Walter J Stein Labour in History and in Modern Times Ocr

in HiStory and in Modern Times

By

DR. WALTER JOHANNES STEIN

TRANSLATED FROM THE GERMAN BY

G. S. FRANCIS

1932 ANTHROPOSOPHICAL PUBLISHING CO.,

LONDON

LABOUR in Hisrory and in Modern Times

W ITHIN the framework of any general solution of the social problem as it is to-day, the solution of the labour question is of particular urgency. It is a question of

finding the way to make it possible for every human being to obtain the work that is best suited to his or her personal faculties. Work is fundamentally a holy thing inasmuch as it is intimately bound up with the innermost core of the nature and being of man. Whether we feel ourselves occupied within the social order in a manner worthy of human dignity and respect or not, depends upon whether we are engaged in work that is suited to us. The will to work is fundamentally rooted in the innermost kernel of human nature. Those who believe that human beings must be compelled or forced to work, completely misunderstand the nature of man. It is true that in many tongues the meaning of the word ' work ' is synonymous with that of ' toil.' In middle high German, for example, 'work' (arebeit) is classed with such words as 'necessity,' 'affiiction,' 'toil,' but in a certain South German dialect it is quite different, for in the Swabian dialect they say 'schaffen' (to create) for ' arbeiten' (to work). This expression, in which the creative aspect of work is emphasised, conveys · a sense of the joy of work. There is no doubt at all that the cultural consciousness of a people comes to expression in their attitude to work. Furthermore there is always something noble about work when the creative urge in the individual can be poured into it.

Karl Bucher, the author of the interesting book, Rhythmus und Arbeit, shows very clearly that once upon a time merry rhythms and songs were fundamentally associated with work. The survival of working songs from older and freer times and the use of sea chanties in the old sailing ships are familiar examples of this. Singing and working are intimately associated with each other. The whole being of a man ought to vibrate in unison with his work.

3

LABOUR IN HISTORY AND IN MODERN TIMES

But still more must be taken into consideration. The cosmos itself is expressed in work. The cosmos is at work in the pulsation of the blood and in the rhythm of breathing, for the rhythm of breathing and the regular beat of the pulse are but expressions, in miniature, of mighty cosmic rhythms. There is a balance between all work, all activity of the limbs and breathing, while the very functioning of the senses and the spiritual activity of . thinking are but a subtler, more delicate form of breathing. Anyone who desires to understand the physiological basis of work must begin by studying the rhythms of breathing and pulsation of the blood.

In the normal way we breathe 18 times a minute, during which period the pulse registers 72 beats; that is to say, · our pulse beats four times during each breath we take. This relationship of I to 4 is, however, a cosmic relationship.. We draw our breath 25,920 times in a day and this number multiplied by 4, giving the number 103,680, represents the daily number of heart beats. These are cosmic numbers. The rhythm of the precession of the equinox and the rhythms of the apogee and perigee correspond to these numbers. The spring equinox, i.e., the point at which the sun rises on the 21st of March, travels backwards around the entire Zodiac in a period of 25,920 years. At a pace four times more slowly, this point completes the movement which determines the apogee and perigee and thus regulates the course of the cosmic yearwhose winter we recognise in the Glacial Period or Ice Age. The latter movement regulates the rhythm of the great geological periods ; the former regulates the course of the successive civilisations or culture-epochs, for one-twelfth of 25,920 is 2,160 and each culture-epoch lasts for 2,160 years. The period during which the vernal equinox fell in one and the same sign of the Zodiac was always regarded by the ancient world as marking the duration of an era. According to this calculation, the Founding of Rome in 747 B.C. by Fabius Pictor was fixed, and, in general, all the chronology of the ancient world. The error in taking the year 753 B.C. as the date for the Founding of Rome led scholars of the Middle Ages to place the date of the birth of Christ in the year 6 B.C.

Our pulse and our breathing work in a cosmic rhythm, in respect to which one day represents, in the one case, the evolution of a geological period and, in the other, of a culture-

4


epoch. Because it derives its own rhythm from this lofty source, we must learn to realise that there i'> something holy in work, something divinely ordained. Work is the rhythmic balancing of spiritual and material processes.

In olden days song was the perfectly natural accompaniment of work-song founded on the rhythm of metrical speech. But verse itself has its origin, as Rudolf Steiner has shown, in the relationship of the rhythms of blood and breathing. Thus, for example, the Greek hexameter is based on the rhythm of 1 to 4.

