,,the ,,threefold ,,commonwealth ,authorized ,translation by ,e4 ,bowen-,wedgwood ,,by ,,rudolf ,,steiner ,author of ,the ,philosophy of ,freedom1 ,die ,sociale ,zukunft1 etc4 ,,london ,the ,threefold ,commonwealth #df1 ,gloucester ,place1 ,w4 #a4 ,,new ,,york ,the ,threefold ,commonwealth ,publishing ,association #gja1 ,carnegie ,hall ,a ,,foreword ,,as ,,to ,,the ,,purpose ,,of ,,this ,,book ,the social life of the present day presents grave and far-reaching problems4 ,we are confronted by demands for social reconstruction1 which shew that the solution of these problems must be sought along paths unthought-of hitherto4 ,borne out by the actual events of the hour1 the time has perhaps come for someone to gain a hearing1 who is forced by life's experience to maintain1 that the neglect to turn our thoughts into the paths that are now needed has stranded us in confusion and perplexity4 ,it is under that conviction that this book is written4 ,its purpose is to discuss what needs doing1 in order that those demands1 which are being urged by a large part of mankind to-day1 may be turned in the direction of a determinate social will and purpose4 ,personal likes and dislikes should enter but little into the formation of a social purpose4 ,the demands1 welcome or unwelcome1 are there2 and they must be reckoned with as facts of social life4 ,this should be borne in mind by those who1 from their personal situation in life1 may be inclined to be annoyed at the author's way of discussing the demands of the working-class1 because in their opinion he lays too one-sided a stress on these demands1 as on something that must be reckoned with when determining on a social purpose4 ,but what the author wants1 is to present life as it exists to-day in all its full reality1 in so far as he is able from his knowledge of it4 ,he has ever before his eyes the fatal consequences that must ensue1 if people refuse to see facts1 which are actually there1 which have arisen out of the life of modern mankind1--and if they accordingly persist in ignoring a social will and purpose in which these facts find their place4 ,those people again will not be pleased with the author's remarks1 who regard themselves as experts in practical life1--or in what1 under the influence of fond habit1 has come to be regarded as practical life4 ,they will be of opinion1 that whoever wrote this book was not a practical person4 ,these are just the people1 who1 in the author's opinion1 have everything to unlearn and re-learn4 ,their practice of life seems to him the very thing1 which is demonstrated by the actual facts from which mankind are suffering to be an utter mistake1--that very mistake that has led to boundless and immeasurable fatalities4 ,these people will be obliged to recognise the practicability of much that has seemed to them absurd idealism4 ,and although they may condemn this book at the outset1 because its opening pages say less about the economic than about the spiritual life of modern mankind1 yet the author's own acquaintance with life forces him to the conviction1 that1 unless people can bring themselves to pay due and accurate attention to the spiritual life of modern mankind1 they will only go on adding fresh mistakes to the old ones4 ,neither will what is said in these pages altogether please those1 who are for ever repeating with endless variations the phrases3 that man must rise above absorption in purely material interests1--that he must turn to ideals1 to the things of the spirit4 ,for the author does not attach much importance to mere references to the spirit or to talk about a vague spiritual world4 ,the only spirituality he can acknowledge1 is that which forms the substance of man's own life and manifests its power no less in mastering the practical problems of life than in constructing a philosophy of life and of the universe1 which can satisfy the needs of man's soul4 ,the important point1 is not the knowledge1--or supposed knowledge1--of a spiritual life1 but that such a spiritual life shews itself in a practical grip of realities1 and is not a special preserve for the inner life of the soul1 a backwater alongside the full tide of realities4 ,and so1 what is said in these pages will seem to the spiritually-minded too unspiritual1 to practical persons too remote from practice4 ,but the author's view is1 that he may have his own special use at the present time1 for the very reason1 that he neither tends towards that aloofness from life1 which is to be found in many a man who thinks himself practical1 nor yet can hold in any way with the kind of talk about the spirit1 which conjures up a mirage out of words4 ,it is as a question of economics1 of human rights and of the spirit1 that the social question is discussed in this book4 ,the author thinks that he perceives1 how the true form of the social question emerges as an outcome of the requirements of the economic life1 the life of rights and the spiritual life4 ,through such a perception alone can the impulses come1 which shall make it possible to give these three branches of social life a shape that permits of healthy life within the social order4 ,in the earlier ages of mankind's evolution1 the social instincts secured these three branches being woven together in the whole life of society in a manner adapted to human nature at that period4 ,at the present stage of his evolution1 man is faced with the necessity of working out this combination of function by conscious1 determinate social will and purpose4 ,between those earlier ages and the present1 in the countries where the question of a social purpose is most immediate1 we find the old instincts and the new consciousness overlapping and playing through one another in a fashion quite inadequate to the needs of modern mankind4 ,in a great deal of social thinking1 which people believe to be clear-sighted and conscious1 the old instincts are still at work and enfeeble men's thought for dealing with urgent facts4 ,it requires a much more radical effort than is usually supposed1 for the man of the present day to work his way out of the husks of what is dead and done with4 ,one must first be willing to recognise this fully1 before1 in the author's opinion1 it is possible to see the forms that industrial economy1 human rights1 and spiritual life must take1 in order to be in keeping with a healthy social life such as the new age demands4 ,what the author feels called on to say as to the lines that these new forms must inevitably follow1 is submitted to the judgment of the day in the following pages4 ,the author's desire1 is to give the first impetus along a path1 that shall lead to social ends in keeping with the actual realities and exigencies of life at the present time2 for he believes1 that it is only through effort thus directed that our social will and purpose can get beyond mere utopianism and wordy sentiment4 ,and if anyone still thinks that this book has somewhat of a utopian character1 the author would ask him to consider the pictures which people draw in their own minds of the kind of society that they look to see arise1--how very wide of life such pictures are1 and how apt to degenerate into mere moonshine4 ,that is the very reason1 why1 when these people do meet with something that is drawn from actual reality and experience1--as attempted here1--they regard it as a utopia4 ,to many persons1 nothing is concrete outside their own customary line of thought2 and so the concrete itself is to them an abstraction1 when they are unaccustomed to think it4 #a--;,hence they will think this book abstract4 ,with people again1 whose minds are harnessed hard and fast to a party-programme1 the author's views will at first find no favour4 ,of this he is well aware4 ,still he believes1 that it will not be long before many party men come to the conclusion1 that the actual facts of evolution have got far beyond the programmes of the parties1 and that it is urgently necessary to free oneself from all such party-programmes and to form an independent opinion as to the immediate objectives of the social will and purpose4 ,,the ,,threefold ,,commonwealth ,,introductory ,,preface ,,to ,,the ,,new ,,edition ,,of #aibj ,the problems presented by social life for solution in our times can be understood by nobody who approaches them with the thought of any kind of utopia in his mind4 ,one's views and sentiments may lead one to the belief1 that certain institutions1 which one has mapped out according to one's own ideas1 must be for the happiness of mankind4 ,this belief may carry all the force of passionate conviction2 and yet one may be talking quite wide of the actual social question1 when one tries to obtain practical recognition for what one believes4 ,one will find this assertion hold true at the present day1 even when pushed to what may appear an absurd extreme4 ,suppose1 for instance1 somebody possessed a perfect theoretical solution of the social question1 he might nevertheless be acting on an utterly unpractical conviction1 if he tried to press this carefully thought-out solution upon mankind4 ,for we are no longer living in an age1 when one is justified in believing that public life can be affected in such a way4 ,men's souls are differently constituted2 and they could never say about public affairs3 ,here is somebody who understands the social institutions that are needed2 we will take his opinion and act on it4 ,ideas concerning social life simply cannot be brought home to people after this fashion2 and it is a fact that is fully recognised in this book1 which is already known to a fairly large public4 ,those who have set it down as utopian1 have totally missed its whole aim and intention4 ,especially has this been the case with those1 who themselves cling to a utopian form of thought3--they attribute to the other person what is essentially their own mental characteristic4 ,a practical thinker to-day recognises as one of the experiences of public life1 that nothing can be done with an utopian idea1 however convincing it may be in appearance4 ,nevertheless1 many people have some idea of this type1 which they feel impelled to bring before their fellow-men1 especially in the field of economics4 ,they will be forced to recognise that their words are wasted4 ,their fellow-men can find no use for what they have to offer4 ,this should be treated as a piece of practical experience2 for it points to a fact of importance in public life3 namely1 the remoteness of people's thoughts from real life3--how wide their thoughts are from what reality1--economic reality for instance1--demands4 ,can one hope to master the tangled intricacies of public affairs1 if one brings to them a mode of thought altogether remote from life8 ,this question is not one likely to find general favour2 for it involves the admission that one's way of thought is remote from life4 ,yet1 until this admission is made1 it is not possible to approach the other question--the social one4 ,for the remoteness of thought from life is a question of grave concern for the whole modern civilised world2 and only when people treat it as such will they see light as to what is needed for social life4 ,this question brings us to the consideration of the form taken by modern spiritual life4 ,modern man has evolved a spiritual life1 which is to a very great degree dependent on state institutions and on economic forces4 ,the human being is brought whilst still a child under the education and instruction of the state2 and he can be educated only in the way permitted by the industrial and economic conditions of the environment from which he springs4 ,it might easily be supposed1 that this would ensure a person's being well qualified for the conditions of life at the present day1 for that the state must possess every opportunity of arranging the whole system of education and instruction 7which constitutes the essential part of public spiritual life7 in the best interests of the human community4 ,it might well be supposed too1 that the way to make a person the best possible member of the human community is to educate him in accordance with the economic opportunities of the environment from which he comes1 and then pass him on1 thus educated1 to fill one of the openings that these opportunities afford him4--,it devolves upon this book1--an unpopular task to-day1--to shew1 that the chaotic condition of our public life1 comes from the spiritual life's dependence on the ,state and on industrial economy--and to shew further1 that one part of the burning social question is the emancipation of spiritual life from this dependence4 ,this involves attacking very widespread errors4 ,that the ,state should take over the whole system of education1 has long been regarded as a beneficial step in human progress2 and persons of a socialistic turn of mind find it difficult to conceive of anything else1 than that society should educate the individual to its service according to its own standards4 ,people are loathe to recognise1 what nevertheless1 in this field1 it is absolutely necessary should be recognised2 namely1 that in the process of man's historic evolution a thing1 that at an earlier period was all right1 may at a later period become all wrong4 ,in order that a new age might come about in human affairs1 it was necessary that the whole system of education1 and with it public spiritual life1 should be removed from those circles that had exclusive possession of it all through the middle ages1 and entrusted to the ,state4 ,but to continue to maintain this state of things1 is a grave social mistake4 ,this is what the first part of the book is intended to shew4 ,the spiritual life has matured to freedom within the framework of the state2 but it cannot rightly enjoy and exercise this freedom unless it is granted complete self-government4 ,the whole character assumed by the spiritual life requires that it should form a completely independent branch of the body social4 ,the educational and teaching system1 lying as it does at the root of all spiritual life1 must be put under the management of those people who are educating and teaching2 and none of the influences at work in state or industry should have any say or interference in this management4 ,no teacher should spend more time on teaching than will allow of his also being a manager in his own sphere of activity4 ,and in the way that he himself conducts the teaching and education1 so too he will conduct the management4 ,nobody will issue instructions1 who is not at the same time actively engaged in teaching and educating4 ,no parliament has any voice in it1--nor any individual1 who once on a time may have taught1 but is no longer personally teaching4 ,the experience learnt at first hand in actual teaching passes direct into the management4--,in such a system1 practical knowledge and efficiency must1 of course1 tell in the very highest possible degree4 ,it may no doubt be objected1 that even under such a selfgoverning spiritual life things will not be quite perfect4 ,but then1 in real life1 that is not to be looked for4 ,all one can aim at1 is the best that is possible4 ,with each child of man there are new abilities growing up1 and these will really be passed on into the life of the community1 when the care of developing them rests entirely with people who can judge and decide on spiritual grounds alone4 ,how far a particular child should be brought on in one direction or another1 can only be judged in a spiritual community that is quite free and detached4 ,what steps should be taken to ensure their decision having its rights1 this too is a matter only to be determined by a free spiritual community4 ,from such a community the ,state and the economic life can receive the forces they need1 and which they cannot get of themselves when they fashion spiritual life from their own points of view4 ,it follows from the whole tenor of the following pages1 that the directors of the free spiritual life will have charge also of the arrangements and course of teaching in those institutes also1 which are specially directed to the service of the ,state or of the economic world4--,law-schools1 ,trades-schools1 ,agricultural and ,industrial ,colleges1 would all take their form from the free spiritual life4 ,many prejudices are bound to be aroused1 when the principles stated in this book are pursued to these1 their right consequences4 ,but from what do such prejudices proceed8 ,the anti-social spirit in them becomes evident1 when one recognises1 that at bottom they proceed from an unconscious persuasion1 that people connected with education must necessarily be unpractical persons1 remote from life1--not the sort of people whom one could for a moment expect to institute arrangements that would be of any real use for the practical departments of life1 and that all such arrangements must be instituted by the people actively engaged in practical life1 whilst the educators must work on the lines laid down for them4 ,in thinking like this1 people do not see1 that the educators need to fix their lines of work themselves1 from the smallest things up to the biggest1 that it is when they cannot do so that they grow unpractical and remote from life4 ,and then you may give them any principle to work on1 laid down by apparently the most practical persons1 and yet their education will not turn out people really practically equipped for life4 ,our anti-social conditions are brought about1 because people are turned out into social life not educated to feel socially4 ,people with social feelings can only come from a mode of education that is directed and carried on by persons who themselves feel socially4 ,the social question will never be touched1 until the education question and the question of the spiritual life are treated as a vital part of it4 ,an anti-social spirit is created not merely by economic institutions1 but through the attitude of the human beings within these institutions being an anti-social one4 ,and it is anti-social1 to have the young brought up and taught by persons1 who themselves are made strangers to real life by having their lines of work and the substance of their work laid down for them from outside4 ,the ,state establishes law-schools4 ,and it requires1 that the substance of the jurisprudence taught in these law-schools should be the same as the ,state has fixed for its own constitution and administration1 from its own points of view4 ,when the law-schools proceed wholly from a free spiritual life1 this free spiritual life itself will supply the substance of the jurisprudence taught in them4 ,the ,state will wait to take its mandate from the spiritual life4 ,it will be fertilised by the reception of living ideas1 such as can issue only from a spiritual life that is free4 ,but the human-beings1 growing up to life1 are within the spiritual domain1 and will go forth with views of their own to put into practice4 ,the education given by people who are strangers to life1 inside educational institutes planned by mere practicians1--this is not an education that can be realised in practice4 ,the only teaching that can find practical realisation comes from teachers who understand life and its practice from a point of view of their own4 ,in this book an attempt is made to give at least a sketch of the way in which a free spiritual organisation will shape its details of working4 ,in ,utopian minds1 the book will rouse all manner of questions4 ,artists and other spiritual workers will anxiously ask whether genius will find itself better off in the free spiritual life than in the one at present provided by the ,state and the economic powers8 ,in putting such questions1 however1 they must please to remember1 that the book is in no respect intended to be ,utopian4 ,hence it never lays down a hard and fast theory4 ,this must be so and so1 or so and so4 ,its aim is to promote the formation of such forms of human social life1 as1 from their joint working shall lead to desirable conditions4 ,and anyone1 who judges life from experience1 and not from theoretic prejudice1 will say to himself ,when there is a free spiritual community1 whose dealings with life are guided by its own lights1 then anyone who is creating out of his own free genius will have a prospect of his creations being duly appreciated4 ,the social question is not a thing that has cropped up at this particular point in the life of man1 which can be solved straight away by a handful of people1 or by parliaments1 and1 once solved1 will remain solved4 ,it is an integral part of our new civilised life2 and it has come to stay4 ,it will have to be solved afresh for each moment of the world's historic evolution4 ,for man's life has entered with this new age upon a phase1 when what starts by being a social institution turns ever and again into something anti-social1 which has each time continually to be overcome afresh4 ,just as an organic body1 when it has once been fed and satisfied1 passes after a while into a state of hunger again1 so the body social passes from one state of order again into disorder4 ,there is no more a panacea for keeping social conditions in good order1 than there is a food that will satisfy the body for ever and always4 ,men can however enter into forms of community1 which1 through their joint action in actual life1 will bring man's existence constantly back into the social path4 ,and one of these forms of community is the self-governing spiritual branch of the body social4 ,all the experiences of the present time make it plain1 that what is socially needed is1 for the spiritual life free self-administration1 and for the economic life associative labour4 ,industrial economy in modern human life is made up of the production of commodities1 circulation of commodities and consumption of commodities4 ,these are the processes for satisfying human wants2 and human beings and their activities are involved in these processes4 ,each has his own part-interest in them2 each must take such a share in them as he is able4 ,what any individual actually needs1 only he himself alone can know and feel4 ,as to what he himself should perform1 this will be judged by him according to his measure of insight into the mutual life of the whole4 ,it was not always so2 nor is it so to-day all the world over2 but in the main it is so amongst the at present civilised portion of the ,earth's inhabitants4 ,economic evolution has kept widening its circles in the course of mankind's evolution4 ,household economy1 once self-contained1 has developed into town economy1 and this again into ,state economy4 ,to-day we stand before world economy4 ,no doubt1 in the ,new much still lingers on of the ,old2 and much that existed in the ,old was already a forecast of the ,new but the above evolutionary order is the one that has become paramount in certain relations of life1 and the destinies of mankind are conditioned by it4 ,it is altogether a wrong-headed notion to aim at organising the economic forces into an abstract world-community4 ,private economic organisations have1 in the course of evolution1 become to a very great extent merged in ,state economic organisations4 ,but the ,state communities were created by other forces than the purely economic ones2 and the endeavour to transform the ,state communities into economic communities is just what has brought about the social chaos of these latter times4 ,economic life is struggling to take the form its own peculiar forces give it1 independent of ,state institutions1 and independent also of ,state lines of thought4 ,it is only possible through the growth of ,associations1 having their rise in purely economic considerations1 and drawn jointly from circles of consumers1 traders and producers4 ,the actual conditions of life will of themselves regulate the size and scope of these ,associations4 ,over-small ,associations would prove too expensive in the working2 over-large ones would get beyond economic grasp4 ,the needs of life as they arise will shew each ,association the best way of establishing interconnections with the others4 ,there need be no fear1 that anyone1 who has to spend his life moving about from place to place1 will be in any way hampered by ,associations of this kind4 ,he will find removing from one group to another quite easy1 when it is not managed by the ,state-organisations1 but by the economic interests4 ,one can conceive possible arrangements within such an associative system1 that would work with the facility of a money-currency4 ,within any single ,association1 where there is practical sense and technical knowledge1 a very general harmony of interests can prevail4 ,the production1 circulation and consumption of goods will not be regulated by laws1 but by the persons themselves1 from their own direct insight and interests4 ,people's own active share in the life of the ,associations will enable them to acquire the necessary insight2 and the fact1 that the various interests are obliged to contract a mutual balance1 will ensure the goods circulating at their proper relative values4 ,this sort of agreed combination1 determined by economic considerations1 is not the same as the form of combination that exists in the modern trades-unions4 ,the activities of the modern trades-unions are expended in the economic field2 but the unions are not framed primarily according to economic considerations4 ,they are modelled on the principles taken from practical familiarity in modern times with political considerations1 considerations of state4 ,they are parliamentary bodies1 where people debate1 not where they come together to consider economic aspects and agree on the services to be reciprocally rendered4 ,in these ,associations1 it will not be wage-workers sitting1 using their power to get the highest possible wages out of the work-employer2 it will be hand-workers1 co-operating with the spiritual workers1 who direct production1 and with those interested in consuming the product1 to effect a balance between one form of service and another1 through an adjustment of prices4 ,this is not a thing that can be done by general debate in parliamentary assemblies4 ,one must beware of these4 ,for who would ever be at work1 if an endless number of people had to spend their time negotiating about the work6 ,everything will take place by agreement between man and man1 between one ,association and another1 whilst the work goes on alongside4 ,for this1 all that is necessary is1 that the joint agreement should be in accordance with the inside knowledge of the workers and with the interests of the consumers4 ,in saying this1 one depicts no ,utopia4 ,no particular way is laid down in which this or that matter must be settled4 ,all that is done1 is to point out how people will settle matters for themselves1 when once they set about working in forms of community which are in accordance with their special insight and interests4 ,there are two things that operate to bring men together into communities of this kind3 ,the one1 is human nature1--for it is nature that gives men wants4 ,or1 again1 a free spiritual life1 for this engenders the insight that finds scope in communal life4 ,anyone1 who bases his thoughts on reality1 will admit1 that ,associative communities of this kind can spring up at any time1 that there is nothing utopian about them4 ,there is nothing to hinder their springing up1 except that the thought of organisation has been so suggested into the man of the present day1 that he is obsessed with the notion of organising industrial and economic life from outside4 ,in direct contrast to such organising of men for the combined work of production1 is this other kind of economic organisation1 that rests on voluntary1 free ,association4 ,through this mutual ,association1 one man establishes ties with another2 and the orderly scheme of the whole is the resultant of what each individual finds reasonable for himself4 ,it may of course be said3 ,what is the use of a man1 who has no property1 ,associating himself with a man1 who has8 ,it might seem better for all production and consumption to be regulated fairly from outside4 ,but such organising kind of regulation checks the flow of free individual creative power1 through which economic life is fed1 and cuts the economic life off from what this source alone can give it4 ,putting aside any pre-conclusions1 just make the experiment of an ,association between those1 who to-day have no property1 and those who have2 and1 if no forces other than economic ones intervene1 it will be found that the ,haves are obliged to render the ,have-nots service for service4 ,the common talk about such things to-day does not proceed from those instincts of life1 that experience teaches1 but from certain attitudes of mind1 that have arisen out of class or other interests1 not out of economic ones4 ,such attitudes of mind had a chance to grow up1 because1 in these latter times1 just when economic life especially was becoming more and more complicated1 the purely economic ideas were unable to keep pace with it4 ,the cramped and fettered spiritual life has acted as a drag4 ,the people1 who are carrying on economic life1 are fast caught in life's routine2 they are unable to see the forces that are at work shaping the world's industrial economy4 ,they work on1 without any insight into the totality of human life4 ,but1 in the ,associations1 one person will learn from another what it is necessary that he should know4 ,a collective experience of economic possibilities will arise from the combined judgment of individuals1 who each have insight and experience in their own particular departments4 ,whilst1 then1 in the free spiritual life the only forces at work are those inherent to the spiritual life itself1 so in an economic system modelled on associative lines1 the only values that count will be those economic values that grow up under the ,associations4 ,the particular part that any individual has to play in economic life will become clear to him from actual life and work along with his economic associates4 ,and the weight that he carries in the general economic system will be exactly proportionate to the service he renders within it4 ,there will be those who are unfitted to render service2 and how these find their place in the general economy of the body social is discussed in the course of the book4 ,in an economic system1 that is shaped by economic forces alone1 it is possible for the weak to find shelter