like nothing humanity had ever experienced.

They called it “total war” because it consumed the entire energy of the

populations in the warring nations. And it consumed more than energy; it

consumed lives. Upwards of 20 million were dead by the armistice on

November 11, 1918 and another 20 million were wounded. It was a time of

tremendous questioning and debate about the right way to organize modern

social life. The western capitalist model was being challenged by socialist

movements and by the communist revolution in Russia (1917). Workers

chained to the harsh environment of smoke belching factories were yearning

for a better life, and by the millions they read the writings of Karl Marx. Rosa

Luxemburg had organized the Spartacus League in Germany and was

agitating for a communist revolution to parallel the disaster enacted by theBolsheviks in Russia. Capitalist businessmen were at their wits’ end trying to

understand what would constitute the future structure of Germany. Rudolf

Steiner introduced his great threefold idea in this fiery milieu, when many

people really wrestled with the riddle of how best to organize human society.

His efforts left their mark on historic documents. For example, Raymond G.

Fuller reviewed Steiner’s seminal Towards Social Renewal, in a full-page



article in the January 14, 1923 edition of the New York Times Book Review

under the title “New Scheme of Social Organization.”

The intensity of questioning died down during the course of the 20th Century,

but, as we enter the 21 Century, symptoms of social turmoil and discontent

are reaching such a pitch that real striving for better ways of organizing social

life is emerging again. Perhaps this will lead to re-examination of Rudolf

Steiner’s Threefold Social Organism.

Three Domains Of Social Activity

Rudolf Steiner developed the idea between 1917 and 1922. The core conceptrecognizes three domains of human social activity: economic, legal, and

cultural. Steiner maintained that the health of human society depended on

an adult population that understood the characteristics of each domain and

could thereby organize society so that each domain enjoyed independence

and autonomy. In an early characterization Steiner said the three domains

should be as independent from one another as national states interacting by

way of treaties.

Economic life concerns transforming what nature provides in the mineral,plant, and animal kingdoms into commodities that meet human needs. From

the threefold perspective, economic activity should be organized and carried

out in the spirit of brotherhood with the objective of meeting the needs of all

human beings on the planet.

Rudolf Steiner maintained that the entire economic life was encompassed by

what he called the “Law of True Price.” He formulated the law in these words:

“A true price is forthcoming when a man receives, as counter-value for the

product he has made, an amount sufficient to enable him to satisfy the wholeof his needs, including of course the needs of his dependents, until he will

again have completed a like product.”

To understand the law requires serious study. In this introduction only a few

pointers can be offered. First, it is essential to remove an error in economic

thinking -- the concept of “wages.” Steiner maintained the idea of wages, i.e.

paying people for their labor, is an illusion. In reality all real labor produces



something of value, and the worker is paid for this value. Consequently, to

properly perceive the economic life, it is necessary to picture each wage

earner as actually running a little business that creates value and to interpret

the wage as the price paid for the value. When wages are included among

other prices then it is possible to apply the Law of True Price.

A second pointer is to observe that the formula speaks of the future, and

states that true price allows the participants in the economic life to meet

their needs for the time required to reproduce the value. It seems evident

that if this is not the case, if people could not meet their needs for a sufficient

time to reproduce the value, then eventually the economic process would

beak down.

The formula also includes the challenging term “needs” which leads to the

obvious question of determining them. It should be noted that the idea of

needs was far more transparent in 1922 when Steiner formulated the law.

Since then the enormous forces of commercial psychology and advertising

have conspired to manipulate needs and transform them into desires. For a

good discussion of this very significant and sinister transformation of

civilization see the film Century of the Self by Adam Curtis which describes, in

particular, the work of Freud’s nephew, Bernays, who was the father of public

relations and manipulative advertising. The basic point is there are real

needs that can be made visible when the impact of powerful subliminal

manipulation is weeded out of the soul.