The hexameter has one pause in the middle of the line and another at the end. If we count these pauses which are equal to one foot in duration, also as feet, then it is clear that the hexameter consists, not of six feet, but of eight ; twice four feet gives a hexameter. This corresponds to two indrawn breaths and 2 x 4 pulse-beats. Therefore we see that this ancient measure of verse is derived from the harmonic relationship of blood and breath.

It is not the same with German or English verse, both of which are based on the inter-activity of head and limbs. German and English verse are constructed on the basis of the literal meaning of words and the rhythm of the marching step. The placing of the accent is quite different from that of ancient verse. The ancients shaped their verse and performed their work out of the qualities of the middle or rhythmic system, out of the rhythms of blood and breathing. The man of to-day, torn asunder, as it were, into the polarities of intellect and will, has to strive for the harmonious mean which was perfectly natural to ancient humanity. He shapes his poetry and performs his work out of the polar opposites of head and limbs.

Thus in every age and among every people the nature of work is different, for each time-period develops some element quite specific to itself, something which is definitely directed either to the cosmos or to the earth. Each nati.on has also its own characteristic mode of song and consequently its own rhythm of work. A fine example of this is provided by the Finnish people in their national epic, the Kalevala, which contains the following passage :

" Dearest friend and much loved brother, Best beloved of companions, Come and let us sing together,

5

LABOUR IN IDSTORY AND IN . MODERN TUfES

Let us now begin our converse Since at length we meet together From two widely sundered regions Let us clasp our hands together Let us ~terlock our fingers, ' Let us smg a cheerful measure And recall our songs and legends Of the belt of Vainamoinen (He the singer of Kalewa). These my father sang aforetime As he carved his hatchet's handle, And my mother taught me likewise As she turned around her spindle ; When upon the floor, an infant At her knees she saw me tumbling As a helpless child, milk bearded As a babe with mouth all milky."

(English translation by W. F. Kirby in Everyman's Library.)

In these words there is a clear consciousness of the fact that the soul of the people and their rhythm of work are one. And so it is with all peoples, in all ages.

. . Work springs from a sacred origin but its destiny has been s4!;illar to that of .gold.- Gold~ too, was originally something sacred, as I have tned to show m my pamphlet Gold in History and in Modern Ti"!es. * These. are only ex~mples because, fundamentally speaking, everything connected with social life was at one time holy. So long as men were aware of the connection between things in the world and the cosmos everything was sacred. The universal symbol of work was the Master's hammer-Thor's hammer. All work was carried out according to the rhythm of its beat. But where is Thor's hammer ? It beats as the heart in the human breast! The old Germanic peoples knew that this hammer is present in the microcosm no less th~n i~ the ~acrocosm. Within the breast of man, the heart beats m trme Wlth a rhythm whose archetype is cosmic.

~hor's hamme~ in the cosmos is a double rhythm of circling opposttes. Acco~dmg to on~ rotation the vernal equinox circles throu~h the Zodiac, according to another rotation the points marking the apogee and the perigee revolve. This hammer is

* Anthroposophical Publishing Company, London, 1931.

6

LABOUR IN IDSTORY AND IN MODERN ' TIMES

formed of two intersecting axes, operating across one another and by this means regulating all rhythms of physical as well as of spiritual processes. We find it vvithout, in the macrocosm; we find it within, in the human breast, where the macrocosm becomes the microcosm. Older peoples, in their instinctive experience of the relationship between breathing and work, perceived these connections of which we, in our age, can only become aware by means of complicated calculations.

In our times work is no longer a reflection of the cosmos. It is our task to learn once again how to make work really worthy of human existence, for the standard of our age is Man. Work must again be sanctified by becoming united with the innermost being of man, as in olden times it was united with the cosmos. We will therefore now proceed to consider, in the light of history, the connection of work with the human being.

Consider for a moment the masses of men working at the building of an ancient Egyptian pyramid. Let us try to picture how this work was actually carried out. Take, for example, the Cheops Pyramid. This Pyramid has a cubic content of 2,593,000 cubic metres of limestone, corresponding to a weight of 6,223,200 tons ; 622,320 railway waggons would be needed to transport this load. The waggons themselves would extend for a distance of 3,ill mi1es and if we add to this the space that would be taken up by the necessary locomotives we have a train that would span one eighth of the circumference of the earth. The limestone used in the building had to be brought from a distance of nine to ten miles, while the granite blocks came all the way from Assouan, a distance of 625 miles. According to Herodotus the work of construction took 20 years; every day, therefore, some 360 cubic metres were added to the structure. This is an astounding achievement. Blocks of 800 tons in weight were raised hundreds of feet high. From the Encyclopedia Britannica we learn that the labourers worked in relays of 100,000; each individual worker must, therefore, have possessed many times as much strength as the most hefty worker of to-day.

