WORLD-ECONOMY

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At the end of the first world war, in striking contrast to President Wilson's ‘self-determination of nations’, Rudolf Steiner was proposing for the settlement of Europe the division of the social organism into three separate spheres, dealing respectively with cultural and educational affairs, with matters of human rights, and with economics and production. Each sphere was to have its own frontiers, character and objective.

The present volume deals principally with the economic sphere, but it has also much to say concerning its relation with, and dependence on, the other spheres as well.

Although the form in which Steiner first developed his proposals for a ‘threefold commonwealth’ was oriented towards Central Europe and the context of the time, they are based on deep insight into the new social and economic forces which were then so plainly emerging but were so little understood.

The world was not then ready for Steiner's radical proposals; but today we are being forced by the failure of our social and economic programmes to look for solutions which grow from a deep understanding of man himself. It is in the light of such an understanding that Steiner approaches such crucial questions as the relation of wages to production, the proper function of capital, finance and the different forms of money, the ownership of land — and many other matters of vital importance to our modern industrial society. Behind this economic analysis stands the picture of a truly human society, in which man can find himself as producer, as citizen, and as free agent in harmony with his fellow men.

RUDOLF STEINER PRESS

ISBN 0 85440 266 7