against the strong4 ,thus the body social falls apart into two independent branches1 which are able to afford each other mutual support owing to the very fact1 that each has its own special method of working1 shaped by the forces inherent to itself4 ,but between these two must come a third1 whose life lies betwixt both4 ,this is the true state branch of the body social4 ,here all those things find a place that must depend upon the judgment and sentiments of every person who is of age to have a voice4 ,within the free spiritual life1 everyone busies himself according to his special abilities4 ,within the economic life1 each fills the place that falls to him through his connection with the rest of the associative network4 ,within the political state-life of rights1 each comes into his own as a human being1 and stands on his simple human value1 in so far as this is apart from the abilities which he exercises within the free spiritual life1 and independent too of whatever value that the associative economic system may set upon the goods he produces4 ,hours of labour and modes of labour are shewn in this book to be matters for the political ,rights-life1 for the state4 ,here1 every man meets his fellow on an equal footing1 because1 here1 all transactions and all control are confined to those fields of life in which all men alike are competent to form an opinion4 ,it is the branch of the body social where men's rights and duties are adjusted4 ,the unity of the whole body social will spring from the separate1 free expansion of its three functions4 ,in the course of the book it is shewn1 what form the energies of capital and of the means of production1 as well as the use of land1 may take under the joint action of these three functions of the social organism4 ,to someone1 who is bent on solving the social question by a device of economics1 by some economic scheme that has come up or been thought out on paper1--to him this book will seem unpractical4 ,but anyone1 who is trying from life's experience to promote forms of combination amongst men1 in which they may be able to see1 what the social problems1 and duties are1 and how best to fulfil them1--he may perhaps admit1 that the writer of this book is endeavouring after a genuine working-practice of life4 ,the book was first published in ,april1 #aiai4 ,since then1 ,i have published a series of articles1 explanatory and supplementary to it1 which have now appeared as a separate volume4 #b ,it may be thought1 that in both books a great deal is said about the paths that should be pursued in social life1 and very little about the ultimate ends of the social movement4 ,anyone1 who thinks along the lines of life1 knows1 that1 as a matter of fact1 particular ends may present themselves in various forms4 ,it is only those who live in abstract thoughts1 who see things in single outline1 and who often find fault with the person in practical life for not putting them definitely1 clearly enough4 ,there are many such abstractionists to be found amongst people who pride themselves on their practicality4 ,they do not reflect1 that life can assume the most manifold forms4 ,it is a flowing tide2 and if one would travel with it1 one must adapt oneself even in thought and feeling to the flux that is its constant feature4 ,thought of this kind alone can seize and keep its hold on social problems4 ,it is from the observation of life that the ideas in this book have been won2 it is from the observation of life that they ask to be understood4 ,i4 ,,the ,,true ,,shape ,,of ,,the ,,social ,,question1 ,,as ,,shewn ,,in ,,the ,,life ,,of ,,modern ,,man ,does not the modern social movement stand revealed by the great catastrophe of the war1 demonstrating in actual facts how inadequate the thoughts were1 which for years have been supposed sufficient to an understanding of the working-class movement and its purport8 ,it is a question forced upon us by the demands of the workers and all that these involve1--demands which formerly were kept in suppression1 but which at the present time are forcing their way to the surface of life4 ,the powers that were instrumental in suppression are partially destroyed2 and the position they took up towards the forces of social growth in a large part of mankind is one that nobody can wish to maintain1 who does not totally fail to recognise how indestructible such impulses of human nature are4 ,the greatest illusions in respect to these social forces have been harboured by persons1 whose situation in life gave them the power1 by word and voice1 either to assist or to check those influences in ,european life1 which1 in #aiad1 were rushing us into the catastrophe of war4 ,these persons actually believed1 that a military victory for their country would hush the mutterings of the social storm4 ,they have since been obliged to recognise1 that it was the consequences of their own attitude that first brought these social tendencies fully to light4 ,indeed1 the present catastrophe1--which is the catastrophe of mankind1--has shewn itself to be the very event1 through which1 historically1 these tendencies gained the opportunity to make themselves felt in their full force4 ,during these last fateful years1 both the leading persons and the leading classes have been constantly obliged to tune their own behaviour to the note sounded in socialist circles4 ,could they have disregarded the tone of these circles1 they would often gladly have acted differently4 ,and the effects of this live on in the form which events are taking to-day4 ,and now the thing1 which for years past has been drawing on in mankind's life-evolution1 preparing its way before it1 has arrived at a decisive stage1--and now comes the tragedy3 ,the facts are with us in all their ripeness1 but the thoughts that came up with the growth of the facts are no match for them4 ,there are many persons who trained their thoughts on the lines of the growing process1 hoping thereby to serve the social ideal which they recognised in it2 and these persons find themselves to-day practically powerless before the problems which the accomplished facts present1 and on which the destinies of mankind hang4 ,a good many of these persons1 it is true1 still believe that the things they have so long thought necessary to the remodelling of human life will now be realised1 and will then prove powerful enough to give these facts a possible turn and meet their requirements4 ,one may dismiss the opinion of those1 who1 even now1 are still under the delusion1 that it must be possible to maintain the old scheme of things against the new demands that are being urged by a large part of mankind4 ,we may confine ourselves to examining what is going on in the wills of those people who are convinced that a remodelling of social life is necessary4 ,even so1 we shall be forced to own to ourselves1 that party shibboleths go wandering up and down amongst us like the dessicated corpses of once animate creeds1--everywhere flouted and set at naught by the evolution of facts4 ,the facts call for decisions1 for which the creeds of the old parties are all unprepared4 ,these parties certainly evolved along with the facts1--but they1 and their habits of thought1 have not kept pace with the facts4 ,one may perhaps venture without presumption to hold1--in the face of still common opinion1--that the course of events throughout the world at the present time bears out what has just been said4 ,one may draw the conclusion1 that this is just the favorable moment to attempt to point out something1 which1 in its true character1 is foreign even to those who are expert thinkers among the parties and persons belonging to the various schools of social thought4 ,for it may well be1 that the tragedy that reveals itself in all these attempts to solve the social question1 arises precisely from the real purport of the working-class struggle having been misunderstood1--misunderstood even by those who1 themselves with all their opinions1 are the outcome of this struggle4 ,for men by no means always read their own purposes aright4 ,there may therefore seem some justification for putting these questions3 ,what is1 in reality1 the purport of the modern working-class movement8 ,what is its will8 ,does this1 its will and purport1 correspond to what is usually thought about it1 either by the workers themselves1 or by the non-workers8 ,does what is commonly thought about the social problem reveal that question in its true form8 ,or is an altogether different line of thought needed8 ,this is a question which one cannot approach impartially unless1 through personal destiny1 one has in a position oneself to enter into the life of the modern worker's soul1--especially amongst that section of the workers who have most to do with the form the social movement is taking in the present day4 ,people have talked a great deal about the evolution of modern technical science and modern capitalism4 ,they have studied the rise of the present working-class in the process of this evolution1 and how the developments of economic life in recent times have led on to the workers' present demands4 ,there is much that is to the point in what has been said about all this4 ,but there is one critical feature which is never touched on1 as one cannot help seeing1 if one refuses to be hypnotised by the theory that it is external conditions that give the stamp to a man's life4 ,it is a feature obvious to anyone who keeps an unclouded insight for impulses of the soul that work from within outwards1 out of hidden depths4 ,it is quite true1 that the worker's demands have been evolved during the growth of modern technical science and modern capitalism2 but a recognition of this fact affords no further clue whatever to the impulses that are actuating these demands1 and which are in fact purely human in character4 ,nor1 till one penetrates to the heart of these impulses1 will one get to the true form of the social question4 ,there is a word in frequent use among the workers1 which is of striking significance for anyone able to penetrate to the deeper-seated forces active in the human will4 ,it is this3 the modern worker has become class-conscious4 ,he no longer follows1 more or less instinctively and unconsciously1 the swing of the classes outside his own4 ,he knows himself one of a class apart1 and is determined1 that the relation1 which public life establishes between his class and the other classes1 shall be turned to good account for his own interests4 ,and anyone1 who has comprehension for the undercurrents of men's souls1 finds in the word class-conscious1 as used by the modern worker1 a clue to very important facts in the worker's view of life1--in particular amongst those classes of workers1 whose life is cast amidst modern technical industry and modern capitalism4 ,what will above all arrest his attention is1 how strongly the worker's soul has been impressed and fired by scientific teachings about economic life and its bearing on human destinies4 ,here one touches on a circumstance about which many people1 who only think about the workers1 not with them1 have very hazy notions1--notions indeed1 which are downright mischievous1 in view of the serious events taking place at the present day4 ,the view1 that the uneducated working man has had his head turned by ,marxism1 and by later labour writers of the ,marxist school1 and other things one hears of the same sort1 will not conduce towards that understanding of the subject and its connection with the whole historic situation of the world1 which is so peculiarly necessary at the present day4 ,in expressing such a view1 one only shews that one lacks the will to examine an essential feature of the present social movement4 ,for it is an essential feature1 that the working-class consciousness has thus become filled with concepts that take their stamp from the scientific evolution of recent times4 ,this class-consciousness continues to be dominated by the note struck in ,lassalle's speech on ,science and the ,workers4 ,such things may appear unessential to many a man who reckons himself a practical person2 but anyone1 who means to arrive at a really fruitful insight into the modern labour movement1 is bound to turn his attention to these things4 ,in the demands put forward by the workers to-day1 be they moderates or radicals1 we have the expression1 not1 as many people imagine1 of economic life that has--somehow--become metamorphosed into human impulse1 we have the expression of economic science1 by which the working-class consciousness is possessed4 ,this stands out clearly in the literature of the labour movement1 with its scientific flavour and popular journalistic renderings4 ,to deny this1 is to shut one's eyes to actual facts4 ,and it is a fundamental fact1 and one which determines the whole social situation at the present day1 that everything which forms the subject of the worker's class-consciousness is couched for him in concepts of a scientific kind4 ,the individual working at his machine may be no matter how completely a stranger to science2 yet those1 who enlighten him as to his own position and to whom he listens1 borrow their method of enlightenment from this same science4 ,all the disquisitions about modern economic life1 about the machine age and capitalism1 may throw ever so instructive a light on the facts underlying the modern working-class movement2 but the decisive light on the present social situation does not proceed directly from the fact1 that the worker has been placed at the machine1 that he has been harnessed to the capitalist scheme of things4 ,it proceeds from the other1 different1 fact1 that his class-consciousness has been filled with a quite definite kind of thought1 shaped at the machine and under the influence of the capitalist order of economy4 ,possibly the habits of thought peculiar to the present day may prevent many people from realising the full bearing of this circumstance1 and may cause them to regard the stress laid upon it as a mere dialectic play upon terms4 ,one can only say in reply3 ,so much the worse for any prospect of a successful intervention in social life to-day by people who are unable to distinguish essentials4 ,anyone1 who wants to understand the working-class movement1 must first and foremost know1 how the worker thinks4 ,for the working-class movement1 from its moderate efforts at reform to its most sweeping extravagances1 is not created by forces outside man1 by economic impulses1 but by human-beings1 by their mental conceptions and by the impulses of their will4 ,not in what capitalism and the machine have implanted in the worker's consciousness1 not here lie the ideas and will-forces1 that give its character to the present social movement4 ,this movement turned in the direction of modern science to find its fount of thought1 because capitalism and the machine could give the worker no substance with which to content his soul as a human being4 ,such substance and content was afforded to the medieval craftsman by his craft4 ,in the kind of connection which the medieval handworker felt between himself1 as a human being1 and his craft1 there was something that shewed life within the whole human confraternity in a light which made it seem1 for his individual consciousness1 worth living4 ,whatever he might be doing1 he was able to regard it in such a way1 that he seemed through it to be realising what he desired1 as a man1 to be4 ,tending a machine under the capitalist scheme of things the man was thrown back upon himself1 upon his own inner life1 whenever he tried to find some principle on which to base a general outlook on ,man and one's consciousness of what as a man one is4 ,technical industry1 capitalism1--these could contribute nothing towards such an outlook4 ,and so it came to pass1 that the working-class consciousness took the bent towards the scientific type of thought4 ,the direct human link with actual life was lost4 ,now this occurred just at a time1 when the leading classes of mankind were working towards a scientific mode of thought1 which in itself no longer possessed the spiritual energy to content man's consciousness in every aspect and guide it along all the directions of its wants4 ,the old views of the universe gave man his place as a soul in the spiritual complex of existence4 ,modern science views him as a natural object amidst a purely natural order of things4 ,this science is not felt as a stream flowing from a spiritual world into the soul of man1 and on which man as a soul is buoyed and upborne4 ,whatever one's opinion may be as to the relation of the religious impulses1 and kindred things1 to the scientific mode of thought of recent times1 yet one must admit1 if one considers historic evolution impartially1 that the scientific conception has developed out of the religious one4 ,but the old conceptions of the universe1 that rested deep down on religious foundations1 lacked power to impart their soul-bearing force to the newer form of scientific conception4 ,they withdrew beyond its range1 and lived on1 contenting their consciousness with things in which the souls of the workers could find no resource4 ,for the leading classes1 this inner world of consciousness might still have a certain value4 ,in some form or other it was bound up with their own position in life4 ,they sought for no new substance for their consciousness1 because they were able to keep a hold on the old one1 that had been handed down to them through actual life4 ,but the modern worker was torn out of all his old setting in life4 ,he was the man whose life had been put on a totally new basis4 ,for him1 when the old bases of life were withdrawn1 there disappeared at the same time all possibility of drawing from the old spiritual springs4 ,these lay far off in regions to which he was now become a stranger4 ,contemporaneous with modern technical science and modern capitalism1--in such a sense as one can speak of great worldstreams of history as contemporaneous1--there grew up the modern scientific conception of the world4 ,to this the trust1 the faith1 of the modern worker turned4 ,it was here he sought the new substance that he needed to content his inner consciousness4 ,but the working-class and the leading classes were differently situated with regard to their scientific outlook4 ,the leading classes felt no necessity for making the scientific mode of conception into a gospel of life1 for the support of their souls4 ,no matter how thoroughly they might have permeated themselves with the scientific conception of a natural order of things1 in which a direct chain of causality leads up from the lowest animals to man1 this mode of conception remained nevertheless a merely theoretic persuasion4 ,it never stirred their feelings1 and impelled them to take life through and through in a way befitting such a persuasion4 ,take naturalists such as ,vogt and the popular writer1 ,buechner2 they were unquestionably permeated with the scientific mode of conception2 but1 alongside this1 there was something else at work in their souls which kept their lives interwoven with a whole complex of circumstances1 such as can those whose only intelligible justification can be the belief in a spiritual order of the world4 ,putting aside all prejudice1 let us just imagine1 how differently the scientific outlook affects a man whose personal existence is anchored in such a complex1 from the modern artisan1 who1 in the few evening hours that he has free from work1 hears the labour leader get up and address him in this fashion3 ,science in our time has cured men of believing that they have their origin in a spiritual world4 ,they have learnt better1 and know now1 that in the far ages1 long ago1 they climbed about on trees like any vulgar monkey4 ,science has taught them too1 that they were all alike in their origin1 and that it was a purely natural one4 ,it was a science that turned on such thoughts as these1 which met the worker when he was looking for a substance to fill his soul and give him a sense of his own place as man in the life of the universe4 ,he took the scientific outlook on the world in thorough earnest1 and drew from it his own practical conclusions for life4 ,the technical1 capitalistic age laid hold of him differently from a member of the leading classes4 ,the latter had his place in an order of life1 which still bore the shape once given it by soul-sustaining forces2 it was all to his interest to fit the acquisitions of the new age into this setting4 ,but the worker1 in his soul1 was torn loose from this order of life4 ,it was not capable of giving him one emotion that could illumine and fill his own life with anything of human worth4 ,there was one thing only1 which could give the worker any sense of what a man is1 one thing only that seemed to have emerged from the old order of life endowed with the power that awakens faith1 and that was--scientific thought4 ,it may arouse a smile in some of those who read this1 to be told of the scientific character of the worker's conceptions4 ,let them smile1 who can only think of the scientific habit of mind as something that is acquired by many years of application on the benches of educational institutes1 and then contrast this sort of science with what fills the mind of the worker who has never learnt anything4 ,what is for him a smiling matter1 are facts of modern life on which the fate of the future turns4 ,and these facts shew1 that many a very learned man lives unscientifically1 whereas the unlearned worker brings his whole view of life into line with that scientific learning1 of which very likely nothing has fallen to his share4 ,the educated man has made a place for science1--it has a pigeon-hole of its own in the recesses of his soul4 ,but he himself has his place in a network of circumstances in actual life1 and it is these which give the direction to his feelings4 ,his feeling is not directed by his science4 ,the worker1 through the very conditions of his life1 is led to bring his conception of existence into unison with the general tone of this science4 ,he may be very far from what the other classes call scientific1 yet his life's course is charted by the scientific lines of conception4 ,for the other classes1 some religious or aesthetic1 some general spiritual principle is the determining basis2--for him1 ,science is turned into the creed of life1--even though often it may be science filtered away to its last little shallows and driblets of thought4 ,many a member of the foremost classes feels himself to be enlightened in religion1 a free-thinker4 ,no doubt his scientific convictions influence his conceptions2 but in his feelings still throb the forgotten remnants of a traditional creed of life4 ,what the scientific type of thought has not brought down from the old order1 is the consciousness of being1 as a spiritual type1 rooted in a spiritual world4 ,this was a peculiarity of the modern scientific outlook1 which presented no difficulty to a member of the leading classes4 ,life to him was filled by old traditions4 ,for the worker it was otherwise2 his new situation in life drove the old traditions from his soul4 ,he took over from the ruling classes as heritage the scientific mode of thought1 and made this the basis of his consciousness of the life and being of man4 ,but this spiritual possession1 with which he filled his soul1 knew nothing of its derivation from an actual life of the spirit4 ,the only spiritual life1 that the workers could take over from the ruling classes1 was of a sort that denied its spiritual origin4 ,i well know1 how these thoughts will affect people outside as well as inside the working-class1 who1 believing themselves to have a thorough practical acquaintance with life1 regard the view here expressed as quite remote from realities4 ,the language of actual facts1 as spoken by the whole state of the world to-day1 will more and more prove this belief of theirs to be a delusion4 ,for anyone able to look at these facts without prejudice1 it will be plain1 that a view of life1 which never gets beyond their external aspect1 becomes ultimately inaccessible to any conceptions save such as have lost all touch with facts4 ,ruling thought has clung on so long in this practical way to facts1--that the thoughts themselves have ended by bearing no resemblance whatever to the facts4 ,the present world-catastrophe might have taught many people a lesson in this respect4 ,what did they think it possible might happen8 ,and what really did happen8 ,is it to be the same with their thoughts about social problems8 ,i know too1 how someone who professes working-class views will feel about what has been said1 and can hear him saying3 ,just like the rest of them6 trying to shunt the real gist of the social question off on to lines that promise to be smooth for the bourgeois sort4 ,with his creed1 he does not see how fate has brought him into this working-class life1 and how he is trying to find his way in it with a type of thought inherited from the ruling-classes4 ,he lives as a working-man but he thinks as a bourgeois4 ,the new age is making it necessary to learn not only a new way of life1 but a new way of thought also4 ,the scientific mode of conception can only become substantial and life-supporting1 when it evolves1 in its own fashion1 a power to content the whole of human life in all its aspects1 such as the old conceptions of life once evolved in their way4 ,this points the path for the discovery in its true form of one factor in the modern labour movement4 ,and having travelled it to the end1 the worker's soul utters this cry of conviction3 ,i am striving after spiritual life4 ,yet this spiritual life is ideology1 is merely man's own reflection of what is going on in the world outside1 it does not come to us from a spiritual world of its own4 ,in the transition to the new age1 the old spiritual life had turned to something which1 for the working-class sense of life1 is ideology4 ,if one wants to understand the mood of soul amongst the workers1 as it finds vent in the social demands of the present day1 one must be able to grasp the full possible effects of the theory that spiritual life is ideology4 ,it may be retorted3 ,what does the average working-man know of any such theory8 it is only a will-o'-the-wisp in the brains of their more or less educated leaders4 ,but anyone who says so is talking wide of life1 and his doings in actual life will be wide of it too4 ,he simply does not know1 what has been going on in the life of the working-class during the last half century4 ,he does not know the threads that are woven from the theory1 that spiritual life is ideology1 to the demands and actions of the out-and-out socialist1 whom he thinks so ignorant2--yes1 and to the deeds too of those who hatch revolution out of the blind promptings of the life within them4 ,herein lies the tragedy overshadowing all our interpretations of the social demands of the day1 that in so many circles there is no sense of what is forcing its way up to the surface out of the souls of the great masses of mankind1--that people cannot turn their eyes to what is actually taking place in men's inner life4 ,the non-worker listens with dismay to the worker setting forth his demands2 and this is what he hears3--,nothing short of communalising the means of production will make it possible for me to have a life worthy of a human being4 ,but the non-worker is unable to form the faintest conception1 of how his own class1 in the transition from the old age to the new1 not only summoned the worker to labour at means of production that were not his1 but failed even to give him anything to satisfy and sustain his soul in his labour4 ,people1 who see and act wide of the mark in this way1 may say3--,but1 after all1 the working-man only wants to better his position in life and put himself on a level with the upper classes2 where do the needs of his soul come in8 ,the working-man himself may even declare3--,i am not asking the other classes for anything for my soul2 all ,i want1 is to prevent them exploiting me any longer4 ,i mean to put an end to existing class distinctions4 ,talk of this kind does not touch the essence of the social question4 ,it reveals nothing of its true form4 ,for1 had the working population inherited from the leading classes a genuine spiritual substance1 then they would have had a different consciousness within their souls1 one which would have voiced their social demands in quite a different fashion from the modern workers1 who can see in the spiritual life1 as they have received it1 merely an ideology4 ,the workers1 as a class1 are convinced of the ideologic character of spiritual life2 but the conviction renders them more and more unhappy4 ,they are not definitely conscious of this unhappiness in their souls1 but they suffer acutely from it1 and it far outweighs1 in its significance for the social question to-day1 all demands for an improvement in external conditions1--justifiable as these demands are too in their own way4 ,the ruling classes do not recognise1 that they are themselves the authors of that attitude of mind1 which now confronts them militant in the labour-world4 ,and yet1 they are the authors of it1 inasmuch as1 out of their own spiritual world1 they failed to bequeath to the workers anything but what must seem to the workers ideology4 ,what gives to the present social movement its essential stamp1 is not the demand for a change of conditions in the life of one class of men1--although that is the natural sign of it4 ,rather1 it is the manner in which this demand is translated by this class from a thought-impulse into actual reality4 ,consider the facts impartially from this point of view4 ,one will find persons who aim at keeping in touch with labour tendencies in thought1 smile at any talk of a spiritual movement proposing to contribute anything towards the solution of the social question4 ,they dismiss it with a smile1 as ideology1 empty theory4 ,from thought1 from the mere life of the spirit1 there is nothing1 they feel certain1 to be contributed to the burning social problems of the hour4 ,and yet1 when one looks at the matter more closely1 it is forced upon one1 that the very nerve1 the very root-impulse of the modern movement1--especially as a working-class movement1--does not lie in the things about which the modern worker talks1 but in thoughts4 ,the modern working-class movement