In Steiner’s picture of the economic domain, associations of the economic life

collect price data and use a combination of market forces and other policy

tools to keep prices true.

The middle realm of the threefold social organism is the legal domain (also

called the political or rights domain). Its role is to establish laws that govern

the behavior of all adults equally. From the threefold perspective this domain

is exclusively about human rights and, in particular, there is no room here for

business entities. From this it follows that there is no place in the legal

domain for corporations as legal persons. Regulation of business life is a

matter for associations of the economic life. Political questions concerning

human rights and obligations are the sole subject matter of the political\rights

domain. The laws formulated in this domain should be formulated



independent of economic concerns and power. This means that economic

resources should play no role in deciding the rights, laws and obligations of

human beings. Once rights and laws have been established society must

have the power to enforce them and, consequently, police power belongs to

the legal domain. To the extent that it is necessary to defend the rights from

foreign intrusion, military power also belongs here.

Culture, in the widest sense, is about the cultivation and recognition of

human capacities. Human capacities are the spiritual endowments that rain

in upon the earth with the births of new human beings. Finding the best way

of unfolding these capacities is the task of the cultural domain. The key

ingredient for this is freedom. The archetypal picture of this freedom-in-

operation is the teacher with his students. In unfolding this relationship only

the spiritual/mental faculties, feelings and insights of the teacher and

students should come into play. Steiner described this freedom in anewspaper article:

“[The cultural life] aims at a form of cooperation among men to be based

entirely on the free intercourse and free association of individuality with

individuality. Here human individuality will not be forced into an institutional

mold. How one person assists another, how one helps another advance will

simply arise from what one, through his own abilities and accomplishments,

is able to be for the other. It is no great wonder that presently many people

are still able to imagine nothing but a state of anarchy as a result of such afree form of human relations in the social order’s spiritual-cultural branch.

Those who think so simply do not know what powers of man’s innermost

nature are hindered from expanding when man is forced to develop in the

pattern into which the state and economic system mold him. Such powers,

deep within human nature, cannot be developed by institutions, but only

through what one being calls forth in perfect freedom from another being.”

This passage makes clear that no laws or regulations should be formulated

about how or what a teacher should teach. The how and what of teaching is

a purely cultural matter and is the providence of colleges of teachers

interacting on the basis of freedom in the cultural domain. Similarly,

economic power should in no way be allowed to determine how cultural life is

conducted.

In addition to education the cultural life encompasses all of science, art,

religion, medicine, and the working of judges. Each of these areas is about



human capacity. Artistic endeavor concerns the capacity to transform nature

into sensory experiences that awaken spiritual ideals, even beauty; religion

concerns – among other capacities - the capacity of reverence; medicine the

capacity for recognizing and tending illness; the work of judges deals with the

capacity for weighing truth with criminality. Inventing and innovation are

actually part of cultural life too. The aspect of banking and financeconcerned with recognizing individuals whose developed capacities make

them able to manage capital is likewise part of cultural life.

All of these activities require freedom and competition among human beings

of capacity, allowing the most talented to rise to the top. The notion that

competition belongs in economic life is a confusion that arises because part

of cultural life is mistakenly viewed by our civilization as economic. What our

civilization views as business competition in product development and

innovation is the same sort of activity that takes place in a competition forthe first chair violin in an orchestra. In other words, it is an activity of the free

cultural life. It is this confusion that has led to the erroneous idea that

economic life is about competition.

Equally erroneous is the association of freedom with the economic life. In

reality a deep and dense network of dependencies characterizes economic

life. These become particularly visible when disaster strikes. For example,

the bankruptcy of a large automobile manufacturer spreads a wave of

damage and hurt in ever widening circles. First to loose their livelihoods are

those who work for the manufacturer. As the wave expands the suppliers to

the automobile manufacturer and the car dealerships feel the pain of reducedincome or bankruptcy. The circle of people who have lost their jobs or who

have significantly lower incomes, of course, spends less as consumers, and

this affects all the people whose activity was supplying these consumer

needs, e.g. town merchants in the affected area, etc. It was Steiner’s insight

that brotherly cooperation and interdependence was the true quality that

should rule these densely interdependent networks in order that everyone’s

needs might be met. The notion that people are free agents in this realm

belies the fact that each person is tied by innumerable threads into a

complex network that demands he perform the tasks required by the needs

of others. Brotherhood is about brotherly interdependence. Thatcharacterizes economic life.

