2006 12

Mon, 18 Dec 2006

One hundred years of Rudolf Steiner’s social impulse

The year 2006 has been celebrated as the hundredth anniversary of the anthroposophical social impulse. Events have taken place in many parts of the world to remind us of the contribution Rudolf Steiner has made to our understanding of modern social life. In a series running through the year, Associative Economics Monthly focused on Rudolf Steiner’s key contributions to economic thought. Here its co-editor, Arthur Edwards, reflects on Rudolf Steiner the economist in a special contribution for NNA.

LONDON (NNA) - Rudolf Steiner is not well known as an economist, even among those who celebrate his work in other realms. Putting him on the map, therefore, requires that one substantiate his contribution to the social sciences generally and to economics especially.

Economics plays a fundamental (though often obscure and problematic) role in the way we form our thoughts and thereby also our lives. The true measure of Steiner’s work becomes apparent when one surveys the history of economic thought and realises how in his historical analysis, methodology and theory of value he provides a foundation for a science of economics which encompasses the largely invisible phenomena with which the discipline concerns itself. In celebrating his fundamental social law it is perhaps instructive to place it in the context of two other laws or theorems, which together form a trinity:

The fundamental sociological law – 1898: In the early stages of cultural evolution, mankind tends towards the formation of social units; initially the interests of individuals are sacrificed to the interests of those groupings; the further course of development leads to the emancipation of the individual from the interests of the groupings and to the unrestricted development of the needs and capacities of the individual.

The fundamental social law – 1906: The well being of a total community of human beings working together becomes greater the less the individual demands the products of his achievements for himself, that is, the more of these products he passes on to his fellow workers and the more his own needs are not satisfied out of his own achievements, but out of the achievements of others.

The true price theorem – 1922: A “true price” is forthcoming when a person receives, as counter-value for the product he has made, sufficient to enable him to satisfy the whole of his needs, including of course the needs of his dependants, until he will again have completed a like product.

These three “laws” are concise formulations of ideas that merit full consideration. If merely repeated as mantras, they risk becoming slogans, which add nothing to serious economics. One way to counteract this danger is to ask to what extent Steiner’s insights are described by other authors also, albeit using different terms and from different perspectives. Such an exercise also shows us where his contribution is distinct and unique, as for example with the true price theorem, a concept that most merits our attention today.

Indeed, the idea of true pricing (and the associative way of working to which it is inherently linked) is the foundation stone of Steiner’s economics, by which all the false concepts in modern economics will gradually be displaced. Competition, market forces and the invisible hand (a metaphor by Adam Smith to illustrate how those who pursue their individual self-interest in a competitive market place inadvertently also promote the public good and the benefit of society) must inevitably give way to the realisation that global economic life is a humanity-wide endeavour to be undertaken consciously and in an associative spirit.

But for now, the focus is on the fundamental social law. It is based on Steiner’s sociological analysis which regards humanity on a long journey from a form of existence in which the individual was not important, through the experience of individualisation and specialisation, to a situation out of which a new community then has to unfold, born of the creative initiative of the individual working in collaboration with his fellow human beings. This journey of individuation is accompanied by an ever widening division of labour, of which the fundamental social law is an expression, whereby what one person produces is consumed by others and what he himself consumes, others must produce.

Healthy economics relies on respecting this law in practice, for example by not attempting to do oneself what others can do more efficiently. Doing this recognises and receives the work of others and produces with one’s own work products and services that will be of benefit for others. This seems to fly in the face of modern do-it-yourself culture, but in practice it means every human-being choosing how to make an individual contribution.

In two essays published in 1905 and 1906 (“Spiritual Science and the Social Question” and “Brotherhood and the Struggle for Existence”), Steiner points to the need to recognise contrasting impulses in social life, the one egotistical and the other altruistic. For Steiner, it is necessary that economics be free of “moralic acid” and that economic questions are not confused with moral ones - morality cannot be externally given but lies within the province of the free individual.

That means the use of the terms egotism and altruism is an explanatory device rather than a moral exhortation. The challenge is not to prefer one to the other, but to learn which is appropriate in which circumstance. One should ask where is self-centredness appropriate in economic life and where should concern for others be the guiding principle? While one can only eat for oneself, work done under the division of labour, is, by definition, done for others.

An unwary reader might fall into the trap of thinking one should prefer altruism over egoism, but Steiner’s analysis points to the necessity of both in economic life; without consumption there is no need for production. Similarly, the ethos of the service industry, lean methodology and customer focus are not to be touted as great moral principles but rather as examples of the kind of thinking appropriate to modern economic life.

By moralising economics one simply shows that one does not fully grasp the subject, but uses it rather to impose one’s own views on others. This creates an antagonism, which is both unproductive, and detracts from Steiner’s thinking and his reputation, which, in the English-speaking world, is a matter to be treated tactfully. Steiner is little enough known, and one sometimes has to downplay the more direct criticisms that he makes of conventional attitudes and practices and his many explicit comments about Anglo-American thinking and action. For it is arguably just this thinking to which a connection has to be found - and from the place where it is at, rather than where we think it ought to be.

For Steiner to become known as an economist, he cannot be thrown at people’s faces. Nor should one attempt to pull the rug from under their feet by unhelpfully supplying the full measure of his critique of modern economics. Surely it is better to nuance how people actually think than to attempt to dislodge the thinking they live by and replace it with one’s own.

This is not to be pragmatic or to deny Steiner. It is to be attentive to much that has changed since his times, to the current-day questions people have in the field of economics, even if not openly formulated, and to the fact that there is often a “between-the-lines” esotericism in Anglo-Saxon thinking about economic life. There are also, of course, many who know full well the nature of esoteric life.

The challenge for those who want to promote Steiner’s approach in this realm is to do justice to his thinking by discovering which of his ideas are cardinal and how they should be communicated in a way that is appropriate and idiomatic. No progress will be made by seeking to displace the economic concepts that one finds antagonistic (for example those that stem from neo-liberal thinking) simply to replace them with concepts familiar to Steiner’s followers such as “threefolding” and “cultural life”, but which leave the world none the wiser, or worse, dismissive.

For example, expenditure taxation is readily seen as regressive and gift money can be regarded as financial dependency. To represent Steiner’s case in real terms, one must engage with other economists, social scientists and seekers of truth in thinking through to the underlying realities, however arduous and unrewarding this task may appear. It is the act of being willing to play the lesser role that creates the space necessary for people to find the solutions for themselves and therefore to put them wholeheartedly into practice.

END/nna/cva

Steiner’s economic thinking is discussed in greater detail in “Associative Economics Monthly”, a publication jointly edited by Christopher Houghton Budd and Arthur Edwards. Subscriptions can be made via the website (www.cfæ.biz/æm) or by fax or telephone on +44 (0)1227 738207. Contributions of written material are also sought from anyone connected to the ongoing development of Rudolf Steiner’s social impulse. Arthur Edwards also produces an electronic monthly update which gives news of events and issues from the perspective of associative economics along with extracts from the editorial of Associative Economics Monthly. To receive the monthly update send an email to arthur@talkingeconomics.com, subject: subscribe.

Arthur Edwards is a member of the Economics Conference of the Social Sciences Section of the School of Spiritual Science, with particular interest in associative accounting and financial literacy, especially in schools. He co-ordinates the Talking Economics Project, has a Diploma in Associative Economics and is planning formal research into Rudolf Steiner’s idea of three kinds of money in accounting.

﻿One hundred years of Rudolf Steiner’s social impulse

One hundred years of Rudolf Steiner’s social impulse