♦ /HE 5E9HS OF IHI yiPH Trees /i/\jd plonets 2 3 EDITORIAL NOTES Anthroposophy springs from the work and teaching of Rudolf Steiner (1861 to WORLD ECONOMY AND THE BRUNDTLAND 1925). He described Anthroposophy as 'a path of knowledge, to guide the spiritual in the COMMISSION human being to the spiritual in the universe'. The aim of this annual is to bring an anthroposophical outlook to bear on questions and activities of evident relevance to the We are citizens of the community of Earth, and need balanced, truthful pictures and present, in a way intended to have lasting value. It was founded in 1949 by Charles Davy ideas of what is happening in this community. Part of the widespread discouragement and Arnold Freeman, who were its first editors. which exists today is due to the difficulties encountered in trying to form such pictures The title derives from an old Persian legend, according to which King Djemjdid and ideas. For example, if we ask how extensive and how serious poverty and received from his God, Ahura Mazdao, a golden blade with which to fulfil his mission on unemployment are, what are their main causes, and what remedies can be found for them - Earth. It carried the heavenly forces of light into the darkness of earthly substance, thus we do not easily find answers. Nor do we, if we ask how much the air and seas are already allowing its transformation. The legend seems to point to the possibility that man, polluted, and whether there are practicable measures which will effectively stay the through wise and compassionate work with the Earth, can one day regain on a new level process of pollution. And if such remedies and measures were found, would they be what was lost when the Age of Gold was supplanted by those of Silver, Bronze and Iron. consistent with human freedom? Technology could serve this aim; instead of endangering our planet's life, it could help to In the course of 1987, the human population of the earth reached five billion. By make the Earth a new Sun. But for this task knowledge of the inter-relationships of nature the year 2000, it is calculated that it will be six bUlion. Can Earth sustain so many? Can and spiritual reality is needed. they all be properly housed, fed, and clothed? The answer is yes - but only if our human This issue is concerned with the movement of the planets in the starry sky during and material resources are well used. At present there is a terrible difference between rich 1988 and afterwards, and with the relationship of the Sun, the Moon, Mercury, Venus, and poor individuals and between rich and poor countries. "Despite official hope expressed Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn to the trees in their life and growth. Uranus, Neptune and Pluto on all sides, no trends identifiable today, no programmes or policies, offer any real hope are not thken into account here, as Rudolf Steiner and subsequent research akin to his have of narrowing the gap between rich and poor nations". This is the considered and very well- dealt with them comparatively little and mainly in quite different connections. informed judgement of Mrs. Gro Harlem Brundtland, Prime Minister of Norway, and Chairman of the World Commission on Environment and Development, which reported Other articles are concerned with certain outstanding personalities, and some with to the United Nations in 1987. (Its members come from all over the world, including recent publications. China and the USSR). We are not using our human and material resomces well, and both The present editors wish to acknowledge their indebtedness in the preparation of this rich and poor countries are developing in ways which cannot be continued for long issue to generous assistance by Doris Meeks. without terrible damage to the earth. In official language, the relatively poor countries are called "developing countries", and most of them are indeed increasing their "gross The cover design is by Helene Aurell. national product". But this is consistent with two kinds of increasing poverty; on the land, and in the cities. About two-fifths of the world's population now live in towns or cities; by 2000 the urban population will be nearly half of the whole. Urbanization has gone on much more quickly in poor countries than in rich ones; and it has brought about conditions unimaginably a few decades ago. The population of many African cifies increased more than sevenfold between 1950 and 1980, while in some Asian and UUn American cities (including Bombay and Mexico City) it tripled or quadrupled With such Produced by Imprint Publicity Service, Crawley Down, Sussex EDITORIAL NOTES 4 EDITORIAL NOTES 5 million scientists are employed on weapons research world-wide and they account for growth, developing countries have found it impossible to provide even a very modest around half of all research and development expenditure. This exceeds the total combined standard of housing, clean water, and sanitation - with grave consequences for infant spending on developing technologies for new energy sources, improving human health, mortality and health in general. (Malaria, for example, is increasing, and shanty towns raising agricultural productivity, and controlling pollution". A staggering amount of make the struggle against it immensely difficult). While in the richer countries much human thinking is occupied with methods of destroying life - and even a considerable part could be done quite quickly to reverse the decay of the inner cities, given the political of agricultural and medical research is engaged in such things as new pesticides and with will and good human co-operation - and in some countries this is being done - the imparting illnesses to animals for experimental purposes. Too much human thought is problems of most Third World cities seem almost insoluble. The Brundtland bent towards destruction, too little towards life, for instance towards the improvement of Commission believes that improvement can come less from central governments - which human co-operation. attempt to do too many things and do nothing well - but from countless small Africa has a great and ancient tradition of co-operative living - for instance, with neighbourhood associations, doing much of their own building and planning. And this methods of justice looking more towards compensation and conciliation than towards planning will include a concern for beauty. The city-dwellers of the Third World are for punishment. But when in the nineteenth century the continent was carved up by the the most part malnourished physically; and like many in the rich countries too, they are politicians of the European nations, large and small, which wished to acquire colonies, very often malnourished in their souls. the boundaries were arbitrary, paying no regard to the original inhabitants. And when the Paradoxical though it may sound, urban agriculture and tree-planting could - and European powers withdrew, or were driven out from Africa, the nineteenth century surely will - help to meet both these needs. Human beings can do wonders for each other boundaries were retained, with political constitutions imitating those of Europe, and even in the ugliest places; but the longing for contact with living plants and flowers is a national armies too. Their weapons had for the most part to be bought from Europe, the deep-seated need, a part of our preparation for life in the spiritual world after death. The United States or Soviet Russia. preponderance of the cities is not only physically but also spiritually polluting. A co-operative world economy had been struggling to be bom ever since the Outside in the country poverty and distress are to be found too. The counlry- beginning of the century, but it has been distorted everywhere by competitive, ambitious dweUers must of course feed the town-dwellers as well as themselves; and those who nationalism. National capitalisms and national communisms became pervasive diseases- actually do the work on the land are politically and economically weak, especially in and willy-nilly the African states became involved, and even the poorest found Africa. Yields from the land have been substantially increased in parts of Asia and some themselves in debt. The Slave Trade had been followed by less evident forms of other regions - mainly through the use of new strains of seed for the chief cereals - exploitation, which also had their roots in the past. Third world countries in general, though productivity has grown even more in North America and Western Europe, unless they were oil producers, were forced to sell cheap and buy dear - until the western through mechanization and a vast increase in the use of pesticides and chemical fertilizers. banks had to observe that at least half of the resulting debts could never be paid back, and Yet in the 1980's "more than 780 million did not eat enough to lead fully productive even the interest payments were among the causes of appalling poverty. working lives". More than one-seventh of the people of the world went hungry. As Once more we can attempt to look at such facts from the aspect of the spiritual humanity is beginning to learn, it is not just a question of producing enough food, but of world. Whenever a human being does work, however uninteresting and monotonous it getting the right food produced in the places where it is most needed, and if it has to be may be, which she or he can feel to be truly in the service of human needs in general, brought from a distance, of distributing it in ways that do least harm to the local good elemental beings come into existence, and work in accord with the purposes of economy (for instance by bringing down too far the price local small farmers can obtain Christ.