Incompatible Qualities



The three qualities, freedom, equality, brotherhood were the famous cry of

the French Revolution: liberté, egalité, fraternité. The cry was a symptom of

humanity’s unconscious longing for a threefold social organism. Threefolding

is necessary precisely because these three ideals are incompatible. For

example, equality in all things would mean that everybody should have a turn

playing a Stradivarius violin in the first chair of the Boston Philharmonic. Thiswould obviously lead to many lousy concerts. Similarly, freedom in all

matters would mean social sanctioning of theft and breaching of business

contracts. Brotherly interdependency in artistic matters would prevent great

novelists or inventors the liberties they often need to stimulate their

creativity. The only way to resolve the incompatibility of the three ideals of

freedom, equality, and brotherhood is by threefolding the social organism,

thereby providing a domain where each quality is exclusively exercised.

It was Steiner’s insight that society should be structured so that each of thethree domains had its own organization and autonomy and that the domains

would negotiate among themselves on matters of common concern. In his

original formulation in the “Memoranda of 1917” he pictured these

negotiations taking place in “[a] kind of senate that is elected from the three

corporate bodies, which have the task of ordering the political-military, the

economic, the judicial-pedagogical affairs…” As an example of such a

negotiation, imagine what would happen if citizens interacting based on

equality in the legal domain enacted a law that no person should be required

to work more than 15 hours per week. The economic domain would have to

accept such a decision as it would a fact of nature, e.g. the average rainfall ina region and its implications for agricultural productivity. But in the senate,

representatives of the economic domain would point out to representatives of

the legal domain that the total economic output would be considerably

smaller than if the rights state set maximum work at 40 hours. Citizens in

the rights domain might then reconsider their decision, recognizing that

everyone would have proportionately less to consume, or they might decide

that they preferred the extra leisure and would be willing to reduce their

needs accordingly. Whatever was ultimately decided in the rights sphere

about the work week would be accepted by the economic domain as an

operating constraint just as the farmer must accept the rainfall nature

provides.

One-Fold Theocracy to Threefold Organism: The Evolution of Consciousness



This introduction would be incomplete without a look at the world prior to the

time when threefolding was a hygienic necessary. Steiner points to the

origins of the legal foundation that is a pre-requisite for a functioning modern

market economy. When did laws and rights originate? How did we get to the

point where we had a system of property rights and dispute resolution? The

answer takes us back to ancient Rome. That is when human beings firstestablished real laws. They actually developed two systems of law: one

system for relationships between Roman citizens and another for

relationships between citizens and non-citizens. The Romans also introduced

the idea of a last will and testament. It was an extraordinary innovation that

allowed a person to determine what happened to objects on earth after his

death. Before Rome, such an idea was unknown. So it can be stated that the

ideas of law and rights were born in Rome; that is the time and place of the

origin of the middle domain of the threefold organism.

Before Rome, civilizations were quite different. For instance, consider ancient

Egypt. It was a theocracy, a world where the pharaoh, a priest-king, ruled

over the religious life, the legal life, and the economic life. Thus the religious

life encompassed the entire society and was led by the pharaoh who, at least

in the Old Kingdom, was considered a god. This god held absolute sway over

all legal questions and his judgments were seen as true because they were

the judgments of a god. He also ruled over economic affairs.