has sprung1 as perhaps no other similar movement in the world before it1 out of thoughts4 ,when studied more closely1 it shews this in a most marked degree4 ,i am not throwing this out as an aperu1 the result of long pondering over the social movement4 ,if ,i may venture to introduce a personal remark ,i was for years lecturer at a working-man's institute1 giving instruction to working men in a wide variety of subjects2 and ,i think that it taught me what is living and stirring in the soul of the modern proletarian worker4 ,and from this starting point1 ,i had occasion to go on1 and follow up the tendencies at work in the various trades unions and different callings4 ,i think ,i may say1 that ,i am not approaching the subject merely from theoretical considerations1 but am putting into words the results arrived at through actual living experience4 ,anyone1--only1 unfortunately1 so few of the leading intellectuals are in this position1--but anyone1 who has learnt to know the modern labour movement where it was carried on by the workers themselves1 knows how remarkable a feature it is in it1 and how fraught with significance1 that a certain trend of thought has laid intense hold on the souls of large numbers of men4 ,what makes it at the present moment hard to adopt any line as regards the social conundrums that present themselves1 is that there is so little possibility of an understanding between the different classes4 ,it is so hard for the middle-class to-day to put themselves into the soul of the worker1--so hard for them to understand how the worker's still fresh1 unexhausted intelligence opened to receive a work such as that of ,karl ,marx1--which1 in its whole mode of conception1 no matter how one regards its substance1 measures the requirements of human thought by such a lofty standard4 ,one man may agree with ,karl ,marx's intellectual system1--another may refute it2 and the arguments on either side may appear equally good4 ,in some points it was revised1 after the death of ,marx and his friend ,engels1 by those who came later and saw social life under a different aspect from these leaders4 ,i am not proposing to discuss the substance of the ,marxian system4 ,it is not this that seems to me the significant thing in the modern working-class movement4 ,the thing that to me seems significant above all others is1 that it should be a fact1 that the most powerful impulse at work in the labour world is a thought-system4 ,one may go so far as to put it thus3--,no practical movement1 no movement that was altogether a movement of practical life1 making the most matter-of-fact demands of every-day humanity1 has ever before rested so almost entirely on a basis of thought alone1 as the present working-class movement does4 ,indeed it is in a way the first movement of its kind to take up its stand entirely on a scientific basis4 ,one must however see this fact in its proper light4 ,if one considers everything that the modern worker has consciously to say about his own views and purposes and sentiments1 it does not seem to one1 from a deeper observation of life1 to be by any means the thing of main importance4 ,what impresses itself as of real importance is1 that what in the other classes is an appendage of one single branch of the soul's life1--the thought-basis1 from which life takes its tone1--has been made by proletarian feeling into the thing on which the whole man turns4 ,what has thus become an inward reality in the worker is1 however1 a reality that he cannot acknowledge4 ,he is deterred from acknowledging it1 because thought-life has been handed down to him as ideology4 ,he builds up his life in reality upon thoughts2 yet feels thoughts to be unreal ideology4 ,this is a fact that one must clearly recognise in the human evolution of recent years1 together with all that it involves1--otherwise it is impossible to understand the worker's views of life and the way those1 who hold these views1 set about realising them in practice4 ,from the picture drawn of the worker's spiritual life in the preceding pages1 it will be clear that the main features of this spiritual life must occupy the first place in any description of the working-class social movement in its true form4 ,for it is essential to the worker's way of feeling the causes of his unsatisfactory social condition and endeavoring to remove them1 that both the feeling and the endeavour take the direction given them by his spiritual life4 ,and yet1 at present1 he can only reject with contempt or anger the notion1 that in the spiritual foundations of the social movement there is something that presents a remarkable driving force4 ,how should he recognise in spiritual life a force able to bear him along1 when he is bound to feel it as ideology8 ,one cannot look to a spiritual life1 that one feels as ideology1 to open up the way out of a social situation1 which one has resolved to endure no longer4 ,the scientific cast of his thought has turned not only science1 but religion1 art1 morality1 and right also for the modern worker into so many constituent parts of human ideology4 ,behind these branches of the spiritual life he sees nothing of the workings of an actual reality1 which finds its way into his own existence1 and can contribute something to material life4 ,to him1 these things are only the reflected shine1 or mirrored image of the material life4 ,whatever reflex influence they may have on the shaping of this material life1--whether roundabout1 through the conceptions of men's brains1 or through being taken up into the impulses of the will1 yet1 originally1 they arise out of the material life itself as ideologic emanations from it4 ,these of themselves can certainly yield nothing that will conduce to the removal of social difficulties4 ,only out of the sphere of material processes themselves can anything arise that will lead to the desired end4 ,modern spiritual life has been passed on from the leading classes of mankind to the working population in a form which prevents the latter from being aware of the force that dwells in it4 ,this fact above all must be understood1 when considering what are the forces that can help towards the solution of the social question4 ,should it continue to exert its present influence1 then mankind's spiritual life must see itself doomed to impotence before the social demands of our day and the time to come4 ,its impotence is in fact an article of faith with a large part of the working-class1 and openly pressed in ,marxism and similar creeds4 ,modern economic life--they say--has evolved out of its earlier forms the present capitalistic one4 ,this evolutionary process has brought the workers into an unendurable situation as regards capital4 ,but evolution will not stop here1 it will go on1 and kill capitalism through the forces at work in capitalism itself and from the death of capitalism will spring the emancipation of the workers4 ,later socialist thinkers have divested this creed of the fatalistic character it had assumed amongst a certain school of ,marxists4 ,but even so its essential feature remains1 and shews itself in this way3--that it would not occur to anyone1 who wishes to be a true socialist to-day1 to say3 ,if we discover anywhere a life of the soul1 having its rise in the forces of the age1 rooted in a spiritual reality1 and able to sustain the whole man1--then such a soul life as this could radiate the power needed as a motor-force for the social movement4 ,the man of to-day1 who is obliged to lead the life of a worker1 can cherish no such expectation from the spiritual life of the day2 and this it is which gives the key-note to his soul4 ,he needs a spiritual life from which power can come1--power to give his soul the sense of his human worth4 ,for when the capitalist economic order of recent times caught him up into its machinery1 the man himself1 with all the deepest needs of his soul1 was driven for recourse to some such spiritual life4 ,but the kind of spiritual life which the leading classes handed on to him as ideology left his soul void4 ,running through all the demands of the modern working-class1 is this longing for some link with the spiritual life1 other than the present form of society can give2 and this is what gives the directing impetus in the social movement to-day4 ,this fact however is one that is rightly understood neither outside nor inside the working-class4 ,those outside the working-class do not suffer from the ideologic cast of modern spiritual life1 which is of their own making4 ,those who are inside the working-class do suffer2 but the very ideologic character of their inherited spiritual life has robbed them of all belief in the power of spiritual possessions1 as such1 to sustain and support them4 ,on a right insight into this fact depends the discovery of a path out of the maze of confusion into which social affairs have fallen4 ,the path has been blocked by the social system that has arisen with the new form of industrial economy under the influence of the leading classes4 ,the strength to open it must be achieved4 ,people's thoughts in this respect will undergo a complete change1 when once they come really to feel the full weight of this fact3 ,that1 in a human community where spiritual life plays a merely ideologic role1 common social life lacks one of the forces that can make and keep it a living organism4 ,what ails the body social to-day1 is impotence of the spiritual life4 ,and the disease is aggravated by the reluctance to acknowledge its existence4 ,once the fact is acknowledged1 there will then be a basis on which to develope the kind of thinking needed for the social movement4 ,at present1 the worker thinks that he has struck a main force in his soul1 when he talks about his class-consciousness4 ,but the truth is1 that ever since he was caught up into the capitalist economic machine he has been searching for a spiritual life that could sustain his soul and give him a human-consciousness1--a consciousness of his worth as man1--which there is no possibility of developing with a spiritual life that is felt as ideology4 ,this human-consciousness--was what he was seeking4 ,he could not find it2 and so he replaced it with class-consciousness born of the economic life4 ,his eyes are rivetted upon the economic life alone1 as though some overpowering suggestive influence held them there4 ,and he no longer believes that elsewhere1 in the spirit or in the soul1 there can be anywhere a latent force capable of supplying the impulse for what is needed in the social movement4 ,all he believes is1 that the evolution of an economic life1 devoid of spirit and of soul1 can bring about the particular state of things1 which he himself feels to be the one worthy of man4 ,thus he is driven to seek his welfare in a transformation of economic life alone4 ,he has been forced to the conviction1 that with the mere transformation of economic life all those ills would disappear1 that have been brought on through private enterprise1 through the egoism of the individual employer1 and through the individual employer's powerlessness to do justice to the claims of human self-respect in the employee4 ,and so the modern worker was led on to believe1 that the only welfare for the body social lay in converting all private ownership of means of production into a communal concern1 or into actual communal property4 ,this conviction is due to people's eyes having been removed1 as it were1 from everything belonging to soul and spirit1 and fixed exclusively on the purely economic process4 ,hence all the paradox in the working-class movement4 ,the modern worker believes1 that industrial economy1 the economic life itself1 will of necessity evolve all that will ultimately give him his rights as man4 ,these rights of man in full are what he is fighting for4 ,and yet1 in the heart of the fight something different makes its appearance1--something which never could be an outcome of the economic life alone4 ,it is a significant thing1 which speaks most forcibly1 that here1 right at the centre of the many forms which the social question assumes under the needs of human life to-day1 there is something that seems1 in men's belief1 to proceed out of economic life1 which1 however1 never could proceed from economic life alone1--something1 that lies rather in the direct line of evolution2 leading up through the old slave system1 through the serfdom of the feudal age1 to the modern proletariat of labour4 ,the circulation of commodities1 of money1 the system of capital1 property-ownership1 the land system1 these may have taken no matter what form under modern life2 but at the heart of modern life something else has taken place1 never distinctly expressed1 not consciously felt even by the modern worker1 but which is the fundamental force actuating all his social purpose4 ,it is this3--,the modern capitalist system of economy recognises1 at bottom1 nothing but commodities within its own province4 ,it understands the creation of commodity-values as a process in the body economic4 ,and in the capitalistic processes of the modern age something has been turned into a commodity1 which the worker feels must not and cannot be a commodity4 ,if it were only recognised what a fundamental force this is in the social movement amongst the modern workers3 this loathing that the modern worker feels at being forced to barter his labour-power to the employer1 as goods are bartered in the market1--loathing at seeing his personal labour-power play part as a factor in the supply and demand of the labour-market1 just as the goods in the market are subject to supply and demand4 ,when once people become aware what this loathing of the labour-commodity means for the modern social movement1 when once they straightly and honestly recognise1 that the thing at work there is not even emphatically and drastically enough expressed in socialist doctrines1--then they will have discovered the second of the two impulses which are making the social question to-day so urgent1 one may indeed say so burning1--the first being that spiritual life that is felt as an ideology4 ,in old days there were slaves4 ,the entire man was sold as a commodity4 ,rather less of the man1 but still a portion of the human-being himself was incorporated in the economic process by serfdom4 ,to-day1 capitalism is the power1 through which still a remnant of the human-being1--his labour-power1--is stamped with the character of a commodity4 ,i am not saying1 that this fact has remained unnoticed4 ,on the contrary1 it is a fact which in social life to-day is recognised as a fundamental one1 and which is felt to be something that plays a very important part in the modern social movement4 ,but people in studying it keep their attention solely fixed on economic life4 ,they make the question of the nature of a commodity solely an economic one4 ,they look to economic life itself for the forces that shall bring about conditions1 under which the worker shall no longer feel that his labour-power is playing a part unworthy of him in the body social4 ,they see1 how the modern form of industrial economy came about historically in the recent evolution of mankind4 ,they see too1 how it gave the commodity character to human labour-power4 ,what they do not see1 is1 that it is a necessity inherent in economic life1 that everything incorporated in it becomes a commodity4 ,economic life consists in the production and useful consumption of commodities4 ,one cannot divest human labour-power of its commodity character1 unless one can find a way of separating it out from the economic process4 ,it is of no use trying to remodel the economic process so as to give it a shape in which human labour may come by its rights inside that process itself4 ,what one must endeavor1 is to find a way of separating labour-power out from the economic process1 and bringing it under social forces that will do away with its commodity character4 ,the worker sets his desire upon some arrangement of economic life1 where his labour-power shall find a fitting place2 not seeing1 that the commodity character of his labour is inherently and essentially due to his being bound up in the economic processes as part and parcel of them4 ,being obliged to surrender his labour-power to the economic processes1 the whole man himself is caught up into them4 ,so long as the economic system has the regulating of labour-power1 it will go on consuming labour-power just as it consumes commodities1--in the manner that is most useful to its purposes4 ,it is as though the power of economic life hypnotised people1 so that they can look at nothing except what is going on inside it4 ,they may look for ever in this direction without discovering how labour-power can escape being a commodity4 ,some other form of industrial economy will only make labour-power a commodity in some other manner4 ,the labour question cannot find place in its true shape as part of the social question1 until it is recognised that the considerations of economic life which determine the laws governing the circulation1 exchange and consumption of commodities1 are not such whose competence should be extended to human labour-power4 ,new age thought has not learned to distinguish the totally different fashions in which the two things enter into economic life3 i4e41 on the one hand1 labour-power1 which is intimately bound up with the human-being himself2 and1 on the other hand1 those things that proceed from another source and are dissociated from the human-being1 and which circulate along those paths that all commodities must take from their production to their consumption4 ,sound thinking on these lines will shew both the true form of the labour-power question1 and the place that economic life must occupy in a healthily constituted society4 ,from this1 it is obvious that the social question will divide itself into three distinct questions4 ,the first is the question of a healthy form of spiritual life within the body social2 the second1 the consideration of the position of labour-power1 and the right way to incorporate it in the life of the community4 ,thirdly1 it will be possible to deduce the proper place and function of economic life4 ,,ii4 ,,how ,,actual ,,life ,,requires ,,that ,,we ,,should ,,set ,,about ,,solving ,,social ,,needs ,,and ,,problems ,the characteristic feature1 then1 to which the special form of the social question in recent times is directly traceable1 may be expressed as follows3 ,the modern life of industrial economy1 grounded in technical science1--modern capitalism1--all this has acted in a sort of instinctive way1 like a force of nature1 and given modern social life its peculiar internal structure and method4 ,but whilst men's attention grew thus absorbed in all that technical industry and capitalism brought with them1 it became at the same time diverted from other branches1 other departments of social life1--departments whose workings no less require direction by conscious human intelligence1 if the body social is to be a healthy one4 ,i may perhaps be allowed to start by drawing a comparison1 in order the better to describe what here1 in any really comprehensive study of the social question1 reveals itself as a powerful1 indeed a main1 actuating impulse4 ,it must however be borne in mind1 that this comparison is intended as a comparison only1 used to help out the human understanding and give it the turn of thought needed for picturing what health in the body social implies4 ,accepting this point of view1 then1 if one turns to the study of that most complex of all natural organisms1 the human organism1 it is noticeable1 that1 running through the whole structure and life of it1 there are three systems1 working side by side1 and each functioning to a certain extent separately and independently of the others4 ,these three neighbour systems may be distinguished as follows3 ,one system1 forming a province all to itself in the natural human organism1 is that which comprises the life of the nerves and senses4 ,it may be named1 after the principal part of the organism where the nerve and sense-life is more or less centred1--the head-system4 ,second comes what ,i should like to call the rhythmic system1 which1 to arrive at any real understanding of man's organisation1 must be recognised as forming another branch to itself4 ,this rhythmic system comprises the breathing1 the circulation of the blood1--all that finds expression in rhythmic processes within the human organism4 ,the third system1 then1 must be recognised as comprising all those organs and functions that have to do with actual matter-changes--the metabolic process4 ,these three systems together comprise everything which1 duly co-ordinated1 keeps the whole human complex in healthy working order4 ,in my book1 ,riddles of the ,soul1 ,i have already attempted to give a brief description of this threefold character of the natural human organism in a way that tallies completely with what scientific research has as yet to tell us on the subject4 ,it seems to me clear1 that biology1 physiology1 and natural science in general as it deals with man1 are all rapidly tending to a point of view which will shew1 that what keeps the whole complex process of the human organism in working order is just this comparatively separate functioning of its three separate systems1 the head system1 the circulation1 or chest system and the metabolic system1--that there is no such thing as absolute centralisation in the human organism1 and1 moreover1 that each of these systems has its own special and distinct relation to the outer world1 the head system through the senses1 the rhythmic or circulatory system through the breathing1 the metabolic system through the organs of nourishment and organs of movement4 ,what ,i have here indicated goes much deeper down to spiritual sources that ,i have tried to utilise for natural science4 ,in natural-science circles themselves1 it is a fact not yet so generally recognised as might perhaps be desirable for the advancement of knowledge2 but that merely means that our habits of thought1 our whole way of picturing the world to ourselves1 is not yet completely adapted to the inner life and being of nature's workings1 as manifested1 for instance1 in the human organism4 ,people of course may say1 ,no matter4 ,natural science can afford to wait4 ,she will come to her ideals bit by bit1 and views such as yours will gain recognition all in good time4 ,but the body social cannot afford to wait1 neither for the right views nor for the right practice4 ,here an understanding is necessary1--if only an instinctive one1--of what the body social needs1--and not merely an understanding amongst a handful of experts1 but in every single human soul2--for every human soul takes its own share in the general working of the body social4 ,sane thinking and feeling1 sane will and desires as to the form to be given the body social1--these are only to be developed1 when one comes to recognise1--even though only instinctively1--that1 in order to thrive1 the social organism1 like the natural one1 requires to be threefold4 ,now1 since ,schffle wrote his book on the structure of the social organism1 all sorts of attempts have been made to trace out analogies between the organic structure of a natural creature1--a human being1 say1--and of a community of human beings4 ,people have tried to map out the body social into cells1 network of cells1 tissues and so forth4 ,only a little while ago1 there was a book published by ,mray1 ,world ,mutations1 in which various natural science facts and laws were simply transferred to what is supposed to be man's social organism4 ,that sort of analogy-game has nothing whatever to do with what is meant here2 and anyone who mistakes what is said above for just such another play upon analogies between the natural and the social organism1 has plainly not entered into the spirit of these observations4 ,the present comparison is not an attempt to take some natural science truth and transplant it into the social system4 ,its object is quite different3--namely1 to use the human body as an object lesson for training human thought and feeling to a sense of what organic life requires1 and then to apply this perceptive sense to the body social4 ,if one simply transfers to the body social something one thinks one has found out about the human body1--as is commonly done1--it merely shews that one is not willing to acquire the faculties needed for studying the social organism in the way one has to study the natural organism1--that is1 as a thing by itself1 with special laws of its own4 ,it might again be thought1 that this manner of depicting the social organism arises from the belief that it should be built up after some cut-and-dried theory borrowed from natural science4 ,nothing could be further from all that is here in question4 ,what ,i am trying to shew is something very different4 ,the present crisis in the history of mankind demands the development in every single human being of certain faculties of apprehension1 of which the first rudiments must be started by the schools and system of education1--like the first four rules of arithmetic4 ,hitherto1 the body social received its older forms from something that never entered consciously into the life of the human soul2 but in the future this force will cease to be active4 ,fresh evolutionary impulses are coming in1 and from now on will be active in human life2 and it is part of them1 that every individual should be required to have these faculties of apprehension1 just as each individual has long been required to have a certain measure of education4 ,from now on1 it is necessary that the individual should be trained to have a healthy sense of how the forces of the body social must work in order for it to live4 ,people must learn to feel1 that it would be unhealthy1 anti-social1 not to possess such sense of what the body social needs and to want to take one's place in it4 ,one hears much talk to-day about socialisation as the thing that the age needs4 ,but this socialisation will prove no true cure but a quack remedy1 possibly even a fatal one for social life1 unless in men's hearts1 in men's souls1 there dawns at least an instinctive perception of the necessity for a threefold division of the body social4 ,if the body social is to function healthily1 it must regularly develope three organic divisions such as here described4 ,one of these three divisions is the economic life4 ,it is the best one to begin with here1 because it has obviously1 through modern technical industry and modern capitalism1 worked its way into the whole structure of human society1 to the subordination of everything else4 ,this economic life requires to form an independent organic branch by itself within the body social1--relatively as independent as the nervous and sensory system within the human body4 ,its concern is with everything in the nature of production of commodities1 circulation of commodities1 consumption of commodities4 ,next comes the life of public right1--political life in the proper sense4 ,this must be recognised as forming a second branch of the body social4 ,to this branch belongs what one might term the true life of the ,state1--taking ,state in the sense in which it was formerly applied to a community possessing common rights4 ,whilst economic life is concerned with all that a man needs from ,nature and what he himself produces from ,nature1--with commodities and the circulation and consumption of commodities1--the second branch of the body social can have no other concern than what is involved in purely human relations1 in that which comes up from the deep-recesses of the inner life and affects man's relation towards man4 ,it is essential to a right understanding of the composition of the social organism1 that one should clearly recognise the difference between the system of public right1 which can only deal from inner and purely human grounds with man-to-man relations1 and the economic system1 which is concerned solely with the production1 circulation and consumption of commodities4 ,people must become possessed of an instinctive sense for distinguishing between these two in life1 so that in practice the economic life and the life of right will be kept distinct2--just as1 in man's natural organism1 the lungs' function in working up the outer air keeps distinct from the processes going on in the nervous and sensory life4 ,as the third division1 alongside the other two and equally independent1 are to be understood all those things in the social organism which are connected with mental and spiritual life4 ,the term spiritual culture1 or everything that is connected with mental and spiritual life1 is scarcely a term that accurately describes it in any way4 ,perhaps one might more accurately express it as ,everything that rests on the natural endowments of each single human being--everything that plays a part in the body social on the ground of the natural endowments1 both spiritual and physical1 of the individual4 ,the first function1--the economic one1--has to do with everything that must exist in order that man may keep straight in his material adjustments to the world around him4 ,the second function has to do with whatever must exist in the body social because of men's personal relations to one another4 ,the third function has to do with all that must spring from the personal individuality of each human being1 and must be incorporated as personal individuality in the body social4 ,the more true it is that our social life has of recent years taken its stamp from modern technical industry and modern capitalism1 the more necessary it is1 that the injury thus unavoidably done to the body social should be healed by bringing man1 and man's communal life1 into right relation to these three systems of the body social4 ,economic life has1 in recent times1 singly and of itself1 taken on quite new forms4 ,and because it has worked all alone1 unbalanced1 it has asserted undue power and preponderance in human life4 ,the two other branches of social life have not until now been in a position to work themselves in this matter-of-course way into the social organism and become incorporated with it according to their own proper laws4 ,here man must step in1 with the instinctive sense ,i spoke of1 and set to work to evolve the threefold order1 each individual working on the spot and at the spot where