submenu: Economic life
IV.1.1 Economy Today, the economy is a global economy: development, production, distribution and consumption have less and less connection with national borders. The economic sector must be shaped by the people who work directly in it, who know the concrete problems and have the appropriate technical skills. Whereby the sphere of influence of the economy is limited by the respective legal area (legal community), nature and intellectual life. Economy is capital directed by the spirit, which in connection with organized work transforms nature in such a way that usable goods are created (B157,p.34). Nature is transformed into goods. Goods are returned to nature through consumption or devaluation; human labour, which, depending on the division of labour, professional and technical skills, is spent on the transformation of nature and capital, which is formed in the form of available goods and economic forces as enterprises, plants, warehouses, machines, EDP, infrastructure, organisation, etc. Nature is taken and transformed through work into goods that meet the needs of people, people exchange goods for goods, money develops as a medium of exchange for the exchange, goods are received and consumed (e.g. as food) and thereby returned to nature. Today, work is distributed worldwide (globally) and is based on the division of labour. There is no good that is not produced more economically by sharing the work steps than without division of labour. Through the division of labour and technical automation, more goods can be produced to a higher quality with less effort, therefore nobody can work alone. Everyone works for the other. Self-sufficiency harms this economic system, every personal acquisition can only be obtained by the performance of others. Work only has economic value if it meets a need of the consumer. In the economic process, the human spirit constantly ensures that work is oriented towards consumption. At the same time, the human mind reduces the amount of work per good. Thus, higher and higher manufacturing capabilities develop, these are becoming more and more specialized and increased through the division of labor. Tools (machines, plants, EDP) and organizations (enterprises, value chains, logistics, software) are developed which multiply the ability to create value. The ability to create value in a society corresponds to the capital of a society. Capital is the available ability to produce and distribute goods. Money is created with the production of goods and the ability to create value, prices are formed in the exchange process between producer and consumer. With the decline or disappearance of the goods or value-adding capabilities into nature, the value of the money associated with them also disappears. This is how an economic system describes itself by dealing with nature, the ability to create value (work), the available capital, the needs of consumers and how people are allowed to work in dignity according to their abilities and destiny. Work in today's global economy, based on the division of labour, is always done only for the benefit of fellow human beings. We receive the reward for our work through the performance of people in other economic sectors. The division of labour makes goods cheaper. Whoever wants to provide for himself hinders this division of labour and makes goods more expensive. Acquisition from work, therefore, can no longer serve for self-sufficiency. A direct acquisition out of personal egoism brings the price formation out of balance, someone wants to earn more at the expense of his fellow men. Thus the common good of an economic society today is also not the greater the more the individual personally enriches himself, but the more the individual does for the other. In the trust that others also do for him (main social law). "The salvation of a totality of people working together is the greater the less the individual claims the proceeds of his services for himself, that is, the more he gives of these proceeds to his employees, and the more his own needs are satisfied not from his services but from the services of the others. (B163, "Spiritual Science and Social Question", 1906). Where personal interests and the pursuit of advantage influence the production of goods and the formation of prices, the price situation is distorted to produce non-market goods and income imbalances arise. So the aim should be to be economically active out of social necessity, so that uninfluenced prices for demand-oriented goods are formed. So that it can be said: "We have to get prices and goods out that are not dependent on people, but on the economic process that results from the fluctuation of values. The cardinal question is the price question." (B024, 26.7.1922). The price question influences the quality of the goods, the dignified treatment of the working people, the income situation and the treatment of nature. Economy only becomes healthy when, out of social necessity, it is a last resort for the fellow human being, so that economy is a love turned into action. Whoever is economically active out of a loving relationship with nature and fellow men will make a healthy contribution to the economic organism. This is a contribution that everyone can make, in the awareness that an ideal state cannot be achieved because of the diversity and also because of forces working in opposite directions. "For my realization is that we cannot create a paradise on earth by economic means. That would not work, but only the best possible state can be created." (B157, P. 57). And everyone can contribute to it of his own free will. Economic activity is the human (brotherhood) supply of all people with goods, goods, services, as well as the provision of capital and financial values for individual, material use. Economy is then a doing for the other. If I do it for the other (fellow human being), this contributes to a more prosperous common good, in that I can trust that I too will receive corresponding benefits. Whatever consumer goods are produced for people, over a longer period of time, also corresponds to the ability to create value. All goods in the economy must therefore be produced at some point. Progressive professional and technical development is leading to an ever increasing refinement of activities, a division of labour among people. Today's economy is a world economic organization that has developed over many centuries to what it is today. It is an organism created by man and kept alive, which can also be consciously developed and shaped by man. Economy is there to provide goods and services to mankind. Nature, the amount of land and soil, the spatial conditions are the one limit. The legal conditions1 are the other limit of the economy. Its efficiency results from the people working in it and their technical and organisational abilities. The economy is a living organism that is constantly moving and changing. Ideas about an economy must be completely mobile, since the economic process is constantly changing in all parts. Any attempt to grasp it by rigid thoughts, formulas or numbers can only reflect past momentary states. The attempt to capture this living thing by numbers (e.g. every work process and every thing must have a comprehensible calculation price) leads to a solidification, to a revival of the economic process where it can assert itself. Sample from the book "Mensch"