Steiner held that in very ancient times economic life was organized

instinctively. He states, “Certain social conditions obtained among men –

caste forming and class forming conditions – and the relations between manand man which arose out of these conditions had the power to shape instincts

for the way in which the individual must play his particular part in economic

life. These things were very largely founded on the impulses of the religious

life, which in those ancient times were still of such a kind as to aim

simultaneously at the ordering of economic affairs. …In those early times, the

question of labor, or of the social circulation of labor values did not arise.

Labor was performed in a certain sense instinctively. Whether one man was

to do more or less never became a pressing question, at least not a pressing

public question, in pre-Roman times.”

Roman civilization witnessed the separation of the once unified theocratic

order into a religious-cultural sphere and a legal one. The idea of the citizen

with rights was born. Related to this was the legal status of the citizen’s

labor. Of course, slaves who had no rights carried much of the labor in

Ancient Rome. Ideas about labor rights continued to develop through Roman



times and into the Middle Ages and indeed into our own time.

As labor became emancipated a new problem emerged: human egoism.

While labor was governed by religious organizations that saw to it that human

beings were “fruitfully placed in the social organism” egoism could do no

harm. But as labor rights became emancipated from the theocratic order,

humanity had to deal with selfishness. Steiner stated: “[H]umanity strives …

unconsciously to come to grips with Egoism … and in the last resort, this

striving culminates in nothing else than modern Democracy – the sense for

the equality of man- the feeling that each must have his influence in

determining legal rights and in determining the labor which he contributes.”

Milestones on the road to democracy include the Magna Carta (1215), the

first elected English Parliament (1265), the British Bill of Rights (1689), the

American Revolution (1775-1781), and the French Revolution (1789-1799).

While functioning democracies were emerging another major event occurred:

the scientific revolution (16th and 17th Centuries). According to Steiner, it

came about because human beings underwent a metamorphosis of

consciousness, i.e. human consciousness evolved. The idea that human

consciousness has undergone an evolution during historic time is part of

Steiner’s worldview, which is considered radical by orthodox science. Steiner

described the shift in consciousness that first manifested in the leading

figures of the scientific revolution: “The picture of nature is no longer drawn

in a manner that allows thought to be felt in it as a power revealed by nature.Out of this picture of nature, every trait that could be felt as only a product of

self-consciousness gradually vanishes. Thus, the creations of self-

consciousness and the observation of nature are more and more abruptly

contrasted, separated by a gulf. From Descartes onward a transformation of

the soul organization becomes discernible that tends to separate the picture

of nature from the creations of the self-consciousness. With the sixteenth

century a new tendency in the philosophical life begins to make itself felt.

While in the preceding centuries thought had played the part of an element,

which, as a product of self-consciousness, demanded its justification through

the world picture, since the sixteenth century it proves to be clearly anddistinctly resting solely on its own ground in the self-consciousness.

Previously, thought had been felt in such a manner that the picture of nature

could be considered a support for its justification; now it becomes the task of

this element of thought to uphold the claim of its validity through its own

strength. The significance of the transformation of the soul life can be

realized if one considers the way in which philosophers of nature, like H.

Cardanus (1501-1576) and Bernardinus Telesius (1508-1588) still spoke of



natural processes. In them a picture of nature still continued to show its

effect and was to lose its power through the emergence of the mode of

conception of the natural science of Copernicus, Galileo and others.

Something still lives in the mind of Cardanus of the processes of nature,

which he conceives as similar to those of the human soul. Such an assertion

would also have been possible to Greek thinking. Galileo is alreadycompelled to say that what man has as the sensation of warmth within

himself, for instance, exists no more in external nature than the sensation of

tickling that a man feels when the sole of his foot is touched by a feather.

Telesius still feels justified to say that warmth and coldness are the driving

forces of the world process, and Galileo must already make the statement

that man knows warmth only as an inner experience.”