With regard to the practical technique, we can obtain information from illustrations of this work of building. But whence came this tremendous capacity for work?

On this point Rudolf Steiner said that the Egyptians hypnotised their working slaves and were thereby able to get

7


a far greater amount of work out of them. To-day, of course, such a proceeding would be utterly reprehensible. Interference of this kind with the freedom of the personality of the workers is absolutely impermissible. At that time, however, said Rudolf Steiner, it was permissible, for the Ego-consciousness was still quite undeveloped. We can see from this example that in order to understand the labour problem aright, much consideration must be given to the stage and condition of culture or civilisation, and also to the level of consciousness of the workers themselves, in order to decide what is and what is not humanly permissible.

Such conditions of labour as have just been described were not only customary among the Egyptians. Something very similar is indicated in the building of the old Druidic circles. In the neighbourhood of the Druidic circle at Stonehenge, the British Government recently conducted experiments in the cultivation of corn. In order to observe the conditions of the growing crops, an aviator took aerial photos of the district at regular intervals. When one set of plates was developed, a track appeared in the photo which was imperceptible on the ground itself. At first it was thought to be due to a fault in the plates, but subsequent exposures gave the same result. Measurements showed that this track was of the same width as the stone blocks used in the erection of the Druidic circle. Thus it appears that along the track where, centuries ago, stone blocks were hauled, corn to-day grows quite differently from the way in which it grows on the land adjoining this track. This is an indication of the route by which these huge stone blocks were brought to Stonehenge. They were transported from considerable distances, some even from Ireland, having to cross the sea before they arrived at Stonehenge.

And so we see that ancient architecture entailed enormous labour. In those days workers were expected to undertake toil which nobody to-day would endure. Yet we hear nothing in those chapters of ancient history of slave risings or revolts. The social consciousness was quite different from what it is to-day, and any attempt to explain the ancient world in terms . of the modern constitution of soul or attitude of mind must necessarily be misleading.

Either there was a knowledge of repeated earthly lives as, for example, in India, or some other religious conception gave

8


its adherents the certainty that sooner or later their lot would change for the better. It was not until the conception of future compensation for social suffering yvas lost that rebellions and revolutions became possible. This is the reason why we hear nothing in ancient history of insurrections among the oppressed.

The kind of work allotted to each human being in olden times was determined by the conditions into which he was born.(In India there were the ' castes,' in other nations of antiquity, different divisions). Even in the Middle Ages handicraft was a matter of heredity. To-day this is only rarely the case. I once met a master-joiner who can trace his origin back for generations and who knows that his joinery craft has steadily descended from father to son. This, however, is very rare. The ideal of the modern man is free choice .of an occupation which must be in line with his individual impulses and not determined by his family history.

The social divisions into middle class, aristocrat and proletarian or worker still show traces of this distinction of birth. The middle class citizen is more of a ' head ' man ; the aristocrat is governed more by the blood-he is therefore more of a rhythmic or ' heart ' man ; the proletarian, as his name indicates (pratesprogeny), is organised more by the forces working in the metabolic-limb system. This is an illustration of the basic conception given by Rudolf Steiner, namely, that man is a threefold being: nerves-and-senses man, rhythmic man (br~athing and circulation of the blood) and finally, metabolic-limb man. Thus the division into classes still reflects social institutions which are connected with ancient principles and express the influence of heredity. The very last remnants of the old caste distinctions are there before us in the present division between middle class and worker, between the bourgeoisie and the proletariat.

In the new form of civilisation that is even now corning into existence these distinctions will soon be unknown. \Ve ourselves are living at ·a time when they are beginning to disappear. The student at an Industrial College already provides an example of the intermixture of proletariat and university graduate, while a true insight into the essentials of education reveals the fact that human nature itself demands an all-round development -skill of hand united with power and clarity of thought. But

9


if this end is to be achieved by modern education, then the form of the social order must be so constituted as to correspond with this ideal.

In the art of education inaugurated by Rudolf Steiner,, a method of teaching is employed which takes this human ideal of to-day into practical consideration. The school must be so arranged that every child, whether rich or poor, of middle class or working class origin, receives the same education up to the eighteenth year, no matter whether he is to become a handworker or a university professor. The Free Waldorf School at Stuttgart was established on this basis. This school was inaugurated by Rudolf Steiner himself as the first of its kind and a number of other schools with similar aims have since been founded.* It is essential to the character of such schools that their finance shall be so adjusted that the children of parents who are too poor to pay school fees or of those who are unable to pay full fees, may receive exactly the same education as those whose parents are better off. The basic principle of education must be the principle of the human-universal.

