Social threefolding

Social threefolding is a social theory based on the premise that, if three main spheres of society – the political, economic, and cultural are organized relatively independent of one another, they check, balance, and correct one another and thus lead to greater social health and progress.

Each of three human faculties of thinking, feeling and acting can be related to the societal spheres based on an universal value:

• the free thinking for the cultural life: the field of education, art, science and religion where the freedom is there for each individual to develop and unfold so as to contribute by enriching and developing society as a whole
• the feeling of equality for the other in the legal-political sphere: the relationship between human beings as equals with human rights independent from any societal status, economic power or other.
• the value of solidarity in the economic life, as the transformation of natural resources and labour into products and services that meet human needs, and whereby the needs of the other are covered by my work, just as my needs are covered by the work of the others.

With autonomously organized spheres, social threefolding aims to foster: freedom (in cultural life), equality and democracy (in political life) and cooperation (in economic life).

Aspects

• rejection of ideology, as a restriction imposing on what lives in people
• link of the three social spheres with French Revolution and 'Liberty, Equality, Fraternity'
• separation between state and cultural life, between the economy and cultural life, between state and the economy
• comparison with other social systems
  • Theocracy - cultural impulse (eg religion) dominates economy and politics
  • State socialism / communism - political agendas dominate culture and economic life
  • capitalism - economic interests dominate the cultural and political spheres

Inspirational quotes

1919-10-04-GA191

You can set up the most grandiose social programs and develop the finest social ideas, but if people shy away from acquiring any knowledge of man and do not see any real humanity in one another, they will never be able to bring about social conditions. They cannot produce social conditions unless they establish the possibility that people can be social. But people cannot be social if they do not see the human quality in one another, but live entirely within themselves.

Human beings can only become social if they really meet one another in life, and something passes between them. This is the root of the social problem.

Most people say of the social question nowadays, that if certain things were arranged in such and such a way people would be able to lead a social existence. But it is not like that. If things are arranged like that, social people will be good people in a social sense, and anti-social people will be anti-social with any sort of arrangement.

Lecture coverage and references

Coverage overview

• 1917 - first proposed the 'threefoldment of the social organism'
• 1919 - asked by colleagues to lead a public campaign for threefold social ideas
• 1922 - series of lectures on economics from threefoldment perspective

Reference extracts

1919-GA023

original title: 'Die Kernpunkte der sozialen Frage' became 'The Threefold Social Order'

1919-GA193

Inner Aspect of the Social Question

1919-10-04-GA191

I have demonstrated this in one particular realm of life, namely education, and shown how the education of children under the age of twenty-one can be made to bear fruit for later life. People do not receive an education only up to the age of twenty-one, though, for education carries on throughout the whole of life. But this only happens in a healthy way if people learn from one another.

This too was done by the blood in earlier ages of history. When people met in social life they used to learn things from one another unconsciously, some people learning more and others less, according to the way their blood worked. But our blood has grown weak and has lost its power. This activity, too, has to be replaced by more consciousness. People must achieve the art of acquiring relatively more for themselves from other people compared with what they produce from out of themselves. In earlier times it was sufficient to rely on life. The blood did everything. Now it is essential for people really to develop a sense for the other person's being. This will come about as a matter of course if people steer their thoughts in the direction of spiritual science. Different kinds of thoughts are stimulated with spiritual science than without it.

You will not doubt this fact, for the way spiritual science is received by people who do not want to know anything about their thoughts shows that spiritual scientific thoughts are different from thoughts without spiritual science. It is necessary to develop a totally new way of thinking. The kind of thinking we develop when we accustom ourselves to working with supersensible thoughts is the kind of thinking that has an effect on our organism. And when I told you today that memory is the same force that transforms food into substances man needs for his organism you will no longer be astonished to find that other forces can be transformed in man, like for instance the force with which we understand supersensible things being the same one that helps us to know the human being better than we would know him if we had no healthy longing for supersensible knowledge.

You people study what is in my Occult Science, and to do that you have to develop certain concepts that most people would still call 'Utter madness'. A few days ago I got yet another letter from someone studying Occult Science, and he says that nearly every chapter is pure nonsense. You can understand people saying it is pure nonsense. Why, it is quite obvious that they often say it these days. Yet these people who do not put themselves out to accept the kind of concepts that lead to Saturn, Sun, Moon, Jupiter, Venus and Vulcan, and do not get down to developing ideas about a world that is not limited to the senses will also not acquire any knowledge of man. They do not see the human being in the other person but notice at the most that one person has a more pointed nose than the other, and one has blue eyes whereas the other has brown. But they notice nothing of man's inner being that manifests as his soul and organises his body. The same force which enables us to take an interest, and I am not saying now that it enables us to have supersensible occult powers, but the same force that enables us to take an interest in supersensible knowledge also gives us the kind of knowledge of man that we need today.

You can set up the most grandiose social programmes and develop the finest social ideas, but if people shy away from acquiring any knowledge of man and do not see any real humanity in one another, they will never be able to bring about social conditions. They cannot produce social conditions unless they establish the possibility that people can be social. But people cannot be social if they do not see the human quality in one another, but live entirely within themselves. Human beings can only become social if they really meet one another in life, and something passes between them. This is the root of the social problem. Most people say of the social question nowadays, that if certain things were arranged in such and such a way people would be able to lead a social existence.—But it is not like that. If things are arranged like that, social people will be good people in a social sense, and anti-social people will be anti-social with any sort of arrangement.