Steiner’s research into the evolution of consciousness reveals that the above-

described metamorphosis of human consciousness began about 1413. WhatSteiner is saying is that prior to this change, human consciousness

experienced it’s own thinking as part of nature. After the change,

consciousness no longer experiences thinking this way. Rather thinking is

experienced as something private and apart from nature. Descartes’ famous

cogito ergo sum --“I think therefore I am”-- epitomizes the new condition. A

consequence of this change in consciousness was man’s new capacity to

approach nature as a detached and disinterested observer.

The first historic symptom of the change in consciousness was the scientificrevolution. On the basis of newly discovered natural laws numerous life-

transforming inventions flowed into civilization. The new technology led to

the technological revolution that induced vast migrations from agrarian life

into the cities and factories. One consequence: an economic life exhibiting

deeper and wider division of labor than had formerly existed began to take

shape.

This division of labor had a significant implication: “Whoever works in a social

organism which is based on the division of labor never really earns his incomeby himself; he earns it through the work of all the participants in the social

organism.” This constitutes that interdependence that characterizes

modern economic life, an interdependence that needs to unfold in

brotherliness. As these impulses of the new scientific consciousness spread

through humanity, an independent economic life, like an amoeba, detaches

itself from the legal and cultural domains. This occurs as the depth and



breath of economic interdependence intensifies.

This rapid survey of historic time illustrates that in very ancient times,

civilization was one-fold and dominated by a theocratic order. When we

reach ancient Rome, the legal system began to manifest a separate identity

and the idea of the citizen with rights emerges. Much later, during the 17

and 18th, the economic system begins to exhibit an independent identity.

Steiner observes: “[I]n former epochs – nay, even as late as the 15th and

16th century – economic questions such as we have today did not even

exist.”

Lens and Diagnostic Tool

The emergence of three independent domains of human social activity from

an ancient unified theocracy occurred more or less unconsciously. In the

early part of the 20th Century Rudolf Steiner tried to call humanity’s attention

to the necessity of making this reality conscious and of acting accordingly.

The history of his remarkable attempt to re-structure post World War I Europe

on the basis of this idea will be described in the next section. As that and

subsequent attempts to make the threefold idea the conscious organizing

principal of some land on the earth have so far failed, the threefold idea has

never enjoyed a laboratory where it could be worked out in practical life.

Nonetheless the threefold idea can serve both as a lens and a diagnostic tool

to view and understand the problems of contemporary civilization.

A simple exercise is to read the news through this lens asking questions like:

Which domain(s) of society is (are) involved? Is there an issue of unlawful

interference in one domain by another? A common problem is commercial

interests (economic) attempting to influence legislation (rights) with the

intention of creating greater profits. For example, the decision to go to war

with Iraq can be interpreted in this light, though there were, no doubt, other

factors at work as well. Recall the preemptive war was justified with the

allegation that Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction. But no WMDswere ever found. On the other hand, it is now known that big commercial

enterprises made a fortune as war contractors. Often contracts were

awarded without competitive bidding. Evidence of significant over billing and

substandard deliverables also exists. Regarding the big picture of the Iraq

war, one senior administration official is alleged to have stated the war was

really about oil, i.e. not about WMDs.



As another example, consider the news stories pointing to the toxicity of GMO

foods and the fact that a vast amount of food in the US contains GMO

substances without labeling. Focusing the threefold lens on this issue

reveals an unlawful interference of commercial (economic) interests on therights domain. The evidence is that the majority of Americans want clear

labeling of GMO foods, but so far this has been prevented. In Europe, until

now, GMO food must be clearly labeled.

Another interesting area to investigate is unlawful commercial interference

with cultural life. This can occur, for example, when scientists falsify or hide

their findings for commercial gain. Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. exposed a startling

example of this problem in his article “Deadly Immunity,” published on

Salon.com in 2005. The findings of the tobacco litigation provide anotherexample.