We often hear it said: ''Yes, but nobody who has received a full education will take to handwork ; he will invariably choose a 'better' calling." Now these objections do not take evolution into account at all. The general economic condition of the world tends to compel radical shortening of working hours and this on a world-wide scale. There are indications that within a comparatively short period of time few people will have to work for more than four hours a day. This diminution of the time required for physical work will, however, ensure for everyone more time for spiritual activity.

In other words : the difference between purely spiritual and purely physical activity will be less emphatic than it is to-day. We shall understand, however, as human beings engaged in physical work, that in certain circumstances it will be better for everybody if certain individuals are relieved of all necessity for physical work, because they are natural leaders in the realm of spiritual life. But this will no longer give rise to the class hatred that is so great a factor to-day. The necessity of the age itself demands that the workers too shall receive an adequate education.

• The New School, 98 Leigham Court Road, Streatham, London, S,W.

10


Conditions to-day are such that the greater number of those who are destined for a proletarian calling, receive education only up to about the fourteenth yea~. B?t t~s is qui~e insufficient. The purpose of the edncatlon gtven m school ts not merely to instil a certain amount of knowledge into the pupils. Schools have another and a nobler task than this. The soul of the growing human being permeates the body only gradually and by degrees ; this does not happen once and for all at birth. To begin with, the soul permeates the senses. The tiny child lives with its sympathies and antipathies chiefly in the senses. This is the reason why the imitative faculty is so strong in early childhood. The senses are imitators par excellence. and because the tiny child is practically one great sense-organ, it is pre-eminently an imitative being. ~his condition lasts until about the seventh year. From the ttme of the change of teeth which occurs at about this age, the soul of the child begins to permeate the ' middle,' or rhythmic system, i.e., the breathing. The ensouling of the head (sense-organs) is completed by the time of the change of teeth. From now on, the breathing process too becomes permeated with soul. The child begins to control its breathing, for instance, in the act of listening attentively, for the soul is now working in the breathing process. From this age onwards the child re-acts much more strongly to the word, to what the teacher is saying, because the breathing that is now permeated with soul make? it aware _of the qualities of soul in the words of another, for mstance, m the words of the teacher. From the seventh to the fourteenth year the child is passing through the 'age when the principle of authority ful:fils an essential function.

In the fourteenth year the metabolic system of the child becomes ensouled. This process is known as the onset of pgberty. Just as the ensouling of the breathing passes ove.r into the ensouling of the blood-stream, so does the ~nsouling of t~e metabolic system become also that of the limbs. But this descent of the soul and Spirit from the head to the limbs does not take place without difficulties. In the fourteenth year of life the movements of the child become angular and clumsy. We speak of this period as the' awkward age:' The so?I meets with resistance from the skeleton and constderable bme and help are needed before the body and ~oul are . effectively harmonised. The development of a certam capactty for the forming of ·ideas must be brought about if this condition of

11


harmony is to ensue. All the spiritual powers of the human being work, to begin with, upon the body ; they complete their work there and only then do they turn away from the body to manifest as purely spiritual forces. It also happens thus with the faculty of the free intellect. To begin with, the force living in the intellect meets with resistance from the limb-system of the fourteen-year-old child, and only when it becomes free of the body is it capable of forming independent judgments. It is because of this clear connection between bodily and spiritual forces that it is so essential to base education upon clear insight into these things. And Rudolf Steiner's art of education has for the first time made this a practical possibility.

We see, then, that up to the fourteenth year, the soul-nature of the human being unites more and more intensely with the bodily nature. If, therefore, we allow a child to go out into the world at about the fourteenth year, as is done among the working class, we are sending out a fettered Prometheus. The soul remains fettered to the skeleton for the whole of life, and for such a human being the limbs become the sole arbiters of destiny. What ought to be fought out as an inner struggle for development in the individual, is outwardly expressed as the Class War. And against whom is the battle waged ? Against those who have been able to pass through a second phase of education and of development to which all human beings have a natural right. But in what does this second phase consist? In this second phase of development, by means of a true method of education, the human being is led out of the body, just as in the first phase he was led into the body.

After the fourteenth year, the powers of soul and spirit must be freed from the body, stage by stage. If release from the metabolic system is not properly effected, the erotic element will inevitably become too strong. If the human being were to remain a prisoner within his limb-system, brutality would be the result. Soul-forces that remain fettered within the blood-stream would mean that the human being cannot be master of his emotions, whereas if they are imprisoned within the breathing, his actions will be determined purely by his sympathies and antipathies. Few indeed have passed beyond this stage. Nevertheless the ideal is that the human being shall become master of his nerves-and-senses system. Supersensible and intuitive thinking lead to real freedom and he alon~

12


is free who acts from knowledge. Education should lead to this freedom and only when this ideal can find acceptance in social life will it be possible to bring the world a stage forward.