he happens to be4 ,to attempt to solve the social problem in the way meant here1 will leave not one individual without his task1 now and in the days that are coming4 ,to begin with the first division of the body social1 the economic life3--,this is grounded primarily in conditions of ,nature1--just as the individual man starts with special qualities of mind and body as the basis for what he may be able to make of himself by study1 education and the teaching of life4 ,this nature-basis sets a unique stamp on economic life1 and through economic life on the whole organism of society4 ,it is there1 this nature-basis1 and no methods of social organisation1 no manner of socialising measures1 can affect it1--at least1 not radically4 ,one must accept this nature-basis as the groundwork of life for the body social1--just as1 in educating an individual1 one must take his natural qualities as groundwork1--how nature has endowed him in this or that respect1 his mental and physical power4 ,every experiment in socialisation1 every attempt at giving man's communal life an economic form1 must take this nature-basis into account4 ,at the bottom of all circulation of commodities1 of all human labour1 and of every form of spiritual life too1 there lies something primal1 elementary1 basic1 which links man to a bit of nature4 ,the connection between a social organism and its nature-basis is a thing that has to be taken into consideration1--just as one has to consider an individual in regard to his personal endowment1 when it is a question of his learning something4--,this is most obvious in extreme cases4 ,take1 for instance1 those parts of the earth1 where the banana affords man an easily accessible form of food4 ,here1 it will be a question of the amount and kind of labour that must be expended to bring the banana from its place of origin to a convenient spot and deliver it ready for consumption2 and this will enter into all considerations of men's communal life together4 ,if one compares the human labour1 that must be exerted to make the banana ready for human consumption1 with the labour that must be exerted in ,central ,europe1 say1 to make wheat ready for consumption1 it is at least three hundred times less for the banana than for the wheat4 ,of course that is an extreme case4 ,but similar differences in proportion to the nature-basis exist between the amounts of labour that are requisite in the other branches of production represented in the various social communities of ,europe4 ,the differences are not so marked as in the case of bananas and wheat1--still1 they exist4 ,accordingly1 it is inherent to the body economic1 that the amount of labour-power which man has to put into the economic process is proportionate to the nature-basis of his economic activities4 ,compare the wheat-yields alone3--,in ,germany1 in districts of average fertility1 the returns on wheat cultivation represent about a sevenfold to eightfold crop on the seed sewn2 in ,chile1 the crop is twelvefold2 in ,northern ,mexico1 seventeenfold2 in ,peru1 twenty fold4 7,see ,jensen47 ,the whole of this living complex of processes1 that begin with man's relation to nature1 and continue through all that man has to do to transform nature's products1 down to the point where they are ready for consumption1--these processes1 and these alone for a healthy social organism1 comprise its economic system4 ,in the social organism1 the economic system occupies somewhat the same place as is occupied in the whole human organism by the head-system1 which conditions the individual's abilities4 ,but this head-system is dependent on the lung-and-heart system2 and in the same way the economic system is dependent on the services of human labour4 ,the head1 however1 cannot of itself alone regulate the breathing2 and neither should the system of human labour-power be regulated by the forces that are operative within the economic life itself4 ,it is through his interests that man is engaged in economic life1 and these have their foundation in the needs of his soul and spirit4--,in what way can a social organism most expediently incorporate men's interests1 so that on the one hand the individual may find in this social organism the best possible means of satisfying his personal interest1 whilst being economically employed to the best advantage8--,this is the question that has to be practically solved in the institutions of the body economic4 ,it can only be solved1 if these individual interests are given really free scope1 and if at the same time there exists the will and possibility to do what is necessary to their satisfaction4 ,these interests arise in a region outside the confines of the economic life4 ,they grow up as man's own being unfolds its soul and physical nature4 ,it is the business of economic life to make arrangements for their satisfaction4 ,the only arrangement however that the economic life can make1 are such as are limited to the delivery and exchange of commodities1--that is of goods which acquire their value from men's wants4 ,the value of a commodity comes from the person consuming it4 ,and owing to the fact1 that its value comes from the consumer1 a commodity occupies quite a different position within the social organism from other things that have a value for man as part of that organism4 ,study the whole circle of economic life1 putting aside all preconceptions1--the production1 circulation and consumption of commodities going on within it4 ,one observes at once the difference in character between the relation that arises when one man makes commodities for another1 and that human relation that has its foundation in mutual right4 ,one will not however stop short at merely observing the difference2 one will follow it up practically1 and insist that economic life and the life of right should be kept completely separate within the body social4 ,institutions devoted to the production and exchange of commodities require men to develope forms of activity that are not immediately productive of the very best impulses for their mutual relations in right4 ,within the economic sphere man turns to his fellow because it suits their reciprocal interests4 ,radically different is the link between man and man in the sphere of right4 ,it may be thought perhaps1 that the distinction which life requires between the two things is adequately recognised1 if the institutions established for the purposes of economic life also make provision for the rights that are involved in the mutual relations of the people engaged in it4 ,but such a notion has no root in reality4 ,the relation in right1 that necessarily exists between a man and his fellows1 is one that can only be rightly felt and lived outside the economic sphere1 on totally different soil1 not inside it4 ,in the healthy social organism1 therefore1 there must be another system of life1 alongside the economic life and independent of it1 where human rights can grow up and find suitable administration4 ,but the rights life is1 strictly1 the political sphere1--the true sphere of the ,state4 ,if the interests that men have to serve in their economic life are carried over into the legislation and administration of the rights ,state1 then these rights as they grow up will merely be an expression of economic interests2 whilst1 if the rights ,state takes on the management of economic affairs1 it is no longer fitted to rule men's life of rights2 since all its measures and institutions will be forced to serve man's need for commodities1 and thereby diverted from those impulses which make for the life of rights4 ,a healthy social organism1 therefore1 requires1 as a second branch alongside the body economic1 the independent political life of the ,state4 ,in the separate body economic1 the forces of economic life itself will guide men to such institutions as best serve the production and interchange of commodities4 ,in the body politic1 the ,state1 institutions will arise1 where dealings between individuals and groups will be settled on lines that satisfy men's sense of right4 ,this demand for complete separation of the rights-,state from the economic sphere proceeds from a standpoint of reality4 ,reality is not the standpoint of those who seek to combine the life of rights and economics in one4 ,the people engaged in economic life of course possess the sense of right1 but they will only be able to legislate and administrate in the way right requires1--i4e41 from the sense of right alone without any admixture of economic interests1--when they come to consider questions of right independently1 in a rights ,state that takes1 qu ,state1 no part in economic life4 ,a rights ,state1 such as this1 has its own legislative and administrative bodies1 both constructed according to those principles that ensue from the modern sense of right4 ,it will be built up on those impulses in human consciousness1 which go to-day by the name of democratic4 ,the legislative and administrative bodies in the economic domain will arise out of the forces of economic life4 ,such transactions as are necessary between the executive heads of the legislative and administrative bodies of rights and economics respectively1 will be carried on pretty much as between the governments of sovereign states to-day4 ,this co-ordination of the two systems will make it possible for developments in the one body to exert the needful influence on the other4 ,this influence of the two spheres on one another is prevented1 when one of them tries to develope within itself the element that should come to it from the other4 ,the economic life1 then1 is dependent on the one hand on those relations in right1 which the ,state establishes between the persons and groups of persons engaged in economic work1 just as1 on the other hand1 it is subject to the conditions of the nature-basis 7climate1 local features1 presence of mineral wealth1 etc474 ,the bounds are thus marked out on either side for the proper and possible activities of economic life4 ,just as nature creates predetermining conditions1 which lie outside the economic sphere1 and must be accepted by the man at work in it as the given premises on which all his economic work must be based1--so everything in the economic sphere that establishes a relation in right between man and man1 must1 in a healthy social organism1 be regulated by the rights-,state1 which1 like the nature-basis1 goes on alongside and independently of the economic life4 ,in the present social organism1--as developed in the course of mankind's historic evolution up till now1--economic life occupies an unduly large place1 and sets the peculiar stamp that it has acquired from the machine-age and modern capitalism upon the whole social movement4 ,it has come to include more than it should include in any healthy society4 ,in the present day1 trafficking to and fro within the economic circuit1 where only commodities should traffic1 we find human labour-power1 and human rights besides4 ,at the present day1 within the body economic1 one can truck not only commodities for commodities1 but commodities for human labour1--and for human rights as well1 and all by the very same economic process4 7,by commodity ,i mean everything which through human activity has acquired the form in which it is finally brought by man to its place of destination for consumption4 ,economists may perhaps find this definition objectionable or inadequate2 but it may be serviceable towards an understanding of what properly belongs to economic life4 #c7 ,when anyone acquires a plot of land by purchase1 one must regard it as an exchange of the land for commodities for which the purchase money stands proxy4 ,the plot of land however does not act as a commodity in economic life4 ,it holds its position in the body social through the right the owner has to use it4 ,there is an essential difference between this right of use1 and the relation of a producer to the commodity he produces4 ,from the very nature of the producer's relation to his product1 it cannot possibly enter into the totally different kind of man-to-man relation created by the fact that someone has been granted the sole right to use a certain piece of land4 ,other men are obliged to live on this land1 or the owner sets them to work on it for their living2 and thus he brings them into a ,state of dependence upon himself4 ,the fact of mutually exchanging genuine commodities1 which one produces or consumes1 does not establish a dependence that affects the man-to-man relation in the same kind of way4 ,to an unprejudiced mind it is clear1 that a fact of actual life1 such as this1 must1 in a healthy society1 find due expression in its social institutions4 ,so long as there is simply an interchange of commodities for commodities in economic life1 the value of these commodities is determined independently of the relations-of-right existing between individuals or groups4 ,directly commodities are interchanged for rights1 the rights relation is itself affected4 ,it is not a question of the exchange in itself2 such an exchange is the inevitable life-element of the modern social organism1 resting as it does on division of labour4 ,the point is1 that through this interchange of rights and commodities1 right itself is turned into a commodity1 when the source of right lies within the economic life4 ,the only way of preventing this1 is by having two sets of institutions in the body social1--one1 whose sole and only object it is to conduct commodities in the most expedient manner along its circuit1 the other regulating those human rights involved in commodity-exchange which arise between the individuals engaged in producing1 trading and consuming4 ,such rights are not distinct in their nature from any other rights that necessarily exist in all relations between persons1 quite independent of commodity-exchange4 ,if ,i injure or benefit my fellow-man by the sale of a commodity1 it falls within the same social category as an injury or benefit due to some action or negligence not directly expressed in an exchange of commodities4 ,in the organisation of economic life1 that familiarity with business1 which comes from practical experience and specialist training1 will give the point of view needed by the person at the head of affairs4 ,in the rights organisation1 the laws and administration will give effect to the general sense of right in the dealings of persons and groups with one another4 ,the economic organisation will assist the formation of ,associations amongst people who from their calling1 or as consumers1 have the same interests or similar requirements4 ,and this network of ,associations1 working together1 will build up the whole fabric of industrial economy1 ,the economic organisation will grow up on an associative basis1 and out of the links between the ,associations4 ,the work of the ,associations will be purely economic in character1 and be carried on on a basis of rights provided by the rights-organisation4 ,these ,associations1 being able to make their economic interests recognised in the representative and administrative bodies of the economic organisation1 will not feel any need to force themselves into the legislative or executive government of the rights-,state 7as1 for instance1 a ,landowners' ,league1 or ,manufacturers' ,party1 or a ,socialist party representing an industrial programme71 in order to effect there what they have no power to achieve within the limits of the economic life4 ,if the rights-,state again takes no part whatever in any branch of industrial economy1 then the institutions it establishes will be such only as spring from the sense of right amongst its members4 ,although the persons who sit on the representative body of the rights-,state may1 and of course will1 be the same as are taking an active part in economic life1 yet1 owing to the division of function1 economic life will not be able to exert such an influence on the rights life1 that the health of the whole body social is undermined1--as it can be1 when the state itself organises branches of economic life1 with representatives of the economic world as state-legislators1 making laws to suit economic interests4 ,a typical example of the fusion of the economic life with the rights-life was afforded by ,austria4 ,according to the constitution adopted by ,austria in the eighteen-sixties1 the representatives of the imperial assembly1 the ,reichsrat1 of that compound territory1 were elected from the communities representing the four branches of economic life3--the landed proprietors1--the chambers of commerce1--the towns1 markets and industrial centres1--and the rural areas4 ,obviously1 in this composition of the representative ,state-assembly1 the first and only idea was1 that of playing off the economic interests against one another1 in the belief that a system of political rights must be the outcome4 ,no doubt the disruptive forces of her divers nationalities contributed largely to ,austria's downfall4 ,but it may be taken as no less certain1 that if an opportunity had been given for developing a system of rights1 working alongside and outside of the economic one1 it would1 from the common sense of right1 have evolved a form of society in which the different nationalities could have lived together in unity4 ,a person engaged in public life to-day usually turns his attention to things in it that are only of secondary consideration4 ,this is because his habits of thought lead him to regard the body social as uniform in structure4 ,as a uniform structure1 there is no form of suffrage he can devise that will fit it2 for the economic interest and the impulses of human rights will come into mutual conflict upon the representative body1 however it may be elected2 and the conflict between them will affect social life in a way that must result in severe shocks to the whole organism of society4 ,the first and indispensable object to be worked for in public life to-day must be the radical separation of economic life from the rights organisation4 ,and as the separation becomes gradually established1 and people grow into it1 the two organisations will each in the process discover its own most appropriate method of selecting its legislators and administrature4 ,amongst all that at the present moment is clamouring for settlement1 forms of suffrage1 although they bear on fundamental issues1 are nevertheless of secondary consideration4 ,where the old conditions still exist1 these can be taken as the basis from which to work towards the new separation of function4 ,where the old order has already melted away1 or is in process of dissolution1 there individuals and little groups of people must find the initiative to start reconstructing along the new lines of growth4 ,to try in #bd hours to effect a transformation in public life1 is recognised by thoughtful socialists themselves as midsummer madness4 ,they look to gradual opportune changes to bring about what they regard as social welfare4 ,the light of facts1 however1--must make it plain to any impartial observer1 that a reasoning will and purpose are needed to make a new social order1 and are imperatively demanded by the forces at work in mankind's historic evolution4 ,these remarks will be regarded as unpractical by someone who regards nothing as practicable outside the narrow horizon of his customary life4 ,unless he can see things differently1 any influence he may retain in any sphere of life will not tend to heal the disease in the body social1 but only to make it worse4 ,it was people of his way of thinking who helped to bring about the present state of affairs4 ,there must be a reversal of the movement which has set in in leading circles1 and which has already brought various departments of economic life 7e4g41 the postal and railway services1 etc471 within the workings of the ,state4 ,its opposite must begin3 a movement towards the elimination of all economic activity from the domain of politics and ,state organisation4 ,thinkers1 whose whole will and purpose1 as they believe1 is directed to the welfare of society1 take this movement towards ,state control1 started by the hitherto governing circles1 and push it to its logical extreme4 ,they propose to socialise all the materials of economic life1 in so far as they are means of production4 ,a healthy course of development1 however1 will give economic life its independence1 and will give the political ,state a system of right through which it can bring its influence to bear on the body economic1--so that the individual shall not feel that his function within the body social gives the lie to his sense of right4 ,when one considers the work that a man does for the body social by means of his physical labour-power1 it is plain that the above reflections are grounded in the actual life of men4 ,the position which labour has come to occupy in the social order under the capitalistic form of economy1 is such1 that is purchased by the employer from the employed as a commodity4 ,an exchange is effected between money 7as representing commodities7 and labour4 ,but in reality no such exchange can take place2 it only appears to do so4 #d ,what really happens is1 that the employer receives in return from the worker commodities that cannot exist1 unless the worker devotes his labour-power to creating them4 ,the worker receives one part1 the employer the other part of the commodity so created4 ,the production of the commodity is the result of a co-operation between employer and employed4 ,the product of their joint action is that which first passes into the circuit of economic life4 ,for the product to come into existence1 there must be a relation in right between worker and enterpriser2 but the capitalist type of economy is able to convert this rights relation into one determined by the employer's superiority in economic power over the employed4 ,in a healthy social order1 it will be obvious that labour cannot be paid for1 that one cannot set an economic value upon it comparable to the value of a commodity4 ,the commodity produced by this labour first acquires an economic value by comparison with other commodities4 ,the kind of work a man must do for the maintenance of the body social1 how he does it1 and the amount1 must be settled according to his abilities and the conditions of a decent human existence4 ,and this is only possible when such questions are settled by the political state1 quite independently of the provisions and regulations made in the economic life4 ,this settlement of labour conditions outside economics1 pre-establishes a basis of value for commodities comparable to the basis already established by the conditions of nature4 ,the value of one commodity1 as measured by another1 is increased by the fact that its raw material is more difficult to procure2 and1 similarly1 the value of a commodity must be made dependent on the kind and amount of labour which the rights system allows to be expended on its production4 #e ,thus economic life has its conditions fixed on two sides4 ,on one1 there is the nature-basis1 which man must take as he finds it2 on the other1 will be the rights-basis which has to be created on the free and independent ground of the political ,state1--detached from economic life1 and out of the common sense of right4 ,it is obvious1 that in a social organism conducted in this way the standard of economic well-being will rise and fall with the amount of labour which the common sense of right expends upon it4 ,this however must be so in a healthy society4 ,only the subordination of the general economic prosperity to the common sense of right can prevent man from being so used up and consumed by economic life that his existence no longer seems to him worthy of his humanity4 ,and it is this sense of an existence unworthy of human beings that is1 in reality1 at the bottom of the convulsions in the body social4 ,should the general standard of economic well-being be too greatly lowered on the rights side1 there is a way of preventing this1 just as there is a way of improving the nature-basis4 ,one can employ technical means to make a less productive soil more productive2 and1 if prosperity declines over much1 the mode and amount of work can be changed4 ,only1 such changes should not be a direct consequence of processes in the economic life2 they must be the outcome of insight1 arrived at on the free ground of rights1 independent of economic life4 ,there is1 however1 another element again1 which enters into everything that is contributed towards the organisation of social life1 whether by the economic life or by the rights-consciousness4 ,this element comes from a third source3 the personal abilities of the individual4 ,this third domain includes everything from the loftiest achievements of the human mind to that element in all the works of men which comes from their bodily ability to render greater or less service to the body social4 ,a healthy social organism must necessarily receive and assimilate whatever comes from this source in quite a different manner from what comes to it from the life of the ,state or that finds expression in the interchange of commodities4 ,to absorb this element healthily into social life can only be done in one way1 and that is1 by leaving it entirely to men's free receptivity and to the impulses which personal ability itself brings with it4 ,what is performed at the promptings of personal ability1 loses to a great extent the very groundwork of its existence1 when subjected to artificial influences from the ,state organisation or from the economic system4 ,for the only true groundwork of such performances lies in that inherent force that finds its evolution through human performance itself4 ,if again the way in which such individual performances are taken up into the body social directly depends on the economic life1--or if the ,state organises it1--there is then a check upon that free spontaneous receptivity1 which is the only sound and wholesome channel for their reception4 ,for the spiritual life of the body social1 there is but one possible line of healthy evolution2--and it must not be forgotten1 by what innumerable fine threads this spiritual life is connected with the evolution of all other individual potentialities in human life4 ,what it does1 must be the outcome of its own impulses2 and those who receive its services must be closely bound up with it in sympathy and understanding4 ,such1 as here sketched1 are the requisite conditions for a sound evolution of the spiritual life of the body social4 ,what prevents them from being clearly perceived1 is that people's eyes are blurred through constantly seeing the spiritual life in great part fused and confounded with the political ,state system4 ,the fusion has been taking place through several hundreds of years1 and they have grown accustomed to it4 ,they talk1 it is true1 about freedom of knowledge and freedom of education2 but1 all the same1 they consider it a matter of course that the political ,state should have control of this free knowledge and free education4 ,they do not see nor feel1 how in this way the state is bringing all spiritual life into dependence on state requirements4 ,the notion is1 that the ,state provides the educational posts1 and that the spiritual life then unfolds freely under the hands of the people who fill these ,state posts4 ,through long thinking in this way1 people come to forget what an intimate connection there is between the inmost nature of man and the substance of the spiritual life growing up within him1 and how impossible it is for the growth of this spiritual substance to be really free1 if it owes its place in the body social to any other impulses than those alone which proceed from the spiritual life itself4 ,science1 with all that part of spiritual life which it affects1 has received its whole cast from the fact of its management forming part of the ,state system in recent centuries4 ,and not only so1 but this fusion with the ,state has set its stamp on the substance of science as well4 ,of course1 the results of mathematics or physics cannot be directly influenced by the ,state4 ,but consider history and other subjects of general culture3--,have not they come to reflect the connection of their professional representatives with the ,state system8--to be an obedient mirror of ,state requirements8 ,the peculiar stamp thus acquired by our present-day mental conceptions1 in which the scientific turn of thought predominates over every other1 is just what makes them a mere ideology as they affect the working-class4 ,the workers have observed1 how men's thoughts acquire a certain character1 arising out of the requirements of state life1--a ,state life that suits the interests of the ruling classes4 ,it was a reflection of material interests1 and of the war of interests1 that the worker saw when he looked into his thoughts4 ,thus there arose in him a sense that all spiritual life whatever was ideology1 a mirrored image of the economic order of affairs4 ,such a view of things works havoc with men's spiritual life4 ,but its blighting effects will cease1 once it becomes possible for them to feel that in the spiritual domain there reigns a reality that transcends material outward life and bears its own substance within itself4 ,no such sense of a spiritual reality can1 however1 possibly arise1 unless the spiritual life is free within the body social to expand and govern itself according to the impulses inherent in it4 ,only those1 who have their part in a spiritual life thus freely expanding and freely governed1 can represent it with that strength and vigour which shall ensure it its due place within the body social4 ,such an independent position within human society is indispensable for art1 science and a philosophy of life1 with all that goes with these4 ,the freedom of one cannot prosper without the freedom of all4 ,although in their substance mathematics and physics may not be influenced directly by ,state requirements1 yet how they are applied1 the estimate people form of their value1 the effect their pursuit has upon the rest of spiritual life1 all these and many other points are determined by ,state requirements1 whenever some of the branches of spiritual life are under ,state control4 ,it is one thing1 when the teacher of the lowest grade in the school follows the line along which the ,state impells him2 it is another1 when he takes his line from a spiritual life that