Focusing the threefold lens on the 2008-housing crisis can be instructive. The

kernel of the problem was that mortgage brokers allowed people to purchase

homes they could not afford. This actually represents failure of the internal

regulation of the economic life itself. From the threefold perspective

confusion exists because the agencies in our society charged with regulating

lending institutions are viewed as part of the political sphere, e.g. Comptroller

of the Currency, Federal Reserve Bank, Office of Thrift Supervision, etc. Froma threefold perspective, most of the functions of these agencies really

constitute aspects of the economic realm. These agencies failed to perform

their functions, apparently at times under political pressure. This political

pressure represents unlawful interference with the economic life. Deeper

exploration would probably reveal that economic interests stood behind the

political pressure. Consequently, the matter also apparently represents

unlawful commercial interference with the political life. The consequence is

the tremendous economic downturn of 2008-2009 and the enormous

suffering that it implies.

As a final example, consider Internet regulation. This includes the idea of

censoring certain content with filters. What governments have in mind

includes filtering independent news sites. Evidently, this is an example of

political domain interference with free cultural life.

Wrestling regularly with such questions develops the capacity to see what is



happening in society more clearly. If sufficient numbers of people would take

up this exercise, the foundation would be laid for a true threefolding in the

future.

Not Rehashing Plato’s Republic

In addition to exercising a basic understanding of the threefold idea, it is also

necessary to answer some of the criticisms leveled against it. One criticism

is that Steiner’s idea amounts to nothing more than repackaging the three

estates from Plato’s Republic. The three estates were the Philosophers who

ruled, the warriors who protected, and the artisans who composed the

majority of the population and who provided for the every day necessities.

The response to this criticism is that other than the fact of three groups,

Plato’s idea has little in common with Steiner’s. In Plato’s Republic each

person belongs to one group only. In Steiner’s threefold social organism each

person participates in all three domains. As consumers everyone participates

in the economic realm and not just by eating. Adult consumers also

participate in economic associations along with distributors and producers to

survey economic conditions and make adjustments where necessary. By

contrast, the fact that Plato’s philosophers eat does not make them part of

the artisan estate and the same is true of Plato’s warriors. Another difference

is found in the way laws are formulated. All adults participate on the basis of

equality in the domain of politics and rights in formulating laws that apply

equality to all human beings in Steiner’s threefold social organism. Incontrast, in the Republic the Philosophers carry this function. Yet another

contrast is this: The leading figures of the political life do not have exclusive

overarching responsibility for the guidance of the threefold social organism

just because it is threefold, and consequently its guidance arises from three

separate centers each responsible for different functions. In contrast the

philosophers of the Republic are philosopher-kings, that is they are theocratic

leaders of a still one-fold society.

Three Separate Centers: Comparison with the Human Organism

To underscore the idea of three separate centers, Steiner often made use of a

comparison with the human organism. The human organism can be viewed

as consisting of three distinct functional areas: the nerve and sense faculties

which Steiner also calls the head system; the rhythmic system consisting of



“respiration, blood circulation and everything which expresses itself in the

rhythmic processes of the human organism” ; and the metabolic system

which comprises all the organs and functions serving metabolism. He

explains that these three systems “maintain the total processes of the human

organism” and “function with a certain autonomy” with no absolute

centralization.

Not Capitalism, Socialism, or Communism

From the fact (a) that each adult participates in each of the three domains

and (b) that Steiner’s threefold society has three distinct functional areas

each enjoying autonomy from the other, it should be evident that Steiner is

not rehashing Plato’s ideas. It also should be made clear that the threefold

idea is different both from capitalism and socialism. For example, Steiner

maintained that the entrepreneur and business manager uses capital like an

extension of his arm. Consequently, he must have unhampered control over

capital. In this sense the threefold idea is capitalist. Indeed, Steiner

considered the idea of state control of capital – a key tenant of socialism and

communism – disastrous. But Steiner did not think market mechanisms could

meaningfully allocate capital. Rather he maintained that bankers and other

figures of the cultural life, who had developed the ability to recognize which

human beings had the capacity to use capital for the benefit of the

community, would place capital at their disposal. Moreover, when these

entrepreneur-managers reached a point in life when they either no longerwished or were no longer able to manage capital, it would be transferred to

other capable hands.

