History often provides insight into the present. Consider the American South one hundred and fifty years ago, for example. There, human rights and economic servitude were compressed onto a single domain for black Americans. They became a means of production that could be bought and sold as a commodity. In many parts of the South, it was forbidden to teach blacks to read. Control by law of education, part of culture, was found necessary to subordinate human rights to economics. The domain of rights and economics thus also engulfed culture. –Joseph Weizenbaum, from the foreword
Culture, politics, economics–these are the three core activities of society; the health of any society depends on a harmonious interaction among these three activities. And, according to Rudolf Steiner, this is impossible unless they are autonomous to the degree that they can each find their own essential character. In his foreword, Joseph Weizenbaum observes that those who framed the United States Constitution understood this–at least partially–when they developed the doctrine of a separate church and state. These essays cover a range of subjects–money, the division of labor, human motivation, and education. They offer refreshing insights into the nature of modern society as well as guidance for solving today’s pressing social problems.
Contents:
Foreword by Joseph Weizenbaum
Four Articles from the Newspaper The Social Future:
The Threefold Social Organism, Democracy, and Socialism
The International Economy and the Threefold Social Order
Culture, Law, and Economics
The Threefold Social Order and Social Trust: Capital and Credit
Twenty Articles from the Newspaper The Threefold Social Order
The Threefold Division of the Social Organism, a Necessity of the Age
International Aspects of the Threefold Social Order
Marxism and the Threefold Social Order
The Threefold Social Order and Educational Freedom
What Is Needed?
Ability for Work, Will to Work, and the Threefold Social Order
What Socialists Do Not See
Socialist Stumbling Blocks
What the ‘New Spirit’ Demands
Economic Profit and the Spirit of the Age
Cultivation of the Spirit and Economic Life
Law and Economics
Social Spirit and Socialist Superstition
The Pedagogical Basis of the Waldorf School
Fundamental Fallacy in Social Thought
The Roots of Social Life
The Basis of the Threefold Social Order
Real Enlightenment as the Basis of Social Thought
Longing for New Thoughts
Wanted: Insight!
Appendix:
An Appeal to the German Nation and to the Civilized World
The Way to Save the German Nation