In the Middle Ages some measure of this freedom was within the reach of artisans and craftsmen. In our age we shall have to make it a reality on a new and different basis.

To the craftsman of the Middle Ages, towns and cities were sanctuaries of freedom. Handicraft owed its origin to a striving for freedom. The craftsman fled from the oppression of the landed aristocracy to the towns in order, by dint of his handiwork, to live in freedom and in accordance with a standard which he felt to be consistent with human dignity. On the basis of this kind of work, literary authorship became possible, as in the case of the shoemaker Jacob Boehme, or a master of song comes to the fore, like Hans Sachs. Indeed there is a kind of knighthood of the Grail in handicraft.

In the neighbourhood of Biarritz lies the mouth of a river called the Gave de Pau. This river has, as a tributary flowing from the Pyrenees, a river running down from the Pass of Somport. Beyond this pass lies the Spanish town of J aca and not far off is the monastery of St. Juan . de la Pena. My book on World-History in the Light of the Holy Grail gives information about the connection of this monastery with the history of the Grail. Rudolf Steiner drew attention to the fact that those who served the Grail often came down from the heights of the Pyrenees at this point. When they were thus descending the wooded slopes of the mountains, beings akin to our ' mountain sprites' associated with them. The local people gave the name of ' Gave ' to these beings. . Accordingly the rivers of this region were called Gave de Pau, Gave d'Aspe, etc. A society of French craftsmen which sprang up in this region around the SpanishFrench frontier, called its members 'Gavots.' These ' Gavots' formed a kind of artisan knighthood of the Grail. In the year 1823 Georges Sand described them in her novelLe Compagnon du Tour de Franee. They trace their origin from Hiram, the architect of King Solomon's 'femple and in this way they have a link with the same origin as the Templar Knights. And just as the Arthurian Knights-who were more inclined to Pagan influences- are distinct from the Knights of the Grail who were a purely Christian Knighthood, in like manner the wandering

13

LABOUR IN HIS'£0RY AND IN MODERN TIMES

bands of more or less pagan artisans who, bec.ause of their coarse and brutal customs were known as the' wolves,' are to be distinguished from the union of handicraftsmen known as the Gavots. All these things, however, only go to show that the true craftsman of the Middle Ages was engaged in activity which he felt to be worthy of human dignity. Among the people of the Middle Ages the labour problem was much more generally solved than is the case to-day, but for us, of course, the solution of the Middle Ages has merelv an historical value. Craftsmanship too has its spiritual histozy but to-day this spiritual tradition has practically died out. Since the Middle Ages everything has fundamentally changed.

Shortly before the French Revolution the peasants languished in conditions of serfdom. A condition of life infinitely more tolerable than the slavery of ancient times was felt by the expanding consciousness of the age to be utterly unworthy of human dignity. But it was a long time before social relationships adjusted themselves to this change of feeling. A prime cause of social discontent lies in the fact that laws which determine human rights change much more slowly than the feelings of human beings as to what is right and just. A tremendous advance, however, was made when, in the Declaration of Independence of the United States of America in the year 1776, it was proclaimed that : " vVhen a form of government, no

_ matter what, proves itself to be unfitted for the purpose for which it had been established, the people have the right to change or abolish it." Serfdom had long been abolished before any real betterment was achieved in the conditions of the working population, for the mere alteration of laws does not help at all unless it is accompanied by a change of conviction or consciousness.

In his book on the French Revolution, Kropotkin describes the sufferings of the French peasantry immediately after the abolition of serfdom. They were obliged to pay taxes to the lords of their estates for the use of the wine-presses, the mill, the baking-ovens and the wash-houses, for the right to keep pigeons and even for the right to marry, to be baptised or to be buried. The peasant was therefore kept in a state o~ pove:r:ty and although it was he who produced the bread, his family often lacked enough of the necessities of life to appease actuaf hunger.

14


To this condition of poverty certain menial tasks were added, such as ' pond-beating.' At night the peasants were made to beat the frog ponds with long rods in order that the nobility might not be disturbed by the croaking of the frogs. Nobody troubled to ask when the peasants were to· get their sleep. I mention these things for the purpose of showing how, at a certain point in history, human feeling suddenly came to regard a form of work that had been endured for centuries without complaint, as quite incompatible '\\rith human dignity. It may, of course, have been that the beating of ponds was originally performed freely and out of good-will, but later on it degenerated into custom, then into a demand, and finally was felt to be intolerable.

