The Threefoldering of the world
Extract from the book "Mensch" Section on the threefold division IV.1 Structure of society: intellectual life - legal life - economic life The search for solutions to the terribly pressing problems of the world leads from a knowledge of the world and of mankind that only wants to acknowledge matter and its functions to nothing but ever new crises and disasters, as we have had to experience since the beginning of the 20th century. Only this knowledge of the world and of man as a spiritual world, as a spiritual being, opens up to us the ability and views to draw new impulses for the future precisely from this spiritual world, which will enable us to found a new humane society. Whoever wants to understand and build up real future impulses, however, in these Michaelian times it is demanded of him to seriously deal with the presence of the spiritual world. A society of the future will be a three-tiered society. Just as man is one and yet has three members1 , a structure that organizes itself according to activities: Firstly, the nervous and sensory life (centralized in the head organism), secondly, breathing and blood circulation (rhythmic system) and the actual metabolism (nutritional and movement organs), a society is also one through the people who live and work in it. But people who have their tasks in all three limbs at the same time. In the economy, in the legal system and in spiritual life. Whoever thinks of the three members in a materialistic way thinks of them as three separate parts. The one who can look at it from a spiritual knowledge can see the three in one. Economy, law and spirit permeate and interweave each other everywhere (B179, chap. II). And yet, each of these parts, out of its own peculiarity, should be designed and managed independently. Nor should one link be allowed to govern into the others; here it is appropriate to find a harmonious balance. "Just as the legal life (the administration of the State) is regulated in the autonomous legal member of the social organism independent of economic life, so the spiritual life (culture, education and school life) is regulated in freedom in the autonomous spiritual member of the social community. "But in such a way, ... that every human being with his interests belongs to all three partial organisms", (B165, chapter: "The threefold structure of the social organism"). The free sub-organism of the spiritual life, can finance itself from the understanding of human beings. The one who regards man as a spiritual being and recognizes how spiritual impulses (education, art) develop and maintain the entire social organism, will also recognize the necessity of a free spiritual life. Out of this, cooperation will then also be found between the spiritual life (the educational institutions) and the economic sector, which will provide an economic basis for the spiritual life2. These three areas, economic life, legal life, and spiritual life, must each be in a necessary independence from one another, but they must also interpenetrate each other in a viable society, just as the activities of the nervous-sensory system (economy), the heart-lung system (law) and the metabolic system (spiritual culture) interpenetrate each other in man (B157, 5.8.1922). Through birth, a human being connects with a family, a state, culture, human and economic context. Through our life we participate in the change of circumstances. Through us there live spiritual impulses which want to be realized, new, more just state and community organizations, more fraternal monetary and economic systems and a free and fruitful spiritual life. The task of the economic member is the fraternal supply of all people with goods, goods, services and capital (production, circulation and consumption of goods). The task of the legal sphere is to regulate human coexistence in a contemporary and realistic manner with the aim of equality. It also aims to protect the rights of people in their working and property relations. The intellectual life has as its task the creation of free possibilities for the development of human individuality, as its goal free educational institutions, free intellectual centres (humanities), free exercise of religion, free artistic activity3. In other words, a fraternal economy where love for others is created for others, where love for fellow men and for action is the driving force, it is love for action and a realistic view of consumption and possibilities. „... has to do with all that must be there for man to regulate his material relationship with the outside world", (B179, p.63). For equality in legal life. That includes the laws, rules and agreements of a society. Instead of the nation state, communities of law (B165,p.20) are created that protect people from becoming commodities or dependent on the power of others. Equal rights out of love for the existence of the other. "... what must be there in the social organism because of the relationship between man and man", (B179, p.63). The free development of the individual. The spiritual life as a member of the freedom in which man can develop and live out according to his fate and his individual impulses. Out of love for his fellow man, he gives him the freedom to develop spiritually. "... all that which is based on the natural gifts of the individual, that which must enter the social organism on the basis of these natural gifts, both spiritual and physical, of the individual human being", (B179, p.63). These three limbs each administer themselves, but in a manner appropriate to their own particularity. "... a parliament can only exist in the state, not in a free spiritual life. There can only be the single individuality that creates a network of self-evident authority. In the economic sphere there can only be associations. In the parliament all functions will already converge and the right measures will be taken between the individual members of the social organism", (B157, p.88). Where the economy influences the legal life beyond its borders, the state is manipulated to the detriment of the freedom and rights of the people. Where the economy influences intellectual, cultural and educational life, it is economic perspectives, rather than individual freedoms, that determine the objectives of education. Wherever the state itself tries to do business, it is levelled out, de-individualised, individual impulses and abilities are inhibited and the ability to create value is destroyed. Where the intellectual life tries to determine the economy, unreal, unrealistic decisions are made which damage the economic context. ".the necessary traffic between the lines of the legal and economic body will take place approximately as it is currently between the governments of sovereign territories", (B179, p.70).