rests on its own independent footing4 ,here again1 social democracy has done no more than take over a habit of thought and conventions inherited from the ruling classes4 ,social democracy sets before itself as an ideal the incorporation of spiritual life in a social structure based on a system of industrial economy4 ,but1 were its aim attained1 it would be only a further step along the same road that has led to the present depreciation of spiritual life4 ,it was a right feeling1 but a one-sided one that found expression in the socialist maxim3 ,religion is a man's private affair2 for1 in a healthy society1 all spiritual life must in this sense be a private affair1 so far as concerns the ,state and economic life4 ,only1 social democracy does not relegate religion to the sphere of private affairs with any idea of thus establishing its status as spiritual wealth1 and giving it a position within the social order where it may attain to a higher and more worthy development than under the ,state's influence4 ,no2 it's idea in so doing is1 that the resources of the body social should only be used to cultivate what it needs for its own existence1 and that the religious kind of spiritual wealth does not come under this head4 ,this is not the way in which one branch of spiritual life can prosper1 singled out as an exemption from public life1 whilst all the rest remain in bondage4 ,the religious life of mankind in this new age will go hand in hand with emancipated spiritual life in every form1 and grow to a force able to bear up the souls of the men of the new age4 ,it is a matter for the soul's own free demand1 how the spiritual life is received into men1 no less than how it comes forth from them4 ,teachers1 artists and others will find1 that they have an altogether different influence1 and are able to awaken an understanding amongst the public for what they are creating1 when they themselves have a place in the social order which has no direct connection with any legislature or government1 but only with such as arise from impulses that lie in the course of the spiritual life itself2 when too they are appealing to people1 who are not simply under compulsion to labour1 but for whom an autonomous and independent political ,state also ensures the right to leisure1--leisure which awakens the mind to an appreciation of spiritual values4 ,here one will very likely be told by someone1 that his own practical experience1--of which he has a great opinion1--convinces him1 that if this notion were carried out1--if the ,state made definite provision for leisure hours1 and if school attendance were left to people's own sense1 it would simply mean that people would spend all their leisure in the public house and relapse into a state of brute ignorance4 ,well1 let such pessimists wait and see what will happen when the world is no longer under their influence4 ,their line of action is all too often prescribed by a subtle feeling1 a secret voice1 that whispers in their ear1 how they themselves like to spend their leisure hours1 and the steps that were necessary to ensure themselves having a decent education4 ,of the free spiritual life1 of its power to fire and kindle1 when left to itself within the body social1--of this such persons naturally take no account4 ,they know the spiritual life in bondage only1 and so it has no power to kindle any spark within themselves4 ,both the political ,state and the economic system will obtain from the body spiritual1 when under its own self-administration1 that steady inflow from the spiritual life1 of which they are in need4 ,practical training too for economic life will for the first time fully develope its full possibilities1 when the economic system and the body spiritual can co-operate in freedom4 ,people will come with a suitable training into the economic field and will put life into all they meet with there1 through the strength that comes from spiritual endowment set free from restraint4 ,and people1 who have won their experience in the economic field1 will find their way into the spiritual organisation1 and help to fertilise what there needs fertilising4 ,the effect within the political ,state of spiritual abilities being left free1 will be the growth of sane and sound views1 such as are needed in this field4 ,the man who works with his hands will be able to feel contented with the place his own labour fills in the body social4 ,he will come to realise that the body social cannot float him1 unless his hand-work has the guidance requisite for its organisation4 ,he will acquire a sense of the solidarity of his own labour with those organising forces which he can trace to the development of personal talent4 ,the political ,state will afford him a ground on which he can establish the rights that secure to him his share in the proceeds of the commodities he produces2 and he will freely allot to the spiritual property1 from which he benefits1 a portion sufficient to keep it productive4 ,there will be a possibility for producers in the spiritual field1 too1 to live on the proceeds of their work4 ,what anyone chooses to do in the matter of spiritual work1 will be nobody's affair but his own2 but for any service he may render to the body social he will be able to count on willing recompense from people to whom spiritual goods are a necessity4 ,anyone1 who is not satisfied with the recompense he receives under the spiritual organisation1 must have recourse to one of the other fields1 either to the political state1 or to economic life4 ,into the economic life pass those technical ideas which originate in the spiritual life4 ,their origin is in the spiritual life1 even although they proceed directly from persons belonging to the ,state or to the economic world4 ,in the spiritual life originate all those ideas and organising capacities that enrich the life of the ,state and of industrial economy4 ,for everything thus supplied to both these fields of social life from the spiritual source1 the recompense will either1 as in the other cases1 be raised through voluntary recognition on the part of those who directly draw from this source1 or else it will be regulated by the rights that gradually become built up in the political sphere4 ,what the political ,state itself needs for its own maintenance1 will be raised by a system of taxation1 which will be the outcome of a harmonious co-ordination of the claims of economic life1 on the one hand1 and those of the rights-consciousness on the other4 ,alongside the political sphere and the economic sphere in a healthy society1 there must be the spiritual sphere1 functioning independently on its own footing4 ,the whole trend of the evolutionary force of modern mankind is in the direction of this threefolding of the social organism4 ,so long as the life of the community could be guided in all essentials by the instinctive forces at work in the mass of mankind1 so long there was no urgent tendency towards this definite separation into three functions4 ,at bottom1 there were always these three distinct sources2 but in a yet dim and dully conscious social life they worked together as one4 ,our modern age demands conscious co-operation on the part of man1 and that he should take his place open-eyed in the workings of the body social4 ,this new social consciousness must1 however1 be directed from three aspects1 if it is to shape men's life and conduct healthily4 ,it is this threefold line of evolution towards which modern humanity is striving in the soul's unconscious depths2 and what finds outlet in the social movement is but the stormy light cast up from the fires below4 ,at the end of the eighteenth century1 under different circumstances from those in which we are living to-day1 there went up a cry from the hidden depths of human nature for a re-formation of human social relations4 ,through all the scheme of the new order ran like a motto the three words1 ,fraternity1 ,equality1 ,liberty4 ,of course1 no one with an unprejudiced mind and normal human feeling for the realities of human evolution can fail to sympathise with all that these three words imply4 ,but still1 in the course of the nineteenth century there were keen thinkers who were at pains to point out the impossibility of realising the three ideas of brotherhood1 equality and freedom in any homogeneous and uniform order of society4 ,it seemed to them clear1 that these three impulses must contradict one another in social life1 if carried actually into practice4 ,it was1 for instance1 very cleverly demonstrated1 that if the impulse towards equality were realised there would be no possible room for that freedom which is so inherent in every human being4 ,and whilst one cannot but agree with those who see the contradiction between them1 yet at the same time1 one's human sympathies must go out to all and each of these three ideals in itself6 ,these three ideals appear contradictory1 until one perceives the necessity for establishing a threefold order of society2 and then their real meaning for social life first becomes apparent4 ,the three divisions must not be artificially dovetailed together and centralised under some theoretical scheme of unity1 parliamentary or other4 ,they must be one living reality4 ,each of the three branches of the body social must centre in itself2 and the unity of the whole will first come about through the workings of the three1 side by side and in combination4 ,for in actual life it is the apparent contradictories that make up a unity4 ,accordingly1 one will come to comprehend what the life of the body social is1 when one fully perceives the part played by these three principles of brotherhood1 equality and freedom in a real1 workable form of society4 ,it will then be recognised1 that men's co-operation in economic life must rest on that brotherhood that springs out of the ,associations4 ,the second system is that of common rights1 where one is dealing with purely human relations between one person and another2 and here one must strive to realise the idea of equality4 ,whilst in the spiritual field1 which stands comparatively alone within the body social1 it is the idea of freedom that needs to be realised4 ,seen in this way1 these three ideals reveal their value for real existence4 ,thy cannot find their realisation in a chaotic stream of social life1 but only in the threefold working of a healthy social organism4 ,no social state1 constructed on an abstract centralised scheme1 can carry freedom1 equality and brotherhood pall mall into practice4 ,but each of the three branches of the body social can derive its strength from one of these ideal impulses2 and then all three branches will work fruitfully in conjunction4 ,those people who1 at the end of the eighteenth century1 first demanded the recognition of these three ideas1 ,freedom1 ,equality1 ,brotherhood1 and those who took up the cry again later on1--they had already a dim sense of whither the forces of human evolution were tending in modern times4 ,but they had not got beyond belief in the onefold ,state4 ,and in the onefold ,state these ideas involve a contradiction4 ,they pinned their faith to the contradiction1 because1 deep-down in the sub-conscious depths of their souls1 there was this striving towards the threefold order of society1 in which their trinity of ideas can actually achieve a higher unity4 ,to lay hold on those evolutionary forces1 which through the growth of mankind all through these latter times1 are working towards the threefold order1--to make of them a conscious social will and purpose1--this is what is demanded of us at the present day in unmistakeable language by the hard facts of the social situation4 ,,iii4 ,,capitalism ,,and ,,social ,,ideas 7,,capital ,,and ,,human ,,labour7 ,to form an opinion as to what the course of action is in the social field1 which the facts of the day are so loudly demanding1 is only possible1 if one is willing to be guided in one's opinion by an insight which goes below the surface1 to the fundamental forces of the social organism4 ,the following introductory remarks are the outcome of an effort to arrive at such an insight4 ,nothing profitable can be done in the present day with social measures based on opinions that are drawn from a restricted sphere of observation4 ,the facts that have grown out of the social movement reveal disturbances at the foundations of the social order1 not merely surface ones4 ,and to cope with these facts one needs an insight that also goes to the root of things4 ,capital and ,capitalism1 as talked of to-day1 indicates something in which the working-class portion of mankind look for the cause of their grievances4 ,but to come to any profitable conclusion as to the part played by capital within the social processes1 whether for good or ill1 one must first be perfectly clear as to the way in which capital is produced and consumed1 through the agency of men's individual abilities1 of the rights system1 and of the forces of economic life4 ,human labour one talks of1 as the thing that1 together with capital and the nature-basis of industry1 goes to the creation of economic values1 and through which the worker becomes conscious of his social position4 ,to arrive however at any conclusion1 as to the proper way of working human labour into the whole social organism without injuring the worker's sense of self-respect as a human being1 one needs to keep clearly in sight the relation that human labour bears1 on the one hand to individual ability and its development1 and on the other to the common sense of right1 the rights-consciousness4 ,at the present moment people are very justly asking3 ,what is the most immediate step to be taken in order to satisfy the claims that the social movement has brought to the front8 ,but there is no taking even the most immediate step to good purpose1 without first knowing how what one is trying to do is related to the fundamental principles of a healthy social order4 ,and once one knows this1 then1 in whatever place one may find oneself1 or whatever place one may select to work in1 one will discover the particular task that requires doing under the circumstances4 ,the obstacle to acquiring the kind of insight implied here1 lies in that element of human will-power1 which during the slow course of years has crystallised into social institutions4 ,men have so grown into these institutions1 that the institutions themselves form the standpoint from which they view them and consider1 what to change and what to leave4 ,their thoughts follow the lead of the facts1 instead of mastering them4 ,to-day1 it is necessary to see1 that one cannot form any judgment adequate to the facts1 without going back to those primal creative thoughts which underlie all social institutions4 ,the body social requires a constant fresh supply of the forces that reside in these primal thoughts2 and if the suitable channels are not there1 through which these forces can flow1 then social institutions assume forms which impede life1 instead of furthering it4 ,but although the conscious thoughts of men may go astray1 although they may1--and have1--created facts that impede life1 yet these primal thoughts live on in men's instinctive impulses4 ,tumultuously and destructively they break against the world of established facts that hem them in2 and these primal thoughts it is1 which open or disguised1 find their way out in convulsions that threaten to overthrow the social order4 ,such revolutionary convulsions will not cease to occur1 until the body social takes a form1 in which there may be always both an inclination to notice when any institution is beginning to deviate from its first intention in those primal thoughts1 and at the same time the possibility of counter-acting every such deviation before it becomes strong enough to be a danger4 ,in our times1 the actual conditions1 throughout a wide range of human life1 have come to deviate very widely from what the primal thoughts require4 ,and these primal thoughts1 as they live on in the impulses of the human soul1 are a commentary1--a commentary that voices itself loudly enough in facts1--of what has been taking shape in the body social during the last few centuries4 ,what is wanted1 is good will and vigorous resolution to turn again to these primal thoughts4 ,we must not be blind to the mischief that is done1 especially at this moment1 by dismissing these primal thoughts from the field of actual life as unpractical generalities4 ,the facts of life itself1 and the claims of the working-class masses1 afford a practical commentary on what the modern age has made of the body social4 ,the task of our age1 in face of these facts1 is not merely to criticise1 but to set about remedying them2 which means going to the primal thoughts for the direction in which we must now consciously guide them4 ,for the time is gone by1 when the old instinctive guidance could suffice for mankind2 what it could accomplish up till now1 is now no longer enough4 ,one of the main questions raised by the practical criticisms of the times is this3--,how is a stop to be put to the oppression which working-class humanity suffers under private capitalism4 ,the owner1 or controller1 of capital is in a position to press other men's bodily labour into the service of any work he takes on hand8 ,in the social relation that arises in the co-operation of capital and human labour-power1 there are three elements to be distinguished3 the enterprising activity1 which must rest on the basis of individual ability in some one person or group of persons2--the relation of the enterpriser to the worker1 which must be a relation in right2--and the production of an object which acquires a commodity value in the circuit of economic life4 ,for the enterprising activity to find its scope in a healthy way in the social order1 there must be forces at work in social life which afford men's individual abilities the best possible mode of manifesting themselves2 and therefore there must be one province of the body social which secures a person of ability free occasion for the employment of his abilities1 and makes it possible to leave the estimation of their value to other people's free and voluntary understanding4 ,it is obvious1 that the social activities1 which a man is enabled to exercise by means of capital1 fall within that domain of the body social which takes its laws and administration from the spiritual life4 ,if the political ,state interferes to influence these personal activities1 then it is unavoidable that its influence should involve a disregard of individual abilities4 ,for the political ,state is necessarily based on what is similar and equal in all men's claims in life2 and it is its business to translate this equality into practice4 ,within its own domain1 the ,state must ensure every man having a fair chance to make his personal opinion tell4 ,for the work the ,state has to do1 the question of understanding or not understanding individualities does not come in2 and therefore whatever the ,state does towards realising its own principles ought not to have any influence upon the exercise of men's individual abilities4 ,nor should it be possible for the prospect of economic advantage to determine the exercise of individual ability where capital is needed4 ,many persons in weighing the pros and cons of capitalism lay great stress upon this economic advantage4 ,in their opinion1 it is only through the incentive which this gives to individual ability that individual ability can be induced to exert itself2 and they refer1 as practical men to the imperfections of human nature1 with which they claim to be well acquainted4 ,no doubt1 in that social order1 under which the present state of things matured1 the prospect of economic advantage has come to play a very important part1 and is in no small measure the very cause of that state of things1 of which we are now feeling the effects1 and which calls for the development of some other1 different incentive to the exercise of individual ability4 ,this incentive must lie in the social sense1 that will spring from a healthy spiritual life4 ,strong in the freedom of the spiritual life1 a man's education and schooling will send him forth equipped with impulses1 that will lead him1 thanks to this social sense1 to realise the bent of his personal abilities4 ,there is not necessarily anything high-flown or visionary about such a belief4 ,no doubt high-flown illusions have wrought immeasureable harm in social endeavour1 as in other fields4 ,but all that has been said before is enough to shew1 that the view here urged is not based on any fanciful notion that the spirit will work wonders1 provided the spiritually-minded only talk enough about it4 ,it is the outcome of observation1 of watching how people actually work1 when they work together freely in the spiritual field4 ,this work in common1 takes1 of its own nature1 a social character1 provided it can develope in real freedom4 ,it is only the lack of freedom in spiritual life1 which has kept its social character in abeyance4 ,the fashion in which the forces of social life have found expression amongst the leading classes1 has restricted their use and value to limited circles of mankind1 in a way which is anti-social4 ,what was produced in these circles could only be brought artificially within reach of working-class mankind4 ,this section of mankind could draw no strength for the support of their souls from this spiritual life2 for they had no real part nor property in it4 ,schemes for popular instruction1 for the uplifting of the masses1 ,art for the ,people1 and so forth1--all such things are not really the means of spreading spiritual property amongst the people1 whilst spiritual property keeps the character it has acquired in recent times4 ,for the people1 as regards their inmost life and being1 are not in it4 ,all that it is possible to give them1 is as it were a bird's-eye view of these spiritual treasures from a point outside4 ,and if this is true of spiritual life in its narrower sense1 it has also its meaning for those offshoots of spiritual activity1 which find their way into economic life on the basis of capital4 ,in a sound order of society1 the worker will not stand at his machine1 and come into contact with nothing but its mechanism2 whilst the capitalist alone knows what is the destiny of the manufactured commodities in the round of economic life4 ,the workman must share fully in the whole concern1 and be able to form a distinct conception of the part that he himself is playing in social life through his work in making the commodity4 ,the enterpriser must hold regular conferences1 with the object of arriving at a common field of ideas that shall include both employers and employed4 ,such conferences must be regarded as being as much a part of the business as the actual work4 ,this is a healthy way of conducting business1 and one that will arouse in the workers a sense1 that by the control of capital1 if he uses it properly1 a person benefits the whole community1--including the worker1 as a member of it4 ,the above-board dealing1 necessary to a willing understanding on the part of others1 will make the enterpriser careful to keep his business methods above suspicion4 ,all this will not seem negligible to anyone with a sense for the social effects of that inner community of feeling and experience1 which arises from the prosecution of a common task4 ,those who possess this sense1 will clearly perceive1 how greatly it is to the benefit of economic activity that the direction of economic affairs1 based on capital1 should come from the spiritual life1 and have its roots in the spiritual domain4 ,this preliminary condition must be fulfilled1 before people's present interest in capital and in increasing it simply for the sake of profits1 can give place to an interest in the actual business of production and the doing of the job on hand4 ,persons of a socialist turn of mind at the present day aim at bringing the means of production under the control of the community4 ,what is right and desirable in their aims can only be achieved if this control is exercised through the free spiritual domain4 ,such control through the free spiritual domain will do away with all possibility of that economic coercion1 which brings with it such a sense of degradation1 and which the capitalist exerts when his capitalist activities are born and bred of the forces of economic life2 and it will also prevent that crippling of men's individual abilities1 which inevitably results when these abilities are directed by the political ,state4 ,earnings on everything done through capital and individual ability must depend in a healthy social order1 like all other spiritual work1 on the free initiative of the doer and on the free appreciation of those who wish the work done4 ,the estimate of what these earnings should be1 must1 in this field1 be in accordance with a man's own free view--on what he is willing to regard as a suitable return on his work1 taking into consideration the preliminary training he requires for it1 the incidental expenses to which he is put1 etc41 etc4 ,whether he finds his claims gratified or not1 will depend on the appreciation his services meet with4 ,social arrangements on the lines here proposed will lay the basis for a really free contractual relation between the work-director and the work-doer1--a relation resting not on barter of commodities 7or money7 for labour-power1 but on an agreement as to the share due to each of the two joint authors of the commodity4 ,the sort of service1 that is rendered to the body social on the basis of capital1 depends of its very essence on the part played in it by men's individual abilities4 ,nothing but the free spiritual life can give men's abilities the impulse they need for their development4 ,even in a society1 where the development of individual ability is tied up with the administration of the political ,state1 or to the forces of economic life1 even there1 real productivity1 in everything requiring the expenditure of capital depends on as much of free individual power as can find its way through the shackles imposed upon it4 ,only1 under such conditions1 the development is an unhealthy one4 ,it is not the free development of individual ability1 exercised on a basis of capital1 that has brought about conditions under which human labour-power can be nothing but a commodity2 it is the shackling of these powers through the political life of the ,state or in the circuit of economic processes4 ,an unprejudiced recognition of this fact is at the present day a necessary first step to everything that has to be done in the field of social organisation4 ,for the superstition has grown up in modern times1 that the measures needed for the welfare of society must come from either the political ,state or the economic system4 ,and if we pursue any further the road along which this superstition has started us1 we shall set up all manner of institutions1 that1 far from leading man to the goal towards which he is striving1 will increasingly aggravate the oppressive conditions from which he is seeking to escape4 ,at the time when people first began to think about the question of capitalism1 this same capitalism had already set up a disease in the body social4 ,the disease is what people feel and are aware of4 ,they see that it is something which has to be counteracted4 ,but one must see further than that2 one must recognise1 that the origin of the disease lies in the fact1 that the creative forces1 at work in capital1 have been absorbed into the circuit of economic life4 ,if one is to work in the direction already urgently demanded by the evolutionary forces of mankind1 one must not suffer oneself to be deluded by the type of thought1 which regards as an unpractical piece of idealism the demand1 that the spiritual life should be set free1 and given control of the employment of capital4 ,at the present moment1 certainly1 people seem but little disposed to connect the spiritual life in any way directly with that social idea1 which is to put capital on sound lines4 ,they try to connect onto something that falls within the circuit of economic life4 ,they see1 that the manufacture of commodities in recent times has led to wholesale dealing1 and this again to the present form of capitalism4 ,and now they propose to replace this form of industrial economy by a syndical system1 under which the producers will be working for their own wants4 ,but since of course industry must retain all the modern means of production1 the various industrial concerns are to be united together into one big syndicate4 ,here1 they think1 everyone will be producing to the orders of the community1 and the community cannot be an exploiter1 because it would simply be exploiting itself4 ,and for the sake1 or from the necessity1 of linking onto something that already exists1 they turn their eyes on the modern ,state1 with a view to converting this into a comprehensive syndicate4 ,one thing however they leave out of their reckoning1 namely1 that the bigger the syndicate the less possibility there is of its being able to do what they expect of it4 ,unless individual ability finds its place in the syndical organism in the manner and form already described1 it is impossible that communal control of labour should result in a healthy commonwealth4 ,the reason why people are so ill-disposed to-day to form an unbiassed opinion as to the position spiritual life occupies in the social order1 is that they are accustomed to think of what is spiritual as being at the opposite end from all that is material and practical4 ,not a few will find something rather absurd in the view here put forward1 that the employment of capital in economic life must be regarded as the way in which one side of the spiritual life manifests itself4 ,it is conceivable1 that in characterising what is here said as absurd1 members of the late ruling classes may even find themselves in agreement with socialist thinkers4 ,if one would see all that this supposed absurdity means for the health of the body social1 one must examine certain currents of thought in the present day1--currents of thought1 which spring from impulses in the soul1 that are quite honest after their fashion1 but which nevertheless1 wherever they find entrance1 check the development of any really social way of thinking4 ,these currents of thought tend more or less