The State, however, has been ordained to be the protector and administrator of human rights. Its task is to provide itself, through the conscious activity of the human beings who compose it, with a form of organisation which shall be in accord with the current conception of human rights and social justice. But the feeling for what is worthy of human existence and what is not, is continually changing and must therefore be secured by laws that are mobile enough to undergo constant adjustment and adaptation. ·

And here we come to a question that is of such vital importance in our age. \\That is that element which until recently was regarded as humanly right and proper but is to-day beginning to be felt as humanly intolerable ? If we can discover this and reckon with it, we shall, by timely insight, avert at least one fragment of social revolution.

Rudolf Steiner was the first to disclose it, when he said:-

)

"Labour power must not be a commodity." Why does modern human1ty feel that labour power ought not to be a commodity ? It is for the simple reason that muscle-power is itself a part of the human being and if one part of the human being is sold, the whole of the man is sold with it, because he himself must go wherever his muscle-power is bartered. In a certain sense

, he sells his own being.

Karl Marx, with clear perception of this position of the worker, said in his book on Capital: " The possessor of labour power (the worker) only sells his labour power for definite periods of time (hour, day, week, etc.) for if he sold it in its entirety,

15

LABOUR IN HIS'l'ORY AND IN MODERN TIMES

once and for all, he would be selling himself ; he would be transforming himself from a free man into a slave, from a possessor of goods into a mere commodity."

Even although the final consequences to the social organism have not been completely thought out, this, rightly perceived, is the kernel of the question :

"Labour power mu.st not be a commodity." And it should not be, even for a single moment.

But what will be the nature of a social organism in which labour power is divested of its commodity character? Rudolf Steiner has given the answer to this question in his book The Threefold Comnwnwealth which describes the three functions of the social organism.

The governance of purely human affairs, hence also, the administration of labour power and conditions of work, is the duty of the political arm (the organisation of Rights). Rights, however, may only be established in accordance with the feeling for social and human equity prevailing at any given time. The administration of labour must be completely removed from the economic sphere. Hours of work, kind of work, right to work and conditions of work suited to the dignity of existence as a human being- these must be safeguarded by the Equity State (the political arm) whose sacred duty is the protection of huma?Z values. Economic activity is concerned with goods, theu production, distribution and consumption. The man engaged in physical labour must not be paid fo~ his ~ork i~. the_ sense that his labour power is bought from him ; his pos1t1on m the whole social order must be arranged on quite 9- different basis. Work-givers and work-receivers, or better, the 'br<l;in-worke:s' and the physical workers, produce goods by theu collective activity ; they must therefore sell these commodities as a conjoint organisation and then decide, on a basis ?f. free contract, the manner in which the proceeds should be d1V1ded. It must not be said that to speak in this way is merely to call wages by another name whereas in reality the old conditions remain unaltered. It is not so. This solution removes the payment or reward for work completely beyond the range of purely economic fluctuations. Wages must not, like commodities-that is to say, something that is separable from the human being-fluctuate up or down merely because of the operation of supply and

16


demand. Although it is true that work, at all events physical work, flows into goods, changing their values in the process, nevertheless the work itself must be treated not as a mere commodity.

Now it may be said: This is all very beautiful in the human sense but such ideas are not practical and do not touch reality. Only a very few business undertakings could afford to pay wages on that level. Who could possibly make a beginning without being ruined ?-All these objections (in themselves perfectly justifiable) only go to show that single, isolated measures are quite useless. It is only by a thorough transformation of the whole economic structure that these necessary conditions in regard to wages can be made possible. But it is not merely the economic structure that must be changed.-The whole social structure is -in dire need of transformation.

The economic system must be placed upon its own feet and administered by those whose practical knowledge and experience have made them capable of really sound economic judgment. Directors of business undertakings, united in appropriate associations, would decide the general policy to be adopted in the economic sphere. In other words, economic activity as such would be entirely removed from the sphere of political life.

Against this it will be objected that all the developments of recent years are opposed to any such proposal. It is true that industry and commerce have become increasingly interlocked with politics but this runs counter to the provision of conditions of Rights which the progressive sense of equity in human beings demands. Nor can these demands be resisted for ever. If they are persistently ignored, they find expression in revolutions. It is, of course, possible to reject any thoughts that point to the future on the ground that they are' utopian,' but we only delude a certain portion of our contemporaries by these methods. Evolution itself 'Pe cannot check.