Steiner’s threefold thinking also diverges from capitalism in that he placed

limits on private accumulation of wealth. People of great capacity would be

entitled to a share of the profits that arose from the enterprise they directed.

When they retired they would be entitled to keep their fortune. However,

Steiner maintained that it was not to the benefit of society that great fortunes

pass endlessly from generation to generation because it could easily comeinto unproductive hands that would squander it. He advised that great

fortunes (e.g. over $10 million) should be governed by a kind of copyright law

for fortunes. Consequently, a certain time (e.g. 25 years) after the passing of

the person who accumulated a fortune, that fortune would be returned to the

cultural life as gift or placed in the hands of able business managers to be re-

deployed for the benefit of society.



To capitalist critics that argue markets are the only efficient way to allocate

capital, it should be observed that markets no longer are the exclusive means

of allocating capital in the US, generally considered the most capitalistic

society. Rather it is allocated by the seat of the pants of the Chairman of theFederal Reserve and the Secretary of the Treasury. (Witness the trillions

dropped from Bernanke’s helicopter and Paulson’s legislation in 2008.)

Steiner’s idea contemplated a more rational method of placing capital into

the hands of people of capacity and morality, who would use it for the

general good of society.

In ending this introduction it should be observed that the Threefold Social

Organism is not a fantasy. Rather it describes something which already exists

but in a muddled way. What is really needed is a public educated to the threedomains. Once consciousness of the three domains lights up in sufficient

numbers of people, a proper threefolding could be brought about in a

perfectly legal fashion. There is no need to speak of revolutions except in

consciousness. This would lead to the three centers functioning according to

their inherent qualities.

No Utopia

It also should be stated that the emergence of a conscious threefolding would

not produce a utopia because problems and tensions constantly arise in

social life. What it would produce is an organic way of dealing with the

difficulties and tensions before they become explosive. Otto Lerchenfeld

(1868-1938) asked Rudolf Steiner the question that led to his formulating the

Threefold idea. In his memoir, Lerchenfeld records this thought: “[The

Threefold Social Organism] did not provide what was intended to become a

definitive solution of the social question, and could naturally not do this by

reason of the very nature of a living organism. Nevertheless, there did result

out of this idea the way, the only straightforward way upon which the socialconditions, the social difficulties with their eternally varying problems, might

be guided again and again towards a solution appropriate to the period,

towards their curing.”

References:



Rudolf Steiner, Social and Political Science, Rudolf Steiner Press,2003.

Rudolf Steiner, The Renewal of the Social Organism, Anthroposophic Press,

1985.

Rudolf Steiner, Towards Social Renewal, Rudolf Steiner Press, 1977.

http://wn.rsarchive.org/Books/GA023/English/SCR2001/GA023_index.html

Rudolf Steiner, World Economy, Rudolf Steiner Press, 1972.

http://www.rsarchive.org/Lectures/GA/index.php?ga=GA0340

Rudolf Steiner, The Social Future, Anthroposophic Press, 1972.

Rudolf Steiner, The Esoteric Aspect of the Social Question; The Individual and

Society, Rudolf Steiner Press, 2001.

Rudolf Steiner, “Anthroposophy and the Social Question”

http://wn.rsarchive.org/Articles/AntSocQues/AnSoQu_index.html

Stephen Usher, “The Fundamental Social Law”, The Threefold Review,

Summer/Fall 1993 (Issue No. 9)

ENDNOTES:

The review can be purchased for a fee at the New York Times on line archive.

Rudolf Steiner, World Economy, Rudolf Steiner Press, 1972, p. 72. On the

same page he states, “I do believe, for the domain of economics, this formula

is no less exhaustive than, say the Theorem of Pythagoras is for all right-

angled triangles.”

