Pacifica Journal A bi-annual newsletter published by the Anthroposophical Society in Hawai'i No. 53, Vol.1 2018 One Hundred Years: engagement. Further, such a threefold practice would assure In Recognition of Rudolf Steiner's that every person matters, and what matters to each person matters to the whole. Threefold Commonwealth A bit of further definition will help. By freedom, Steiner John Bloom, San Francisco, California, USA. meant it in the spiritual sense rather than political. Each person must be left free to form her or his identity, free to understand [First printed in RSF Newsletter, August 22, 2017] the experience, to create and celebrate rites and rituals with each other in forming culture. By equality, he meant that, in group decision-making, it was one person, one vote. That is, a lasting agreement needs to be made between parties that respect each other as equals. By brotherhood (or sisterhood), economic life concerns itself with the production and circulation of goods and services out of the community rather than self-interest. Economics needs to be managed by all the parties or their representatives (producers, distributors, and consumers) such that all parties needs are met. What might this idealistic imagination look like in practice? Steiner suggested that each of the domains needed its own governing body, which could engage through its expertise and understanding of its domain. And further, representatives from each domain would meet to be sure that there was alignment and coherence across the sectors. In our current state of affairs Rudolf Steiner (1861-1925) in democratic governance, the tendency of government is to truly provide culture in the form of education rather than as- One hundred years ago in 1917, amidst the disasters of suring the right to an education and to manage the economy World War I in Europe, Rudolf Steiner—an Austrian phi- beyond setting regulatory policy that protects all parties. The losopher, scientist, and leading spiritual thinker—formulated government has come to directing economic activity through an innovative approach to organizing cultural life, political taxes, incentives, and policy that favors certain industries or and economic life in order to prevent a repetition of another constituents over others. In the Threefold Commonwealth, destructive war. His social theory, based on his profound the government’s job as a representative of the people is to understanding of the human being, drew upon the ideals create and enforce laws (agreements) and assure the rights of of the 1784 French Revolution—liberté (freedom), egalité its citizens. That is, of course, a rather restrictive view of gov- (equality), fraternité (brotherhood)—yet applied them in an ernment and Steiner himself said that such a change would unprecedented way. To develop and maintain a dynamic and not happen overnight. To get there will require highly ethi- just life across all society, he indicated that freedom is the key cal individuals who fully exercise the free cultural life, along principle in the domain of culture and spirit, equality in that with a radical transformation of economic life away from the of rights and agreements, and brotherhood in economics. self-interest competitive drive of a market economy to what This threesome of practice is the foundation for organizing Steiner called an associative economy that engaged all parties. an empowered self-governing citizenry that would find its au- This activity would include setting prices and determining the thority, responsibility, and accountability through active civic best entrepreneur to use a given means of production for the Anthroposophical Society in Hawai'i, 2514 Alaula Way, Honolulu, Hawai'i Email: [email protected] , www.anthrohawaii.org broader benefit of the whole community as part of building emerged needed, so the individualized free human spirit seeks community wealth. an environment different from that required by the group soul Today, elements of threefolding are applied around the from which it has emerged. That environment is the threefold world. Perhaps the most evident is the Community Supported social order. Without this and held back in old forms of social Agriculture movement, which had its roots in Steiner’s idea of structures originating in the theocratic group soul societies, associative economics. RSF Social Finance has developed its the emerging individualized consciousness soul feels cramped, Community Pricing Approach, in which we bring together unfree and unable to fulfil itself. investors, ourselves as the intermediary, and borrowers once Since Steiner gave us the threefold social order, money a quarter to set the interest rate for the upcoming quarter. and the financial system have grown even further beyond the Further, the tremendous growth of the cooperative movement reach of human intelligence and control. This is made clearly is one manifestation of the associative economic approach in visible in, for example, the inability of any government or in- which the notion of ownership operates from the framework of dependent organizations to come to any practical idea of how mutuality and interdependence. The emergence of the Benefit to halt the continuing widening gap between the rich and the Corporation as a new corporate form is one way in which as- poor, between those who have immense wealth and those who sociative concepts are finding their way into legal structures. cannot provide for themselves even the basic necessities for a Rudolf Steiner developed his ideas about the Threefold life worthy of a human being. Commonwealth and many other of his practical insights, such One of the main causes of the increasing wealth of the as biodynamic farming and Waldorf education, in response to few, and of the power of money itself, is the fact that today the reality of his times. He sought an evolution of social life our present legal system makes it possible for certain matters, and all its aspects and would celebrate, even ennoble, what it properly belonging to the sphere of rights such as land, labour means to be human in the face of an increasingly dehuman- and shares in a business, to be owned and treated as economic izing culture. products, which they are not, and sold on the market at ever increasing profit for the holder without any actual reciprocal economic value being created. Anyone who observes life as it is today, and understands something of what Steiner pointed The Threefold Social Order to as the threefold nature of society will see other such distor- Has it been Forgotten? tions creating similar social aberrations. By Michael Spence 1. The Question When one looks at all that has been achieved and that is still being developed within the fields of work initiated by Rudolf Steiner one can indeed be truly impressed. In education, ag- riculture, the many forms of art, medicine, therapy, Christian Community and others there are people deeply committed to the work and to taking further what Rudolf Steiner gave. But next to all this there seems to be one glaring exception – the Threefold Social Order. In this there has been minimal, if any, achievement. In fact it seems to have been largely forgotten or ignored. In 1917, towards the end of the First World War when Europe was in chaos, and for the next four years Rudolf Steiner dedicated an enormous amount of time and energy to promot- But, despite all the huge commitment of time and work ing the ideas of the threefold social order. He gave very many Steiner gave to it and the importance he placed on it, what has lectures to members and to the public, he wrote articles and been achieved in this field? Is there anywhere where something a book and also touched on the subject when lecturing on of what he gave has been brought to practical expression? It other subjects. He met and discussed these ideas with leading seems that now, despite the very great and urgent need for it, people in government and business. He saw it as important, we have nothing to show or give the wider world. and not just because there was an opening at that time for new I was privileged to work with Francis Edmunds at Emerson ideas. Humanity had reached a point in its evolution of the College where I met and began working with these ideas in consciousness soul when the form of its earthly social structure 1967. When he founded the College, he did not consciously set had to be given a form more appropriate to its needs. As the it up on the basis of the threefold social order. In later discus- newly emerged butterfly requires a different environment in sions with him I came to recognise that in all his wisdom he which to unfold its wings than the caterpillar from which it did not have much more than a fairly rudimentary knowledge 2 of it, but he did recognise its importance. He had been one of not include the more esoteric aspects of the threefold social the leading teachers at Michael Hall School in England. He set order. I sensed that amongst such people, rather than amongst the college up intuitively on the foundation of his deep under- anthroposophists, there would be many who, out of the experi- standing, out of anthroposophy and his experience of young ence of their practical work, would recognise the sense of much people, of the needs of the human being as a threefold being of it. The question for me was how to reach them. living at this particular time in human evolution - the time of This book was based on some 25 years of study and on the awakening of the consciousness soul. In doing this he, and striving to understand what the practical foundation of my those who worked closely with him, could not help arriving at work became for me, as bursar of Emerson College,.