Social evolution has many driving forces. Over and above the more slowly changing sense for right and equity there is the very rapid development of technical processes of which modern commerce and modern methods of production are the fruit. This has led to an interlacing of all the separate national economies and world-economy has made its appearance. And

17


because world-economy comprises more than one nation, so must economic activity, in the age of world-economy, emerge

' from and extend beyond the old national economies. The national economies which were at one time the basis of economic activity have now simply become disturbers of the peace within the new world-economic structure. And because of this, the detachment of industry and commerce from the influence of politics becomes one of the vital needs of our tim~. In. ~he sphere of national economy too, the release of econormc achVIty from political influence is essential, and as labour rightly falls under the jurisdiction of the political arm of the social organism, this implies that the administration of labour (which is national) and the direction of industry (which has world-connections) must be separated. The life of Right~ (politi.cal) an~. the economic life must develop and unfold s1de by stde. Spmtual life however must he a matter of the free activity of productive individuals. ' Evolution itself needs the threefold social organism in the form characterised by Rudolf Steiner.

The labour problem can only be solved within a social order that is administered on this threefold basis.

"A democratic, popularly elected national Parliament can deal only with purely political affairs, the military and the police. These can only exist on the foundation of developments that have arisen in the course of history. Represented in a democratic Parliament, as in their proper sphere, and administered by a Civil Service responsible to Parliament, they will necessarily develop in a conservative way."

" All economic affairs, however, should be dealt with by a special economic council. If snch a body were absolved from the necessity of attending to political and military affairs, it would then be able to unfold its activities in the only suitable fashion, namely, according to expediency." "All juristic, educational and other affairs of the spiritual life become a matter of the free spiritual activity of the individual. In this domain the Political State should have only magisterial powers, not the initiative." " A kind of Senate, chosen from representatives of these three bo<lies, i.e., those responsible for the administration of politiCal, economic and juristic-edueational affairs, will attend to matters that are common to all three, for example, the direction of their common finance." (Compare Rudolf

18


Steiner's Memorandum to Emperor Carl of Austria, printed in Count Polzer-Hoditz's book: Kaiser Karl: A us der Geheimmappe eines Kabinettchefs. Amalthea Verlag, Zurich-Leipzig-Vienna, 1929).

The necessities of the time demand this threefold social structure and only in a social system so arranged can the right solution for the labour problem be found. For in our age human beings are striving more and more to escape from the compulsion to labour in order that they may work with free will.

" There are people to-day who no longer want to be brought to their work by economic compulsion. They want to work out of inner impulses whiCh are more in keeping with the dignity of man." (Compare Rudolf Steiner on the capacity for work and the will to work: In Ausfiihrung der Dreigliederung des sozialen Organismus, Stuttgart, Kommender Tag Verlag, 1920.) And Rudolf Steiner adds: "Doubtless this demand is in many human beings more or less unconscious, instinctive. But these unconscious, instinctive impulses are a real factor in social life."

\Ve are living at a time when human consciousness is in the throes of fundamental changes and these changes are demanding attention with an elemental force. Economic life must serve the needs of man. Man must not be overpowered by a social system that is his own creation. Hence the demand for an economic system removed from the sphere of political life, acting in the service of mankind.

But on the other side there-is a second stream of evolution, also evoked by the changing consdousness of the time. It is the nationalistic impulse. This appears to contradict the international trend of economic development. But if we clearly perceive the inner driving forces, this apparent contradiction is not final. In order to perceive the underlying reality we must understand that at the present time two spiritual currents, springing from different spiritual sources, are actually at work, influencing human affairs. What is it that really lies underneath this nationalistic movement ?

Let us realise, to begin with, that in a fully developed system of world-economy, embracing the whole earth, its universal character would make possible such a -division of labour among all the peoples that each of them would be able to produce

19


precisely those things which they are best fitted to produce and to adapt the methods and tempo of production to their particular national temperament. I have spoken of this more fully in my pamphlet on Gold. But what is the hidden driving force behind the nationalistic movement of our time ? In so far as the impulse is justifiable and not the outcome of blind, unbalanced chauvinism, there is working, as an inner driving force, a kind of 'Youth Movement impulse.' And this is in keeping with impulses proper to our age.

But let us for a moment glance at the past. In olden times there was no such things as a 'Youth Movement'; in Greece, for example, there was a council of Elders, the' Gerusia.' Whv is it that in recent times the centre of gravity in mankind is being more and more transferred to the youth ?