unconsciously away from all that gives due energy and driving power to the inward life4 ,they make for a conception of life1--an inner life of thought1 of soul1 directed to the pursuit of knowledge1--which shall be as it were an island in the common sea of human existence4 ,thus they are not in a position to build the bridge between this inner life and that other which binds men to the everyday world4 ,it is not uncommon to-day1 to find persons who think it rather distinguished to sit aloft in castles of cloudland1 meditating in somewhat pedantic abstractness over all manner of ethico-religious problems4 ,one finds them meditating on virtue and how a man may best acquire it2 how he should dwell in loving-kindness towards his neighbours1 and how he may be so blessed as to find a meaning in life4 ,and1 all the time1 one recognises the impossibility of bridging the gulf between what these folks call good1 and sweet1 and kindly1 and right1 and proper1 and all that is going on in the outer world amongst men's everyday surroundings1 in the manipulation of capital1 the payment of labour1 the consumption1 production and circulation of commodities1 the system of credit banking1 and the stock-exchange4 ,one can see two main streams running side by side even in men's very habits of thought1 one of which remains up aloft as it were in divine spiritual altitudes1 and has no desire to build a bridge from spiritual impulses to life's ordinary affairs4 ,the other stream runs on1 void of thought1 in the everyday world4 ,but life is a single whole4 ,it cannot thrive unless the forces that dwell in all ethical and religious life bring driving power to the most commonplace1 everyday things of life1 into the sort of life that some persons may think rather beneath them4 ,for1 if people neglect to build the bridge between the two regions of life1 then not only their religious and moral life1 but their social thinking too1 degenerates into mere wordy sentiment1 far removed from commonplace1 true realities4 ,and then these commonplaces have their revenge as it were4 ,for there is then still a sort of spiritual impulse in man1 urging him in pursuit of every imaginable ideal and every conceivable thing that he calls good2 whilst on the other side there are those different instincts1 which are in opposition to these ideals1--the instincts that underlie the ordinary daily needs of life and require an economic system for their satisfaction1 and to which he devotes himself minus his spirit4 ,he knows no practicable path from his conception of spirituality to the business of everyday life4 ,and so everyday life acquires a form1 which is not even supposed to have any connection with those ethical impulses that remain aloof in the more distinguished altitudes1 all soul and spirit4 ,and then1 the daily commonplaces are avenged2 for the ethical religious life turns to a living lie in men's hearts1 because1 all unperceived it is being dissevered from commonplace practice and from all direct contact with life4 ,how many people there are to-day1 who1 from a certain ethical or religious distinction of mind1 have all the will to live on a right footing with their fellow-men1 who desire to act by others only in the best conceivable way1 and yet fall short of the kind of feeling that would enable them to do so1 because they cannot lay hold upon any social conception that finds its outlet in practical habits of life6 ,it is people such as these1 who1 at this epoch-making moment in the world's history when social questions have become so urgent1 are blocking the road to a true practice of life4 ,they reckon themselves very practical persons1 and all the time are visionary obstructionists4 ,one can hear them making speeches like this3 ,what is really needed1 is for people to rise above all this materialism1 this external material life which drove us into the disaster of the great war and into all this misery4 ,they must turn to a spiritual conception of life4 ,and to illustrate man's path to spirituality1 they are forever harping upon great men of byegone days1 who were venerated for their conversion to a spiritual way of thinking4 ,one finds1 however1 that directly one tries to bring the talk round to the very thing that the spirit has to do for real practical life1 and what is so urgently required of the spirit to-day3 the creation of daily bread1 one is at once reminded1 that the first thing1 after all1 is to bring people again to acknowledge the spirit4 ,at this moment however1 the urgent thing is1 to employ the powers of the spiritual life to discover the right principles of social health4 ,and for this it is not enough that men should make a hobby of the spirit1 as a bye-path in life4 ,everyday existence needs to be brought into line with the spirit4 ,it was this taste for turning spiritual life into bye-paths1 that led the late ruling classes to find their pleasure in social conditions that ended in the present state of affairs4 ,in the social life of the present day1 the control of capital for the production of commodities is very closely bound up with the ownership of the means of production1 amongst which capital is of course included4 ,and yet these two relations between man and capital are quite different as regards the way they operate within the social system4 ,the control of capital by individual ability is1 when suitably applied1 a means of enriching the body social with wealth which it is to everyone's interest should exist4 ,whatever a person's position in life1 it is to his interest that nothing should be wasted of those individual abilities which flow from the fountain-head of human nature1 and through which things are created that are of use to the life of man4 ,these abilities1 however1 never become developed1 unless the human beings endowed with them have free initiative in their exercise4 ,any check to the free flow from these sources means a certain measure of loss to the welfare of mankind4 ,now capital is the means of making these abilities available for extended fields of social life4 ,it must be to the true interests of everybody in a community to have the collective property in capital so administered1 that individuals specially gifted in one direction1 or groups of people with special qualifications1 should be able to acquire the use of capital1 and should use it in the way their own particular initiative prompts them4 ,everybody1 be he brainworker or labourer1 if he consults his own interests without prejudice1 must say3 ,i should not only wish an adequate number of persons1 or groups of persons1 to have absolutely free use of capital1 but ,i should also like them to have access to capital on their own initiative2 for they themselves are the best judges of how their particular abilities can make capital a means of producing what is useful to the body social4 ,it does not fall within the scope of this work to describe how1 in the course of mankind's evolution1 as individual human abilities came to play a part in the social order1 private property also grew up out of other forms of ownership4 ,ownership has1 under the influence of the division of labour1 gone on developing in this form within the body social down to the present day4 ,and it is with present conditions that we are here concerned1 and with what the next stage in their evolution must be4 ,but in whatever way private property arose1--by the exercise of power1 conquest1 etc41--it is an outcome of the social creativeness which is associated with individual human ability4 ,and yet socialists to-day1 with their thoughts bent upon social reconstruction1 hold the theory1 that the only way to obviate what is oppressive in private ownership1 is to turn it into communal ownership4 ,they put the question thus3 ,how can private property in the means of production be prevented from arising1 so that its oppressive effect upon the unpropertied masses may cease8 ,in putting the question in this way1 they overlook the fact1 that the social organism is something that is constantly changing1 growing4 ,one cannot ask about a growing organism4 ,what is the best form of arrangement to preserve it in the state which one regards as the suitable one for it4 ,one can think in that way about something which starts at a certain point and then goes on in the same way ever afterwards without any essential change4 ,but that will not do for the body social4 ,its life is a continual changing of each thing as it arises4 ,to fix on some form as the very best1 and expect it to remain in that form1 is to undermine the very conditions of its life4 ,one of the conditions of life for the body social is1 that whoever can serve the community through his individual abilities should not be deprived of the power to do so freely of his own initiative4 ,where such service involves free use of the means of production1 to hamper free initiative would be to injure the general social interests4 ,i am not proposing here to urge the argument commonly used in this connection1 namely1 that the prospect of the gains associated with the ownership of means of production is needed in order to stimulate the enterpriser to exertion4 ,the whole form of thought represented in this book1 with its conception of a progressive evolution in social conditions1 must lead to the expectation1 that this kind of incentive to social activity may be eliminated1 through the emancipation of the spiritual life from its association with the political and economic system4 ,once it is free1 the spiritual life will of itself inevitably evolve a social sense2 and this social sense will provide incentives of a very different kind from the hope of economic advantage4 ,but it is not so much a question of the kind of impulse which makes men like private ownership of the means of production1 as of whether the necessary conditions of life for the body social are best fulfilled when the use of the means of production is free1 or when it is directed by the community4 ,and here1 one must always clearly remember1 that one cannot draw conclusions for the social organism of the present day from the conditions of life supposed to be found in primitive communities1 but from such only as correspond to man's present stage of development4 ,at the present stage1 it is not possible for individual ability to find fruitful exercise through capital in the round of economic life1 unless its use of capital is free4 ,for fruitful results in any field of production there must be opportunity for the free use of capital2 not because it gives an advantage to some individual or group2 but because1 opportunely directed by a social sense1 it is the best way of serving the community4 ,whether he is producing alone or in company1 the material a man is working on is in a manner bound up with himself1 much like the skill of his own arms or legs4 ,to interfere with his free use of the means of production1 is like crippling the free exercise of his bodily skill4 ,private ownership1 however1 is simply the medium for this free use of the means of production4 ,as regards ownership1 all that matters to the body social1 is that the owner should have the right to use it of his own free initiative4 ,clearly1 two things are joined together in social life1 that are of quite distinct implications for the body social--one1 the free use of the capital basis of social production2 the other1 the relation in right which arises between the user of capital and other people1 from the fact that his right of use precludes these other people from free activity on this same capital basis4 ,it is not the free use of itself in the beginning1 which does the mischief in society1 but the continuance of the right of use after the circumstances have come to an end which linked that use opportunely to individual abilities4 ,anyone who looks upon the social organism as a changing1 growing thing1 cannot fail to see what is meant4 ,he will look about for some possible mode of arranging what is helpful to life in one way1 so that it may not have bad effects in another4 ,for a live thing1 there is no possible mode of arrangement1 that can lead to fruition1 in which the finished process in its growth will not in turn become detrimental4 ,and if one is oneself to collaborate at a growing organism1--as man necessarily must in the body social1--one's business cannot lie in checking necessary developments1 for the sake of obviating detrimental consequences4 ,that would be to sap every possibility of life for the body social4 ,it is solely a question of intervening at the right moment1 when what was helpful and opportune is beginning to turn detrimental4 ,free use of the capital-basis through individual ability3--this must be an established possibility4 ,the ownership right involved in it must be shiftable1 directly this right begins to turn to a means of unrightfully acquiring power4 ,there is one institution1 introduced in our times1 which partially meets this social requirement1 though only for what one may call spiritual property4 ,spiritual property when its author is dead1 passes after a while into the ownership of the community for free use4 ,here we have an underlying conception1 that is in accordance with the actual nature of life in a human society4 ,closely as the production of a purely spiritual possession is bound up with the private endowment of the individual1 yet this possession is1 at the same time1 a result of the common social life1 and must pass at the right moment into the common life4 ,but it is just the same with other property4 ,by aid of his property the individual person produces for the service of the community2 but this is only possible in co-operation with the community4 ,and accordingly the right to the use of a piece of property cannot be exercised apart from the interests of the community4 ,the problem is not1 how to abolish ownership of the capital-basis8 but1 how can ownership be best turned to the service of the community8 ,the way to do so1 is to be found in the threefold order of society4 ,the people combined in the threefold order act as a collective community through the rights-,state4 ,the exercise of individual abilities comes under the spiritual organisation4 ,everything in the body social indicates the necessity of introducing this threefold organic arrangement1 when regarded with a sense of actualities1 and not from a view entirely dominated by subjective opinions1 theories1 predilections1 and so forth2--and this question of the relation of individual abilities to the capital-basis of economic life and its ownership1 is a special case in point4 ,the rights-,state will not interfere with the formation and control of private property in capital1 so long as the connection of the capital-basis with personal ability remains such1 that this private control implies a service to the total community4 ,moreover1 it will remain a rights-,state in respect to its dealings with private property4 ,it will never itself take over the ownership of private property4 ,it will only ensure that the right of use is transferred at the right moment to a person or group of persons1 who1 again1 through individual conditions1 are capable of establishing a purely personal relation to this ownership4 ,this will benefit the body social in two different aspects4 ,the democratic foundation of the rights-,state1 being concerned with the everything that touches all men equally1 will enable a sharp watch to be kept1 that property rights do not in course of time become property wrongs4 ,and again1--7since the ,state does not itself administer property1 but ensures its transference to individual ability71--men's individual abilities will develope their fructifying power for the whole body of the community4 ,under an organisation of this sort1 property rights1 or their exercise1 can safely be left attached to a personality1 for so long as seems opportune4 ,one can conceive the representatives in the rights-,state laying down quite different regulations at different times as to the way in which property is to be transferred from one person or group to another4 ,at the present day1 when private property has come to be regarded altogether with great distrust1 the proposal is1 to convert private property wholesale into communal property4 ,if people proceed far enough along this road1 they will find out1 that they are strangling the life of the community2 and1 taught by experience1 they will then pursue a different path4 ,but it would undoubtedly be better now1 at once1 to take measures that would secure social health on the lines here indicated4 ,so long as an individual alone1 or in combination with a group1 continues to carry on that productive activity which first procured him a capital-basis to work on1 so long he shall retain the right to use accumulations of capital arising as business gains on the primary capital where the gains are applied to the productive extension of the business4 ,directly this particular personality ceases to control the work of production1 the accumulation of capital shall pass on to another person1 or group1 to carry on the same kind of business1 or some other branch of productive industry useful to the whole community4 ,capital also1 that accrues from a productive industry but is not used for its extension1 must from the beginning go the same way4 ,nothing shall count as the personal property of the individual directing the business1 except what he receives in accordance with the claim he made when he first took over the business--claims1 which he felt able to make on the ground of his personal abilities1 and which appear justified by the fact1 that he was able to impress people with his abilities sufficiently for them to trust him with capital4 ,if through his personal exertions the capital has been increased1 then a portion of this increment will pass into his private ownership1--the addition so made to his original earnings representing a percentage on the addition to the capital4 ,where the original controller of an industry is unable1 or unwilling1 to continue in charge1 the capital used to start it will either pass over to the new controller with all incumbent obligations1 or else will revert to the original owners1 according as these latter may decide4 ,in such an arrangement1 one is dealing with transfers of a right4 ,the legal regulation of the terms on which such transfers shall take place1 is a matter for the rights-,state4 ,it will be for the rights-,state also to see that these transfers are carried out and to conduct the process4 ,it is conceivable that1 in detail1 the regulations laid down for any such transfer of a right will take very various forms1 according as the common sense of right 7the rights-consciousness7 varies in its view of what is right4 ,no mode of conception1 which1 like the present one1 aims at being true to life1 will ever attempt to do more than indicate the general direction that such regulation should take4 ,if one keeps to this direction and uses one's understanding1 one will always1 in any concrete instance discover what is the appropriate thing to do4 ,one must judge always from the special circumstances and according to the spirit of the thing1 what the right course is in actual practice4 ,the more true to life any mode of thought is1 the less it will attempt to lay down hard-and-fast rules for details1 from preconceived notions of what is requisite4 ,on the other hand1 the very spirit of such a form of thought will lead necessarily and decisively to one result or another4 ,for instance1 it results unquestionably from such a mode of thought1 that the rights-,state must never use its control of rights-transfers to get any capital into its own hands4 ,its only business will be to see1 that the transfer is made to a person1 or group1 whose individual abilities seem to warrant it4 ,this at once presupposes also1 as a general principle1 that anyone1 who is proposing to effect a transfer of capital under the circumstances described1 will be at liberty to select his successor in the use of it4 ,he will be free to select a person or group of people1 or else to transfer the right of use to a corporate body belonging to the spiritual organisation4 ,for anyone1 who has rendered practical services to society through his management of capital is a person likely to judge from native ability and with social sense1 what should be done with the capital afterwards4 ,and it will be more advantageous to the community to go upon what he decides1 than to discard his judgment1 and leave the decision to persons who have no direct connection with the matter4 ,some settlement of this kind will be required in the case of capital accumulations over a certain amount1 which have been acquired by persons1 or groups1 through the means of production 7including land71--except where these accumulations become private property by the terms originally agreed upon for the exercise of individual ability4 ,in this latter case1 what is so earned1 as well as all savings that spring from the results of a person's own work1 will remain until the owner's death1 or some later date1 in the private possession of the earner or his descendants4 ,until this date also1 these savings will draw an interest from the person who is given them to procure the means of production4 ,the amount of the interest will be the outcome of the general rights-consciousness1 and be fixed by the rights-,state4 ,in a social order1 based on the principles here described1 it will be possible to effect a complete distinction between proceeds that are due to the employment of means of production1 and sums accumulated through the earnings of personal labour1 spiritual or physical4 ,it is in accordance with the common sense of right1 as well as to the general social interest1 that these two things should be kept distinct4 ,what a person saves and places at the disposal of a productive industry1 is a service rendered to the general interests1 inasmuch as it makes it possible in the first place for personal ability to direct production4 ,but where1 after deducting the rightful interest1 there is an increase on the capital1 arising out of the means of production1 such increase is due to the collective working of the whole social organism1 and must accordingly flow back into it again in the way above described4 ,all that the rights-,state will have to do1 is to pass a resolution1 that the capital accumulations in question are to be transferred in the prescribed way4 ,it will not be called on to decide1 which material or spiritual branch of production is to have the disposal either of capital so transferred or of capital savings2--for this would lead to the ,state tyrannising over spiritual and material production1 which are best directed for the body social by men's individual abilities1 as has been shewn4 ,but it will be open to anyone to appoint a corporate body of the spiritual organisation to exercise the right of disposal over capital that he has created1 if he does not want himself to select his successor4 ,property acquired through saving1 together with the interest on it1 will also pass at the earner's death1 or a while later1 to some person or group actively engaged in spiritual or material production1--but only to a producer1 not to be turned into an income by someone who is not producing4 ,the choice will be made by the earner in his last will4 ,here again1 if no person or group can be chosen direct1 it will be a question of transferring the right of disposal to a corporation of the spiritual system4 ,only when a person himself makes no disposition of his savings1 then the rights-,state will act on his behalf1 and require the spiritual organisation to dispose of them4 ,in a society ordered on these lines1 due regard is paid both to private initiative on the part of the individual and at the same time to the social interests of the general community4 ,indeed the latter receive their full satisfaction through private initiative being set free to serve them4 ,whoever has to entrust his labour to the direction of another person1 can at least know1 under such an order of things1 that their joint work will bear fruit to the best advantage of the community1 and therefore of the worker himself4 ,the social order1--as here conceived1--will establish a proportionate relation1 satisfactory to healthy human sense1 between the prices of manufactured products and the two joint factors of their production1--namely human labour-power and these rights of use over capital 7embodied in the means of production7 which are subject to the common sense of right4 ,no doubt all sorts of imperfections may be found in this4 ,imperfections do not matter4 ,for a mode of thought that is true to life1 what is of importance is not to lay down a perfect and complete programme for all time1 but to point out the direction for practical work4 ,the special instances1 discussed here1 are simply intended as illustrations to map out the direction more clearly4 ,any particular illustration may be improved upon2 and this will be all to the good1 provided the right direction is observed4 ,through social institutions of this kind1 personal and family feelings will admit of being brought into harmony with the claims of general humanity4 ,it may of course be pointed out1 that there will be a great temptation for people to transfer their property during their life-time to their descendants1 or to some one of them1 and that it is quite easy to give such a person the appearance of a producer1 whilst all the while he may be quite incompetent compared to others1 who would be much better in his place4 ,the temptation to do this1 can however be reduced to a minimum under social institutions of the above kind4 ,the rights-,state has only to require1 that property1 which is transferred from one member of a family to another1 should under all circumstances1 be made over to a corporation of the spiritual system1 after the lapse of a certain period from the first owner's death4 ,or an evasion of the rule may be prevented in some other way by rights-law4 ,the rights-,state will merely see to it1 that the property is so made over4 ,the spiritual organisation must make provision for the choice of the person to inherit it4 ,in the fulfillment of these principles a general sense will grow up1 that the next generation must be trained and educated to fit them for the body social and that one must not do social mischief by passing capital on to persons who are non-productive4 ,no one1 in whom a real social sense is awakened1 cares to have his own connection with the capital basis of his work carried on by any individual or group whose personal abilities do not warrant it4 ,these proposals cannot be regarded as a mere utopia by anybody who has a sense of what is really practicable4 ,for the kind of institutions here proposed are such as spring directly out of existing circumstances anywhere in life4 ,only1 people will have to make up their minds1 gradually to give up administering spiritual life and industrial economy within the rights-,state1 and not to raise opposition1 when private schools and colleges are started and economic life put on its own footing1--seeing that this is just what is wanted4 ,there is no need to abolish the ,state schools and the ,state economic undertakings straight away4 ,but1 beginning perhaps in quite a small way1 it will be found increasingly possible to do away with the whole structure of ,state education and ,state economy4 ,this requires1 however1 first of all1 individuals1 convinced that these1 or some such social ideas as these are the right ones1 and able so thoroughly to imbue themselves with their rightness1 that they will make it their business to spread them4 ,wherever such ideas find understanding1 they will arouse confidence in the possibility of changing the present state of things into a healthy one1 where the same evils will not arise4 ,but this is the only kind of confidence which can lead to a really healthy state of things4 ,for1 before one can arrive at any such confidence1 one must have a clear perception in what way1 practically1 it is possible to connect new institutions on to the existing old ones4 ,the essential feature of the ideas here put forward would seem to be1 that they do not propose to bring about a better future by destroying the present social order further than has already been done2 but that their realisation will come through building upon what already exists2 and that as the building-up process goes on1 what is rotten and unsound will fall away4 ,no new views nor teachings1 that do not aim at establishing confidence in this respect1 will attain the object which it is absolutely necessary to attain1 namely1 an unbroken course of evolution1 in which all that men have hitherto achieved1 the wealth they have worked for1 and the faculties they have won1 are not cast to the winds1 but stored up4 ,even the most sweeping radical may feel confidence in a form of social reconstruction that still preserves the old heritage1 when he has ideas laid before him which are capable of initiating really sane and healthy developments4 ,even he will have to recognise1 that whatever class of men may get into power1 they will not be able to remove existing evils1 unless their impulses are supported by ideas that can put health and life into the body social4 ,to despair1--to believe it impossible to find a sufficient number of people who1 even in these days of turmoil will have understanding for these ideas1 if only they are spread with enough energy1--this would be to despair of human nature and of its openness to healthful and purposeful impulses4 ,is it desperate8 ,that is not the question to be asked4 ,but rather1 ,what must ,i do to give full force to the teaching and spread of ideas that can awaken men's confidence8 ,any effective spread of these ideas will find its first obstacle in the habits of thought of the present age1 which will quarrel with them on two grounds3--,either it will be objected in some form or another1 that any dismemberment in the unity of the social life is inconceivable1 that its three supposed branches cannot be torn apart1 seeing that in actual practice they are everywhere intertwined4 ,or else people will opine1 that it is quite possible under the onefold state to give each of the three branches its necessary independent character2 that all these ideas are mere cobweb-spinning1 with nothing in them1 and