The 4 part series is available on Google vide free at this address:

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=8953172273825999151. For those

who posses a background in mathematical economics also see my Ph.D.dissertation available from University Microfilms under the title Consumer

Aspirations: A Dynamic Approach, University of Michigan, 1978.

Rudolf Steiner, The Renewal of the Social Organism, Anthroposophic Press,

1985, see article entitled “Cultivation of the Spirit and the Economic Life.”




http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=8953172273825999151




http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=8953172273825999151



Much attention is focused on the “struggle for existence” in the animal

kingdom and this is often used as a metaphor for human economic

interaction. This supposed science ignores the cooperative side of both

animal and human society. An excellent ignored work on cooperation in thekingdoms of nature and among human beings is Petr Kropotkin’s Mutual Aid,

A Factor of Evolution, Porter Sargent Publishers, Boston.

Rudolf Steiner, Towards Social Renewal, Rudolf Steiner Press, 1977, p.81.

Rudolf Steiner, Social and Political Science, Rudolf Steiner Press, 2003, p. 87.

This thought gives a hint about the nature of human needs.

Rudolf Steiner, World Economy, Rudolf Steiner Press, 1972, p 38.

Ibid. p 40.

Rudolf Steiner, The Riddles of Philosophy, Anthroposophic Press, 1973, pp 70-

71.

Rudolf Steiner, Towards Social Renewal, Rudolf Steiner Press, 1977, pp. 120-

121.

This is not the place to debate filioque!

It goes beyond the scope of this introduction to explore the change that

manifest in human consciousness between the end of Ancient Egypt and the

beginning of the Greco-Roman age. This change could be associated with the

separation of the legal domain from the once unified cultural theocracy.



Rudolf Steiner finds the symptoms of this metamorphosis in the appearance

of the early Greek philosophers. It was his observation that they were the

first to think in abstract terms though they did experience their thinking as a

process of nature. Prior to that humanity possessed an atavistic clairvoyance

that followed world happenings in a kind of picture consciousness. This new

capacity for abstract thought had matured sufficiently by Roman times toallow the creation of the concept of the citizen with rights. See his Riddles of

Philosophy, Anthroposophic Press, 1973, Chapter 2, “The World Conception of

the Greek Thinkers.”

Rudolf Steiner, World Economy, Rudolf Steiner Press, 1977, p. 38.

“Unlawful” here does not refer to breaking a codified law but rather a

violation of the threefold principle of the autonomy of the three domains.

http://www.news24.com/News24/World/Iraq/0,,2-10-1460_1369424,00.html

(http://www.naturalnews.com/025001.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trade_war_over_genetically_modified_food ).

http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2005/06/16/thimerosal/print.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subprime_mortgage_crisis#Government_policies

Eliot Spitzer published an interesting analysis of the problem in February

2008 in the Washington Post shortly before the crisis broke in March with the

take over of Bear Sterns. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/02/13/AR2008021302783.html

Rudolf Steiner, Towards Social Renewal, Rudolf Steiner Press, 1977, p. 54.


http://www.naturalnews.com/025001.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trade_war_over_genetically_modified_food



http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/02/13/AR2008021302783.html



http://www.naturalnews.com/025001.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trade_war_over_genetically_modified_food







Ibid. p 55.

Probably the best way to implement the inheritance copyright idea would be

a sinking fund. In other words, the heirs would be allowed to keep some

maximum amount, e.g. 10 million dollars, in perpetuity. The amount over

that figure would be turned over to the cultural and economic spheres on a

straight-line basis over the quarter century following the entrepreneur’s

demise.

Rudolf Steiner, Social and Political Science, Rudolf Steiner Press, 2003, p. 7.

Quotes

Books

Social and Economic Thought , by Rudolf Steiner

Links

Threefolding UK site

http://www.rudolfsteinerweb.com/Threefold_Social_Order.php



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