Rudolf Steiner has given the answer to this question. He has described how the men of olden times differed from modern humanity inasmuch as they became riper in soul and spirit as their bodies grew older. · In those days men were inwardly ripened by the ageing process itself. Faculties and talents were much more closely connect£ with heredity than is the case to-day and were handed down from father to son. Because in the outward course of evolution the factor of individuality rather than that of heredity assumed primary importance, Ego-consciousness came more and more into its own. The further we move from the ancient world and the nearer we come to the modern age, the earlier in life does self-consciousness assert itself. The Greek reached selfconsciousness at an earlier point in life than the man of the older, oriental races. Rudolf Steiner called this: 'The law of becoming yq__unger.' In each of the epochs of civilisation there has been one particular age in life at which Ego-consciousness awakens in the human being. But the earlier age at which Ego-consciousness awakens in the modern man creates certain difficulties. From the moment the Ego (the 'I') is awake, the development that is dependent upon the body and upon heredity comes to a standstill. If at this point the human being himself does not intervene and by dint of self-education or spiritual training evoke from his own self-conscious Ego the powers that were bestowed upon the man of old as a gift of qature, his development remains stationary. The young human being to-day is in danger of remaining at a standstill if he does not find the point

20


at which he can place himself as an individual, with his work, within the whole field of social life and thus bring himself, and thereby his own nation, a stage further.

Increasing maturity is needed for the effective shaping of the social order, but in our day individual development comes to a standstill before the attainment of the maturity demanded by the conditions of the times. This happens because the body no longer supplies the instincts that are required in ~ocial life and the development of the majority of individuals has not yet reached the point at which the Ego itself is capable of providing the powers which nature now withholds from us. And into the breach thus formed there now pours the ambition of individual nations to conquer for themselves a place in the sun which they believe to be necessary in· order to protect and unfold those values-which are values for mankind as a whole-that would otherwise be lost. Some of the best forces are active in this field, hut through their own driving impulse and working along the inner path of self-development they must acquire the capacity of creating a new social structure. And so we can only cherish the hope that more and more individuals will recognise the real elements upon which the solution of the labour problem depends.

We individual huinan beings must learn to know ourselves, and we nations must learn to understand each other, in order that space and opportunity may be provided for the unfolding of those powers whereby the young and growing human being may receive an education which enables him to grow on to maturity in the right way. But this can only be accomplished by a free spiritual life. Within this spiritual life, everything that the young generation, that children as they grow on to maturity bring to humanity, a new message from the spiritual world, must be able to unfold. For a child born to-day has come down from the spiritual world to the earth later than the older generation and brings new impulses to the earth. If the spiritual life of the community is so ordered that the new qualities of the younger generation are able slowly to mature, then this new force will stream into the spiritual life where it really belongs, expressing itself as a peaceful impulse of evolution within the spiritual life and not as an impulse to revolution within the State. In such conditions the Political State which has to regulate the customs of the people and conserve the

21


national genius, will be able to conduct its affairs with true conse:t;Vative dignity. The new impulses come from the spiritual life. And then economic life can form itself in accordance with its own needs. The individual and the people as a whole will find work to do because the spirit will reveal to them their rightful goal. Must humanity starve in the age when there 'is too much of everything ? This cannot be. The earth has enough for all. We ourselves are called to the task. Let us follow the call !

Made and Printed in Great Britain by

LAWRENCE BROS. (Weston-super-Mare) Ltd., Printers, North Street, Weston-super-Mare.

THE THREEFOLD COMMONWEALTH. The True Aspect of the Social Question. By Rudolf Steiner. 2/- net, postage 3d.

SPIRITUAL LIFE- CIVIL RIGHTS -INDUSTRIAL ECONOMY. By Rudolf Steiner. Reprinted from the "Hibbert Journal." 6d. net, postage ld.

GOLD, in History and in Modern Times. By W. J. Stein. 1/- net, postage ld.

ANTHROPOSOPHY. A Quarterly Review of Spiritual Science, published at Easter, Midsummer, Michaelmas and Christmas. 11/- yearly, post free; 2/9 quarterly, post free.

The true wisdom concerning man-Anthroposophyhas been given to the world by the · greatest thinker who has lived for many centuries-Rudolf Steiner-and in order that a wider public may be made acquainted with the remarkable renaissance which his far-reaching wisdom is producing with regard to the spiritual foundations of Science, Art and Religion, the quarterly magazine, " Anthroposophy," is issued for the English-speaking world.

The above and all the works of Dr. Rudolf Steiner may be obtained at the offices of

THE ANTHROPosoPmCAL PUBLISHING Co., 35 Park Road, London, N.W.l,

and the ANTHROPOSOPHIC PRESS, 230 West 59th Street, New York.

Documents

Walter J Stein Labour in History and in Modern Times Ocr