quite apart from all reality4 ,the first objection comes from thinking unreally1 from presupposing that unity of life is only possible in a community of human beings1 when the unity is introduced by ordinance4 ,what life in reality requires is1 however just the reverse4 ,unity must be the result1 the final outcome of all the streams of activity flowing together from various directions4 ,this idea is the one in accordance with life2 but it had the evolution of the latter age against it2 and so the tide of life in men bore down against the artificial order in its path1--and landed in the present social conditions4 ,the second preconception arises from inability to distinguish the radical difference in the working of the three systems of social life4 ,people do not see1 that man stands in a separate and peculiar relation to each of the three2 that1 for the full development of its special quality1 each of these three relations requires a ground to itself in actual life1 where it can evolve its own form apart from the other two1 in order that all three may combine in their working4 ,there was a view held in time past by the physiocrats1 that1--,either men make artificial government regulations for economic life1 which check its free expansion1--and then these regulations are harmful2--,or else1 the laws tend in the same direction as economic life does when left to itself1--and then they are superfluous4 ,as an academic theory1 this view has had its day2 but it still crops up everywhere as a habit of thought1 and plays havoc in men's brains4 ,people think1 that if one department of life is guided by its own laws1 then everything else whatever that is needed in life must follow as a consequence out of this one department4 ,that if1 for instance1 economic life were regulated in a way to satisfy men's wants1 that then this well-ordered economic soil would infallibly produce the right sort of spiritual life and rights life as well4 ,but it is not possible2 and only a way of thinking foreign to all reality can believe it possible4 ,in the circuit of economic life there is nothing whatever that affords of itself any motive to guide that which runs all through the relation of man to man and proceeds from the sense of right4 ,and if people insist on regulating this relation by economic motive the result will be1 that the human being1 with his labour and his control of the means of labour1 will be bound hand and foot to the economic life4 ,economic life will go on like clockwork1 and man will be a wheel in it1--,economic life has a tendency always to go on in one course1 which needs rectifying from another side4 ,it is neither1 that the rights regulations are good1 provided they move in the course set by economic life--nor1 that when they run counter to it1 they are bad4 ,but rather1 that if the course taken by economic life is constantly under the influence of those rules of right which concern man simply as man1 then a human existence within the economic life becomes possible4 ,and not till individual ability grows on its own ground1 quite detached from the economic system1 conveying ever afresh to economic life those forces that economics and industry are powerless to produce1 can economic life itself develope in a way beneficial to men4 ,it is a curious thing3--in purely external matters1 people are ready enough to see the advantage of a division of labour4 ,they do not expect a tailor to milk his own cow4 ,but when it comes to a general division and co-ordination of human life1 then they think that no good can come of anything but a onefold system4 ,that social ideas which follow the line of real life will rouse objections on every side1 is a matter of course4 ,for real life breeds contradictions4 ,and anyone1 who is thinking in accordance with life1 will determine on realising arrangements that involve living contradictions1 needing again other arrangements to reconcile them4 ,he must not suppose1 that an institution which is demonstrably1 to his thinking1 an ideally perfect one1 will involve no contradictions when realised in practice4 ,the socialism of the present day is absolutely justified in laying down the proposition1 that the institutions of the modern age1 in which production is carried on for individual profit1 must be replaced by a different system1 under which production shall be carried on for the general consumption4 ,but anyone1 who fully and wholly accepts this proposition will not arrive at the deduction drawn by modern socialism3 ,ergo1 the means of production must be transferred from private to communal ownership4 ,indeed1 he will be forced to a very different conclusion1 namely1 that right methods must be taken for conveying to the general community that which is privately produced on the strength of individual energy and capacity4 ,the tendency of the economic impulses of the new age has been to obtain revenue by manufacturing in mass4 ,the aim of the future must be1 to find out1 by means of ,associations1 what1 in view of the actual needs of consumption1 is the best method of production1 and what channels are open from producer to consumer4 ,the rights institutions will take care1 that a productive industry does not remain tied up with any individual or group of people longer than their personal ability warrants4 ,instead of communal ownership of the means of production1 there will be a circulation of the means of production throughout the body social1 bringing them constantly afresh into the hands of those persons whose individual ability can employ them to the best service of the community4 ,that connection between personality and the means of production1 which hitherto has been effected by private ownership1 will thus be established for periods of time4 ,for it will be thanks to the means of production that the head of a business and his subordinates are enabled by their personal abilities to earn the income that they asked4 ,they will not fail to make production as perfect as possible1 since every improvement brings them1 not indeed the whole profits1 but a portion of the returns4 ,for profits1--as shewn above1--go to the community only to the extent of what is over1 after deducting the quota due to the producer for improvements in production4 ,and it is in the spirit of the whole thing1 that1 if production falls off1 the producer's income must diminish in proportion as it rises with the enhancement of production4 ,but always1 in every case1 the manager's income will come out of the spiritual work he has done4 ,it will not come out of profits1 depending on conditions that do not rest with the spiritual work of the directing personality1 but with the interplay of the forces at work in the communal life4 ,it will be seen1 that with the realisation of social ideas such as these1 institutions that we already have will acquire an altogether new significance4 ,the ownership of property ceases to be what it has been up till now4 ,but instead of going back to an obsolete form1 such as communal ownership would be1 it is carried on a step further to something quite new4 ,the objects of ownership are brought into the stream of social life4 ,no private owner1 for his own personal interests1 can control them to the injury of the general public2--neither1 again1 can the general public control them bureaucratically to the injury of the private person2--but private persons1 who are suitable1 will have access to them1 as a means of serving the public4 ,a sense for the general public interest will have a chance to grow up1 when impulses of this sort are realised1 which place production on a sound basis1 and safeguards the body social from sudden crises4 ,an administrature too1 which occupies itself solely with the processes of economic life1 will be able to bring about any adjustments for which necessity may arise in the course of these processes4 ,suppose1 for instance1 a business concern were not in a position to pay its creditors the interest due on the savings of their labour1 then1--if it is a business that is nevertheless recognised as meeting a want1--it will be possible to arrange for other industrial concerns to subsidise it by the voluntary agreement of everyone concerned in them4 ,self-contained1 on a basis of rights determined from outside itself1 and supplied from without by a constant flow of fresh human ability as it comes on the scenes1 the economic life1 within its own circuit1 will concern itself with nothing but its proper work4 ,accordingly it will be possible for it to facilitate a distribution of wealth that will ensure each person receiving that which he is rightfully entitled to receive1 according to the community's general prosperity4 ,and1 if one person appears to have more income than another1 it will only be because his individual abilities make this ,more1 this surplus1 of advantage to the community4 ,the taxes which are needed for the rights system can be settled between the leaders of the rights life and the economic life in a social organism shaped by the light of such conceptions as these4 ,whilst everything needed for the maintenance of the spiritual organisation will come as good-will from the voluntary appreciation of the private members of the body social4 ,the spiritual organisation will rest on a healthy basis of individual initiative1 exercised in free competition amongst the private individuals suited to spiritual work4 ,but it is only in a social organism of this form1 that the rights administration will find the understanding necessary to a right and just distribution of wealth4 ,in an economic life1 where the claim upon men's labour is not prescribed by the stresses in single branches of production1 but which has to carry on business with as much as the rights-law allows it1 the value of goods will be determined by what men actually put into it in the way of work4 ,it will not allow the work men do to be determined by goods-values into whose formation human welfare and human dignity do not enter4 ,an order of economy such as this1 will not be blind to rights that arise from purely human relations4 ,children will have a right to education4 ,the father of a family will be able to have a higher income than a single man4 ,he will get his surplus through a system instituted by agreement between all three social organisations4 ,the right to education might be met1 under these arrangements1 in the following way4 ,the managing body of the economic organisation estimates the amount of revenue that can be given to education1 according to the general economic conditions2 and the rights-state fixes the rights of individual persons1 according to the spiritual organisation's opinion in each case4 ,here again1 since we are thinking on lines of reality1 this instance is merely intended to indicate the direction in which such arrangements might be worked4 ,in detail1 it is possible that quite a different sort of arrangement may be found to be the right thing4 ,but1 in any case1 the right thing will be found only through all three independent branches of the body social conjointly1 in working together for a common end4 ,for the purposes of this sketch1 the underlying mode of thought is merely concerned to discover the really practical thing1 7unlike so much to-day that passes for practical71--namely1 a functional division of the body social1 such as shall give man a basis on which to work socially to some purpose4 ,on a par with a child's right to education1 is the right of the aged1 of invalids1 widows and sick persons1 to a maintenance2 and the capital-basis for their support will be passed through the three systems of the body social in much the same way as the capital contributed for the education of those who are not yet come to their working powers4 ,the essential point in all this is1 that the income received by anyone who is not personally an earner1 should not be an outcome of the economic life2 but the other way about3--economic life must be dependent on what is the outcome of the common sense of right4 ,the people working in any economic organism will have all the less from their work1 the more has to go to the non-earners2 only the less will be borne fairly by all the members of the body social1 when social impulses1 of the kind here meant1 are really put into practice4 ,the education and maintenance of those who cannot work concerns all mankind in common2 and under a rights-state detached from economic life it will become the common concern in actual practice4 ,for the rights organisation is the field for realising those things in which every grown human being has a voice4 ,under a social order1 that follows this line of conception1 the surplus that a man performs on the strength of his individual ability will pass on to the community2 and the just maintenance for the deficiency of the less able will also come from the community4 ,surplus value will not be created for the unjustified enjoyment of private individuals1 but to enhance everything that can give wealth of soul and body to the whole social organism1 and to foster whatever is born of it1 even though not directly serviceable4 ,it may be thought1 that1 after all1 except for the idea of it1 there is no practical value in keeping the three members of the body social thus carefully distinct1 and that the same result would come about of itself inside a uniform constitution of ,state1 or an economic guild covering the same ground as the state1 and based on communal ownership of the means of production4 ,one needs1 however1 only to look at the special form of social institution that must result from realising the threefold division4 ,for instance1 the use of money as a mode of payment will not have to be legally recognised by the state administrature4 ,it will owe its recognition to the measures taken by the various administrative bodies within the economic organisation4 ,for money1 in a healthy social organism1 can be nothing except an order on commodities that other people have produced1 and which one can draw out of the common economic pool1 because of the commodities that oneself has produced and paid in4 ,it is the money currency that makes a sphere of economic activity into an economic unit4 ,the whole economic life is a roundabout way of everyone producing for everyone else4 ,within the sphere of economic activity1 commodity-values are the only things dealt with2 and in this sphere1 not only anything made1 but also anything done1 originating in the spiritual or ,state organisations1 also takes on the character of a commodity4 ,what a teacher does for his pupils1 is1 for the economic circuit1 a commodity4 ,the teacher's individual ability is no more paid for1 than the worker's labour-power is paid for4 ,all that can possibly be paid for in either1 is that which proceeds from them and can pass as a commodity or commodities into the economic circuit4 ,how free initiative1 and what the rights-law must act1 in order to bring the commodity into existence1 lies as much outside the economic circuit itself as the action of the forces of nature upon the corn yield in a bountiful or barren year4 ,for the economic circuit1 both the spiritual organisation1--as regards its claim on economic returns1--and the ,state also1 are simply producers of commodities4 ,only1 what they produce is not a commodity within their own spheres2 it first becomes a commodity1 when it is taken up into the economic circuit4 ,within their own domains1 the spiritual organisation and the state have no business dealings2--the economic body1 through its administrature1 carries on business with their work when it is done4 ,the purely economic value of any commodity 7or work done1 in so far as it finds expression in the money that represents its equivalent value71 will depend on the efficiency in economic administration developed by the body economic4 ,it will depend on the measures taken by the economic administration1 how fertile economic life can become on the basis afforded by the spiritual and rights systems of the body social4 ,the money-value of a commodity will then indicate1 that the economic organisation is producing the commodity in a quantity corresponding to the want for it4 ,supposing the premises laid down in this book to be realised1 the body economic will not be dominated by the impulse to amass wealth through sheer quantity of production2 but the production of goods will adapt itself to wants1 through the agency of the associative guilds that will spring up in all manner of connections4 ,in this way1 the proportion1 that in each case corresponds to the actual want1 will become established between the money-value of an article and the arrangements made in the body social for producing it4 #f ,in the healthy social organism1 money will really be nothing but a measure of value2 since1 behind every money piece1 or money token1 there stands the tangible piece of production1 on the strength of which alone the owner of the money could come by it4 ,these conditions will1 of their nature1 necessitate arrangements being made1 which will deprive money of its value for its possessor1 when once it has lost its original significance4 ,arrangements of this sort have already been alluded to4 ,money property passes back1 after a fixed period1 into the common pool1 in whatever the proper form may be2 and to prevent money1 withdrawn from use in industry1 being held back by its possessors to the evasion of the provisions made by the economic organisation1 there can be a new coinage1 or re-stamping1 from time to time4 ,one result of this will no doubt be1 that the interest derived from any capital sum will diminish as years go on4 ,money will wear out1 just as commodities wear out4 ,nevertheless1 such a measure will be a right and just one for the ,state to enact4 ,there can be no compound interest4 ,if a person lays by savings1 he has certainly rendered past services that gave him a claim on future counter-service in commodities1--just as present services claim present service in exchange4 ,but his claims cannot go beyond a certain limit2 for claims1 that date from the past1 require present labour-services to satisfy them2 and they must not be turned into a means of economic coercion4 ,the practical realisation of these principles will put the problem of safeguarding the money standard upon a sound basis4 ,for1 no matter what form money may take owing to other conditions1 the safeguard of its standard lies in the intelligent organisation of the whole body economic through its administrature4 ,the problem of safeguarding the money standard will never be satisfactorily solved through any ,state by means of law4 ,the present ,states will only solve it1 when they give up attempting the solution on their own account1 and leave the body economic to do what is needful1 after it is detached from the ,state4 ,there is much talk of the modern division of labour1 of its results in time-saving1 in perfecting the manufacture and facilitating the exchange of commodities4 ,little attention is paid to its effect on the relation of the human worker to what he is doing4 ,in a social order that is based on division of labour1 no person at work is ever really earning his income himself1 he is earning it through the work of everybody employed in the body social4 ,when a tailor makes a coat for his own use1 the relation of himself to the coat he is making is not the same as that of a man living under primitive conditions1 who has all the other necessaries of life to provide for himself4 ,the tailor makes the coat in order to enable him to make clothes for other people2 and its value for him depends solely and entirely on what services other people render4 ,the coat is1 really1 a means of production4 ,many people may call this splitting hairs2--but one sees that it is not so1 when one comes to consider the formation of commodity-values in the economic process4 ,it then becomes obvious1 that in an economic organism based on division of labour it is absolutely impossible to work for oneself4 ,all one can do1 is to work for others1 and set others to work for one4 ,one can no more work for oneself1 than one can eat oneself4 ,one can1 however1 establish practices1 that are in direct opposition to the very essence of division of labour2--as1 for instance1 when the whole system of goods-production is based on transferring to the individual as private property what he is only able to produce through occupying a place in the social organism4 ,division of labour makes for a social organism in which the individual shall live in accordance with the conditions of the whole body of the community4 ,economically1 division of labour precludes egoism4 ,and if1 in spite of this1 egoism persists1 in the form of class privilege and such things1 then a ,state of instability sets in1 leading to disturbances in the body social4 ,we are living under such conditions to-day4 ,to insist that the conditions in the rights-,state1 amongst other things1 must bring themselves into line with the system of divided labour and its non-egotistic method of production1 may appear to many people futile4 ,in this case1 they may as well draw the deduction from their premises3 ,there is no doing anything4 ,the social movement can lead to nothing4 ,as respects the social movement1 one can certainly do no good1 unless one is willing to give ,reality her due4 ,it is inherent in the mode of thought underlying the whole treatment of the subject1 throughout these pages1 that man's doings within the body social must be brought into line with the conditions of its organic life4 ,anyone1 who can only form his notions by the system he is accustomed to1 will be uneasy when he is told1 that the relation between the work-director and the worker is to be separated out from the economic process4 ,he will believe that such a separation is bound to lead to depreciation of money and a return to primitive conditions of industrial economy4--7,dr4 ,rathenau takes this view in his ,after the ,flood2 and from his standpoint it is a defensible one47--,the threefolding of the social order1 however1 prevents any risk of this4 ,the autonomous economic system1 working conjointly with the rights system1 completely detaches the whole state of money conditions from labour conditions1 which latter rest entirely on the rights-law4 ,the rights conditions cannot have any direct influence on the money conditions1 for these are the result of the economic administration4 ,the relation in right between work-director and worker will not upset the balance or shew itself in money-values at all4 ,for1 when wages are eliminated1 7which represent a relation of exchange between commodities and labour-power71 money-value remains simply a measure of the value of one commodity 7or piece of work7 as against another4 ,if one studies the threefold division in its actual effects upon the body social1 one must become convinced that such a division will lead to institutions unknown to the forms of ,state that have existed up till now4 ,these new institutions can be cleared of all that to-day has an atmosphere of class-struggle4 ,for this struggle comes from the wages of labour being tied up with the economic processes4 ,here1 we are describing a form of social organism1 in which the conception of wages of labour undergoes a transformation no less complete than the old conception of property4 ,but the social relation of human-beings becomes thereby a much more living and healthy one4 ,one must not jump to the conclusion1 that these proposals amount in practice merely to converting time-wages into piece-wages4 ,one might be led to this conclusion by a one-sided view of the matter4 ,but this one-sided view is not that which is put forward as the right one here4 ,here1 we are considering1 in its connection with the whole organisation of the body social1 the elimination of the wage-relation altogether1 and the adoption of a share-relation1 based on contract in respect to the common work performed by the work-director and the workers4 ,it may seem to somebody1 that the portion of the proceeds which falls to the worker's share is a piece-wage2 but if so1 it is because he fails to see1 that this kind of piece-wage 7which1 properly speaking1 is not a wage at all7 finds expression in the value of the product in a way1 that puts the worker socially into a position as regards the other members of the body social very different from that relation between him and them1 which has sprung out of class supremacy in which economics are the only factor4 ,class struggle finds no place here2 and this requirement is satisfied4 ,and for those who hold the theory1--not infrequently to be heard in socialist circles1--that the course of evolution itself must bring the solution of the social question1 that it is impossible to set up views and say that they ought to be realised1--to these we shall reply3 ,most certainly evolution will bring about that which must be2 but men's ideas are realities and active impulses within the body social4 ,and when time has gone on a little further1 and that has become realised which to-day can only be thought1 then these realised thoughts will be there in the evolution4 ,with time1 when the thoughts of to-day have become part of evolution1 then those1 who look to evolution alone and have no use for fruitful ideas1 may be better able to form a judgment4 ,only1 when that time comes1 it will be too late to accomplish certain things1 which are required now by the facts of to-day4 ,in the social organism1 it is not possible to set about observing the evolution from outside1 objectively1 as one does in nature4 ,one is obliged to take an active part in the evolutionary process4 ,and it is therefore so disastrous for all sound thought on social matters that it is to-day up against views that are bent on demonstrating social requirements as one demonstrates a fact in natural science4 ,in the comprehension of social life1 there can be no proof1 unless one takes into account not only what is actually present existing1 but also that other factor1 latent within men's impulses1 often unknown to themselves1 seed-like and striving towards realisation4 ,one of the ways1 in which the threefold system will shew that it is based on the essentials of human social life1 will be the removal of the judicial function from the sphere of the ,state4 ,it will be for the ,state institutions to lay down the rights that are to be observed between men or groups of men2 but the passing of judgment comes within institutions proceeding from the spiritual organisation4 ,in passing judgment1 a very great deal depends on what opportunity the judge has for perceiving and understanding the particular circumstances of the person whom he is trying4 ,nothing can ensure this perception and understanding1 except those ties of trust and confidence that draw men together in the institutions of the spiritual order1 and which must be made the main consideration in appointing the courts of law4 ,possibly1 the administrature of the spiritual organisation might nominate a panel of magistrates who could be drawn from the widest range of spiritual professions and would return to their own calling at the expiration of a certain period4 ,everybody then would have the opportunity1 within certain limits1 of selecting a particular person on the panel for five or ten years at a time1--someone in whom the rhythmic system1 which1 to arrive at any he feels sufficient confidence to be willing to accept his verdict in a private or criminal suit1 if it came to the point4 ,there would always be enough magistrates1 in the neighbourhood where anyone was residing1 to give a value to the power of selection4 ,a complainant would always have to apply to the magistrate competent to the defendant4 ,only consider1 what such an institution would have meant for the territories of ,austria-,hungary6 ,in districts of mixed language1 the member of any nationality would have been able to choose a judge of his own race4 ,and anyone acquainted with ,austrian affairs will know1 how greatly such an arrangement might have contributed to keep the balance in the life of her various nationalities4 ,but apart from nationality1 there are many fields of life where such an arrangement might have a beneficial effect on healthy development4 ,for more detailed acquaintance with points of law1 the judges thus appointed and the courts will be assisted by regular officials1 whose selection will also be determined by the spiritual administrature1 but who will not themselves decide cases4 ,the same administrature will also have to constitute courts of appeal4 ,the kind of life1 that will go on under the conditions here supposed1 will of its nature bring a judge into touch with the mode of life and feeling of those whom he has to judge2 his own life1 outside the brief period of judicial office1 will make him familiar with their lives and circles4 ,everywhere and in all its institutions1 the healthy social organism will draw out the social sense of those who share its life1--and so too with the judicature4 ,the execution of a sentence is the affair of the rights-,state4 ,it is not necessary for the moment here to go into arrangements1 entailed in other fields of life as well by the realisation of what has been put forward in these pages4 ,a description of them would obviously take up unlimited space4 ,the particular instances already given of the forms social life will take1 should dispose of a notion1 7which ,i have actually met with when lecturing on this subject in various places71 that this is an attempt to revive the three old estates of the ,plough1 the ,sword and the ,book4 ,what is here intended1 is just the very opposite to this division into grades4 ,men will not be divided into functions of the body social1 neither as ,classes1 nor ,estates4 ,it is the body social itself which will be functionally divided4 ,and thereby man for the first time will be able to be truly man2 for the three social divisions will be such1 that he himself has his own life's roots in each of them4 ,his calling gives him a footing in one of the three1 and to this he belongs through his practical interests4 ,and his relation to the other two will be a very actual and living one2 for his connection with their institutions is of a kind to create such a living relation4 ,threefold will be the body social1 as apart from man and forming the groundwork of his life2 and each man will unite its three divisions within himself4 ,,iv ,,international ,,aspects ,,of ,,the ,,threefold ,,commonwealth ,the internal structure of a healthy social organism makes its international relations also threefold4 ,each of its three branches will have its own independent relation to the corresponding branch of other threefold organisms4 ,all manner of interconnections will spring up between the economic network of one district and that of another1 without being directly influenced by the connections between their rights-,states4 #g ,and1 conversely1 the relations between their rights-,states will1 within certain limits1 develope in complete independence of their economic connections4 ,this independence of origin will enable these two sets of relations to act as a check upon each other in cases of dispute4 ,such a close interweaving of interests will grow up1 as will make territorial frontiers seem negligible in the life of mankind4 ,the spiritual organisations of the different districts will become linked in a way that only the common spiritual life of mankind can make possible4 ,detached from the ,state and placed on its own footing1 the spiritual life will develope all manner of connections1 that are impossible when the recognition of spiritual services does not rest with a spiritual corporation1 but with the rights-,state4 ,so far as this is concerned1 there is no real difference between the services rendered by science1--which are frankly international1--and those rendered in any other spiritual field4 ,the common language of a nation1 and all that goes along with language1 constitutes one such field of spiritual life1--including the national consciousness itself4 ,the people of one language-area do not come into unnatural conflict with those of another language-area1 except when they try to make their national form of civilisation predominant through the use of their ,state-organisation or their economic power4 ,if one national civilisation spreads more readily1 and has greater spiritual fertility than another1 then it is quite right that it should spread2 and the process of spreading will be a peaceful one1 provided it comes about solely through the agency of the spiritual communities of the different social organisms4 ,at the present time1 the keenest opposition to the threefold order will come precisely from those groups of mankind which have clustered round a common origin of speech and national culture4 ,such opposition however must break down before the common goal of all mankind1--a goal towards which men will set their faces with increasing consciousness from the very necessities of life in the modern age4 ,mankind will come to feel1 that each of its many parts can only lead a life worthy of their common humanity1 when bound in living links to all the rest4 ,national affinities1 together with other impulses of a natural order1 are amongst the causes which historically led to the formation of communities in rights and communities of industrial economy4 ,but the forces to which nationalities owe their growth require for their development free mutual interaction1 untrammelled by any ties that grow up between the respective bodies of ,state and the economic ,associations4 ,and the way of achieving this1 is for the various national communities to develope the threefold order within their own social structures2 and then their three branches can each expand its own relation with the corresponding branches of the other communities4 ,in this way1 peoples1 ,states1 economic bodies1 become grouped together in formations that are very various in shape and character1 and every part of mankind becomes so linked with the other parts1 that each is conscious of the life of the other pulsing through its own daily interests4 ,a league of nations is the outcome1--arising out of root impulses that correspond to actual realities4 ,there will be no need to institute one1 built up solely on legal theories of right4 #h ,to anyone1 who is thinking of these things in terms of real life1 it must seem of especial importance1 that the aims here set before the body social1 whilst having a meaning for the whole of mankind collectively1 are such as can be put in practice by any single corporate community1 no matter what may be the attitude adopted by other countries for the time being4--,if one corporate community has organised itself into its three natural divisions1 the administratures of the three divisions can act together as a single body1 and thus perfectly well form relations even with outside communities that are not yet prepared to adopt the threefold order themselves4 ,whoever leads the way with the threefold order1 will be furthering the common aim of all mankind4 ,what actually has to be done1 will be carried through by that strength which an aim brings with it in practical life1 when it is rooted in the actual guiding forces of humanity1--rather than by diplomatic agreements1 or drafting schemes at conferences4 ,it is on a basis of reality that this aim is conceived in thought4 ,it is one to be pursued in the real action of life at any and every point amongst the communities of men4 ,anyone1 watching what was going on in the life of peoples and of ,states during the last #cj or #dj years from a point of view such as given in these pages1 could see how the ,state-structures that had been built up in the course of history1 with their blending of spiritual life1 rights and industrial economy1 were becoming involved in international relations that were heading for catastrophe4 ,at the same time1 it was equally plain1 that the opposite forces at work within mankind's unconscious impulses were tending towards the threefold order4 ,here lies the remedy for those convulsions that have been brought about by the mania for unification4 ,the way of life among the leaders of mankind was not however of the kind to enable them to see what had been for years past slowly working up4 ,in the spring and summer of #aiad1 one still found statesmen saying1 that1 thanks to the governments' exertions1 the peace of ,europe was1 so far as could be humanly foreseen1 assured4 ,these statesmen simply had not the faintest notion1 that all that they were doing and saying had absolutely lost touch with the course of real events4 ,yet these were the people who were looked up to as practical2 and people were regarded as little better than cranks at that time1 who had been forming other views during all those years1 which differed from those of the statesmen2--such views1 for instance1 as those expressed by the present writer months before the war-catastrophe1 when addressing a small audience in ,vienna1--7a large audience would certainly have laughed him down47 ,he then spoke of the danger menacing1 in more or less these words3--,the tendencies prevalent in the life of the present day will continue to gather strength1 until they end by annihilating themselves4 ,and if one reads social life with the eyes of the spirit1 one can perceive everywhere the ghastly signs of social tumours forming4 ,here is the great menace to our civilisation1 manifest to anyone able to read below the surface of existence4 ,it is this that is so appalling1 so overpowering1 that--even if one could otherwise repress all zeal on behalf of a science in which spiritual knowledge is made instrumental to the knowledge of life's events1--these things alone would impell one to speak1 to proclaim the remedy1 to hurl one's words as it were in the face of the world4 ,if the body social follows the same line of evolution as hitherto1 it will become full of sores--sores of civilisation that will be for it what cancers are for man's natural body4--,such were the foundations upon which life rested1 and which the ruling circles neither could nor would see4 ,but their special view of life led them to find in such conditions a pretext for measures that would have been better left undone1 but for none that were of a sort to establish confidence between the different communities of mankind4--,whoever is under the belief that the social necessities of the time played no part amongst the immediate causes of the present world-catastrophe1 should ask himself this question3--,what direction would political impulses have taken in the ,states that were rushing into mutual war1 if the statesmen had recognised the social needs of the times1 and embodied these in their aims8 ,and how much that was done would have been left undone1 if their efforts had thus been directed to something more substantial than piling up inflammable material1 that was bound sooner or later to lead to an explosion8 ,as one watched the relations between the ,states during recent years1 and the cancer creeping on in them1 owing to the form that social life had taken amongst the leading sections of mankind1 one could understand how a man of broadly human spiritual interests1 such as ,hermann ,grimm1 was led to speak as he did1 so early in #ahhh1 when discussing the form that social aims had taken amongst the leading circles3--,the end they set before them1 is the ultimate formation of mankind into a commonwealth of brothers1 who ever afterwards shall go forward hand-in-hand1 actuated only by the noblest impulses4 ,merely to follow history on the map of ,europe1 one would imagine that a general internecine massacre were the next step imminent4 ,only the thought1 that a road must be found to the true riches of human life1 this thought alone can keep alive a sense of human worth4 ,it is a thought which hardly seems compatible with the gigantic preparations for war that we and our neighbours too are making4 ,and yet1 ,i believe in it4 ,and in the light of this thought we must live2 unless indeed it were better to put an end to human existence altogether by common consent1 and appoint an official day of universal suicide 7,herman ,grimm3 ,the ,last ,five ,years1--,pub4 #ahhh47--,what were these preparations for war1 save steps taken by men who were bent upon preserving their old ,state constructions in one and undivided form1 despite the fact that the evolution of the new age had made this onefold form incompatible with the very essence of healthy relations between the peoples4 ,health can1 nevertheless1 be brought into the common life of the peoples1 by that form of social order that takes its shape from the requirements of the times4 ,the ,state-structure of ,austria-,hungary had1 for more than half a century1 been struggling towards a new formation4 ,its spiritual life1 which had its roots in a multiplicity of racial communities1 called for a form of development to which the old onefold ,state1 created by outworn impulses1 offered a continual obstacle4 ,the incident with which the great catastrophe opened--the quarrel between ,austria and ,serbia--is a conclusive sign1 that the political frontiers of the onefold ,state ought not1 after a certain point of time1 to have formed the cultural frontiers for the spiritual life of its various nationalities4 ,could the spiritual life have been on its own footing1 independent of the political ,state and political boundaries1 it would have had a chance to develope regardless of frontiers1 in a manner befitting the true purpose of the several nationalities2 and the struggle1 which was deeply rooted in the spiritual life1 need never have found vent in a political catastrophe4 ,deliberate development in this direction seemed an utter impossibility1 sheer lunacy indeed1 to all statesman-like thinkers in ,austria-,hungary4 ,their habits of thought admitted of no other conception than that the boundaries of ,state must also be the boundaries of national community4 ,they could not understand1 how spiritual organisations could be formed1 cutting across state frontiers1 and comprising the school system and other branches of spiritual life4 ,it was against all their habitual conceptions4 ,and yet this inconceivable thing is what international life demands in the new age4 ,a really practical thinker ought not to be held up by apparent impossibilities1 and assume that the obstacles in the way of doing what is requisite are insurmountable4 ,he must simply concentrate on surmounting them4 ,but instead of turning their statesman-like thought along lines that would have been in unison with modern-age requirements1 they devoted their whole energies to bolstering up the onefold form of ,state against the demands of the age by all manner of institutions4 ,the ,state grew more and more unwieldy and impossible in its structure4 ,and in the second decade of the twentieth century1 it had reached a point when it could no longer keep itself together in its old form1 and must either passively await dissolution1 or else attempt to accomplish externally by force the internally impossible1 and maintain itself by the power which a war-footing would give to it4 ,in #aiad there remained for the ,austro-,hungarian statesmen but one alternative3--,either they must direct their policy along the lines of life in a healthy social order1 and make known their intention to the world1--a course which might have revived new confidence1--or else they were absolutely obliged to start a war1 in order to keep the old structure from tumbling about their ears4--,what happened in #aiad must be judged from these underlying causes2 otherwise it is impossible to think correctly and justly about the question of blame4 ,the fact that many nationalities went to compose the fabric of her ,state1 might well seem to have made it ,austria-,hungary's mission in the world's history to lead the way in evolving a healthy form of social order4 ,the mission was not recognised4 ,and this sin against the spirit of the world's historic life drove ,austria-,hungary into war4 ,and what about the ,german ,empire8--,the ,german ,empire was founded at a moment1 when the call of the new age for the healthy form of social life was endeavouring to find practical realisation4 ,to have realised it1 might have given the empire a justification for its existence in the world's history4 ,all the social impulses met together in this realm of ,central ,europe1 as if it were the ground allotted to them from of old in the world's history for them to work themselves out4 ,the social tendency in thought was to be found in any number of places1 but within the ,german ,empire it assumed a form that plainly shewed whither it was tending4 ,here lay the work which should have given the empire its substance and purport4 ,here was the field of labour for those who were at the head of its affairs4 ,this empire would have required no justification in the community of modern nations1 had it received at its foundation a task and purport such as the forces of history themselves seemed to suggest4 ,but instead of dealing with the task on a scale corresponding to its magnitude1 those at the head of affairs contented themselves with social reforms arising out of the exigencies of the hour1 and were delighted when such reforms as these were held up as models by other countries4 ,and all the time1 they were more and more seeking to establish the external prestige of the empire upon a pattern taken from the antiquated conceptions of the power and glory of ,states4 ,they went on building up an empire1 which was as contrary as the ,austro-,hungarian fabric to everything that history shewed to be an active force in the modern life of the peoples4 ,but of these forces the empire's governors saw nothing4 ,the particular form of ,state-structure1 that they had in their mind's eye1 could only rest on military force4 ,whereas the form of ,state1 that modern history demanded1 must have rested on a practical realisation of the impulses that were making for a healthy social organism4 ,in giving these impulses practical realisation1 they would have made themselves a different place in the community of peoples from the position they actually occupied in #aiad4 ,through failure to understand what was demanded by the life of the peoples in this new age1 ,german policy had1 in #aiad1 reached a dead-point as regards any possibility of further action4 ,for years past1 ,german policy had been blind to everything that ought to have been accomplished2 it had busied itself with every conceivable thing that lay outside the forces of modern evolution1 and that was bound inevitably from sheer hollowness to tumble down like a house of cards4 ,the whole tragedy1 thus brought about in the course of history and summed up in the fate of the ,german ,empire1 is to be found very faithfully reflected1 for anyone who would take the trouble to examine and give the world a true and exact picture of what occurred in the leading quarters of ,berlin in the last days of ,july and #ast ,august1 #aiad4 ,of these occurrences very little still is known1 either at home or abroad4 ,whoever is acquainted with them knows1 that ,german policy at that time was a card-house policy1 that it had reached a dead-point in action2 so that the whole question1 as to whether there should be a war1 or how it should begin1 was inevitably made over to the decision of the military authorities4 ,and the responsible people amongst the military authorities could not1 from a military point of view1 act otherwise than they did act1 because from that point of view1 the situation could only be regarded as they regarded it2 for outside the military department things had got to a pass where no further action was possible4 ,this would be a notorious fact in the world's history1 if there were any who would make it their business to bring to light what went on in ,berlin at the end of ,july and on the first of ,august1--in particular on ,july #ca and ,august #a4 ,people are still under the delusion1 that nothing is to be gained by a minute knowledge of these occurrences1 if one knows the previous events that led up to them4 ,but it is knowledge that must not be shirked1 if there is to be any discussion of the question of blame1 as it is called to-day4 ,of course1 there are other ways of arriving at the causes1 which were already of long standing2 but a detailed knowledge of these few days reveals the way in which these causes acted4 ,the notions1 which at the time drove ,germany's leaders into war1 continued their baneful work4 ,they became the mood of a nation4 ,and these same notions prevented the people in power from acquiring by the bitter experiences of the final terrible years that insight1 for want of which the tragedy had come about4 ,these experiences might well have opened men's eyes2 and1 in this hope1 the present writer took what seemed to him an opportune moment in the war calamity1 and did his best to bring before various personages the ideas underlying a healthy social organism1 and the political attitude that these entail towards the world abroad4 ,he addressed himself to prominent individuals1 whose influence at that time might still have been exerted to carry these social impulses into effect2 and various persons1 who had the destiny of the ,german people honestly at heart1 took pains to gain admission for these ideas4 ,all that was said was in vain4 ,every old habit of thought was up in arms against social impulses of this kind1 which to a purely military cast of thought appeared quite impracticable1--something for which they had no use at all4 ,the farthest they could get was3 ,separation of ,church and ,school1--yes1--there was something in that4 ,the thoughts of the statesman-like thinkers had been running on lines of that sort for years1 and would not be turned into any direction involving drastic change4 ,well-meaning people suggested my publishing these proposals1--most futile advise at that particular moment4 ,what would have been the good of another treatise on these social impulses1 in addition to all the other current literature of the hour1--and coming from a private person too6 ,from the very nature of such impulses1 they could1 at that time1 only have carried weight through the quarter from which they were pronounced4 ,had a pronouncement in favour of these impulses been made from the right place1 the peoples of ,central ,europe would have recognised the possibility of realising something that was in sympathy with their own more or less conscious tendencies4 ,and the peoples of the ,russian districts1 ,east1 would at that time most undoubtedly have recognised in these social impulses a practical solution to ,czarism4 ,that they could and would have recognised the significance of these impulses1 is beyond dispute for anyone able to perceive the as yet unexhausted intellectual vigour of the peoples of ,eastern ,europe1 and how receptive their minds are to healthy social ideas4 ,however1 there was no pronouncement in favour of these ideas2 and1 instead1 came ,brest-,litovsk4 ,that military thinking could do nothing to avert the disaster from ,central and ,eastern ,europe1 could have been concealed from none but militarist minds4 ,the cause of the ,german people's disaster was1 that people would not recognise that the disaster could not be averted4 ,they would not face the fact1 that in those quarters1 which had the deciding of affairs1 there was no sense of the big1 historic necessities4 ,anyone1 who knew anything of these historic necessities1 also knew1 that the ,english-speaking races had persons amongst them1 who were able to read the forces at work amongst the peoples of ,central and ,eastern ,europe1 and that these persons were convinced1 that there was something working up in ,central and ,eastern ,europe which must find vent in tremendous social convulsions1--convulsions of a sort for which they believed there to be no necessity nor occasion in the ,english-speaking regions4 ,they framed their own policy on these conclusions4 ,in ,central and ,eastern ,europe nothing was seen of all this1 and the people there shaped their policy on lines which brought the whole thing like a house of cards about their ears4 ,the only policy1 which could have had a solid foundation1 would have been one which recognised1 that people in the ,english-speaking countries were handling the forces of world-history on large lines1 and of course1 naturally1 from the ,english point of view4 ,but to agitate in favour of such a policy would have been regarded as highly superfluous1--especially by the diplomatists4 ,so1 instead of adopting a policy1 which might have also have ensured the prosperity of ,central and ,eastern ,europe1--despite the large lines of ,english policy1--before the war-catastrophe swept over everything1 the leaders still continued to run along the familiar diplomatic rails4 ,and1 even amidst the horrors of war1 bitter experience still failed to teach them1 when the manifesto came from ,america announcing the world's mission in political terms1 that it must be met by another and a different one from ,europe1 born of the forces of ,europe herself4 ,wilson had announced the world's mission from the ,american standpoint4 ,europe's sense of her mission would have been heard as a spiritual impulse above the roar of the guns4 ,between the two it would have been possible to effect an understanding4 ,all other talk of mutual understanding rang hollow in face of the historic necessities4 ,but those1 whom circumstances brought to the head of affairs in the ,german ,empire1 lacked the perception which could make them lay hold on the seeds of new growth in modern human life and embody them in a comprehensive aim4 ,and1 therefore1 the autumn of #aiah could bring nothing but what it brought4 ,the collapse of military power was accompanied by spiritual surrender4 ,in this supreme hour1 at least they might have roused themselves1 have sought strength in the will and purpose of ,europe1 and made good the spiritual forces of the ,german people4 ,instead1 they abdicated to ,wilson's ,fourteen ,points4 ,wilson was confronted by a ,germany that had nothing to say on her own account4 ,whatever ,wilson may think about his own #ad points1 he is nevertheless powerless to help ,germany except as ,germany is willing4 ,he was bound to await a pronouncement of her will4 ,the beginning of the war had already demonstrated the nullity of ,german policy4 ,it was again demonstrated in ,october1 #aiah4 ,so came that awful spiritual capitulation1 at the hands of a man on whom numbers in ,german lands had staked as it were their last hope4 ,want of faith in insight based on the forces at work through history2--unwillingness to seek strength in impulses that proceed from a perception of spiritual facts3--,the state of ,central ,europe was due to these two things4 ,and now1 to-day1 the circumstances consequent on the war-catastrophe have created a new situation4 ,the idea that gives its stamp to the new situation can be that of the social impulses of mankind1 as conceived in this book4 ,these social impulses speak a language1 towards which the whole civilised world has a responsibility4 ,has thought spent itself1 and come to its dead-point before the social question as ,central-,european policy did before the problems of #aiad8 ,some countries were able to stand aloof from the points that were then at issue4 ,from the social movement they cannot stand aloof4 ,this is a question that admits of no political adversaries and of no neutrals4 ,here1 there must be but one human race working at one common task1 willing to read the signs of the times and to act in accordance with them4 ,,notes #a ,beginning of ,april1 #aiai4 ,the author in the following pages has deliberately avoided confining himself to the terms in common use in standard treatises on political economy4 ,he knows quite well the places which a technical economist will pick out as being amateurish4 ,but he has selected his mode of expression1 partly because he desires to address himself also to persons who are not familiar with the literature of sociology and economics1 but chiefly1 because it is his opinion1 that most of what is peculiarly technical in such writings will be shewn by a new age to be partial and defective1 even in the very form of its expression4 ,it may also be thought1 that some reference should have been made by the author to other persons1 whose social ideas bear an incidental resemblance to his own4 ,it must however be remembered1 that in the whole conception here put forward1--a conception which the author believes he owes to long years of practical experience1--the essential point is not whether a particular thought has taken this or that form1 but what one takes as one's starting-ground1 and the road one pursues in giving practical realisation to the impulses which underlie this conception4 ,as may be seen from ,chapter ,,iv1 the author was already doing what he could to get these ideas practically realised1 at a time when ideas that look in some respect similar had as yet attracted no attention4 #b ,an ,english translation of this supplementary volume is in preparation4 7,translator's note47 #c ,author's ,note4 ,for the purposes of life1 what is wanted in an explanation is not definitions drawn from theory1 but ideas that give a picture of a real live process4 ,as used in this sense1 commodity denotes something that plays an actual part in man's life and experience4 ,any other concept of it either omits or adds to this1 and so fails to tally exactly with what really and truly goes on in life4 #d ,author's note4 ,it is quite possible in life for a transaction not only to be interpreted unreally1 but also to take place unreally4 ,money and labour are not interchangeable values1 but only money and the products of labour4 ,accordingly1 if ,i give money for labour1 ,i am doing something that is unreal4 ,i am making a sham transaction4 ,for in reality ,i can only give money for the product of labour4 #e ,author's ,note4 ,the rights of the matter becomes the axiomatic basis for all economic activity under this relation of labour to the rights system2 and the associations will have to accept these as a given premise in economic life4 ,what this does1 however1 is to make economic organisation dependent upon man1 instead of man being dependent upon the system of economics4 #f ,author's ,note4 ,a sound proportion between the prices of made goods can only be achieved in economic life as an outcome of social administration1 that springs up in this way from the free co-operation of the three branches of the body social4 ,the proportion between prices must be such1 that anyone working receives as counter-value for what he has produced so much as is necessary to satisfy his total wants and the wants of those belonging to him1 until he has again turned out a product of equivalent labour4 ,it is impossible to fix such a price-relation officially in advance2 it must come as the resultant of living co-operation between the associations actively at work in the body social4 ,prices will however certainly settle down into such a normal relationship1 provided the joint work of the associations rests on a healthy co-operation between the three divisions of social life4 ,one may rely on the result as securely as on having a safe bridge1 when it is built according to the proper laws of mathematics and mechanics4 ,it may be said1 that social life does not invariably obey its own laws1 like a bridge4 ,this facile objection however will not be made by anyone able to recognise1 that it is primarily the laws of life1 and not the laws of mathematics1 which all through this book are conceived as underlying social life4 #g ,author's ,note4 ,it may be urged1 that the rights relations and the economic relations form one indivisible whole in actual reality4 ,this however misses the point of what is meant by the threefold division4 ,of course1 in the mutual intercourse and exchange that goes on between the various social organisms1 taken as a collective process1 the two different sorts of relations1--between their rights systems and their economic systems1--work together as a single whole4 ,but it is a different matter1 whether one makes rights regulations to suit the requirements of economic intercourse1 or whether one first shapes them by the common sense of right1 and then takes the combined result1 whatever it may be4 #h ,author's ,note4 ,some people think these things ,utopias1 because they fail to see that1 in reality1 actual life itself is struggling towards the very kind of arrangement which seems to them so ,utopian1 and that the actual mischief going on in real life is due precisely to the fact that these arrangements are nowhere to be found4