The essential thing is to make the sort of arrangements that allow for human beings to develop really social impulses. And one of these social impulses is knowledge. But as long as you go on educating people, for instance, with an eye to their becoming clerks or army officers or some other kind of civil servant, you will not educate them to recognise the human quality in others. For the sort of education that is good for becoming a clerk or an officer only helps you to see clerks and officers in other people. The kind of education that makes human beings of people also enables them to recognise people as human beings. But it is impossible to recognise people as human beings if you do not develop a sense for supersensible knowledge. And the realm in which supersensible knowledge is most indispensable is in the art of education. Therefore the natural scientific, materialistic way of thinking has done more damage in the field of education than anywhere else. And here you can experience the most amazing things.

In every department you find well-meaning people today, who want to reform everything, even revolutionise them. But if you talk to these people about these things, something very strange transpires. They will admit quite honestly to a particular conviction about reforming things. Yet one of them who happens to be a tailor will ask you how his existence as a tailor is going to be affected when things change. And another person, who is, let us say, a railway clerk, asks you how his life as a railway clerk is going to suffer when things are changed.—These are only given as examples to show you that people are perfectly in agreement that everything should be changed as long as nothing changes and everything remains exactly the same. The vast majority of people today are convinced that everything must stay exactly the same when it changes. Make no mistake about the fact that the sort of social improvement people long for today is of extremely abstract dimensions. People long for a great deal, but nothing must change where their comfort is concerned.

And this is particularly true where it is a of people taking an inner step into an entirely new situation. Nevertheless the essential thing is that people open themseIves to the possibility of making the transition to thinking in quite a new way about man changing himself in his innermost being.

All sorts of questions arise from these considerations, questions that are absolutely pertinent to life. What we must realise is that we have constructed a deeper foundation for these questions, by saying that although certain forces appear to be of a spiritual-soul nature, they also come to expression in our bodily nature. For the capacity is terribly lacking today, to bring down to a material level what we think of on a spiritual level. Not until we are capable of bringing down on to a material level what we think of as being spiritual shall we be able to grasp the actual nerve of the social question.

Thus it is virtually a matter of aiming towards a way of thinking that really develops a knowledge of man that is at one and the same time a social impulse. A way of thinking based on anything else is not adequate. A mentality based on the life of the state or the life of economics creates clerks and officers. But the sort of mentality we need creates human beings. This can only be the sort of thought life that breaks away from the sphere of economics and the life of the state. That is why our Threefold Social Organism had to happen. We had to show in a radical way that any kind of dependency of thought life on economics or on the life of the state had to stop, and thought life had to be set up on its own basis. Then thought life will be able to give economics and the life of the state what economics and the state cannot give to the life of thought.

That is the important thing, that is what is vital! Whole human beings will only arise again when we work out of an independent life of thought.

1920-02-15-GA196

The different talents of the French, German, and Anglo-American nations already indicate the direction of a kind of threefolding that should be developed: the judicial-political talent of the French, the inclination to cultural life of the Germans and the talent for the economic life of the Anglo Americans.

1920-06-09-GA337

On Propaganda of the Threefold Social Order

1920-08-30-GA337B

lecture: Social Ideas, Social Reality, Social Practice II – 6. The Artist in the Threefold Social Organism

If you consider any branch of life today – I will immediately highlight the one that is most fragile in this life today – if you consider journalism, for example, and see how much human labor is required, from the typesetter to all the others who are involved in producing newspapers. Take all the work that is done there – the majority of this work is done by people who are drifting through life, because the majority of this work is actually unnecessary work. All this can be done more rationally without employing so many people.

The point is not to have as many people as possible doing something so that they can live, but rather to carry out those activities that are necessary for the fruitful development of this life, this social cycle, in the sense of a truly social life cycle. All the chaotic developments that are taking place today with regard to the utilization of human labor power are connected with the fact that we do not really have a social organism, but rather a social chaos caused by the deification of the unitary state.

I have often emphasized examples of this social chaos. Just imagine how many books are printed today, of which fewer than fifty copies are sold. Now, take such a book – how many people are involved in its production! They make a living, but they do unnecessary work. If they did something else, it would be wiser and countless other people would be relieved in a certain way. But as it is, countless typesetters and bookbinders are working, making piles of books – mostly lyric poems, but other things are also considered – piles of books are being produced; almost all of them have to be pulped again. But there are many unnecessary things like this in today’s life; countless things are absolutely unnecessary.

203-03

294-14

328-02

329-01

330-03

340-09

Related pages

• Anthroposophical application areas
• Moral ideals
• Spiritual science

References and further reading

• Guenther Wachsmuth: 'Threefold Social Order' (1920)
• Roman Boos (1889-1952) - see profile in DE
  • Die Dreigliederung des sozialen Organismus und der Staat (1921)
  • Die Dreigliederungs-Idee, das Goetheanum und das Dreigliederungs-Ideal im Lebensgang Rudolf Steiners und im Schicksal der Welt (1929)
• T. Gordon Jones (ed. by Peter Bridgmont, Richard G. Comfort and Richard Seddon): 'Threefold government for social peace. A memorandum on the reconstruction of the social order' (originally published under the title: Peace and the threefold commonwealth (1943))
• George Adams: 'The threefold structure of the world' (ca 1953)
• Lex Bos (1925-2005) - see profile in DE
  • Eine Metamorphose des Dreigliedrungsimpulses aus den Holländischen sozialen Verhältnissen (1964)
  • Sociale driegeleding : een leidraad voor vernieuwend ondernemen? (1984)
• Paul Coroze: 'Rudolf Steiner et la Tripartition Sociale' (1968)
• Lex Bos, Dieter Brüll, Arnold Henny
  • Maatschappijstructuren in beweging : speelruimte voor, met, door driegeleding (1973), in DE as 'Gesellschaftsstrukturen in Bewegung: Soziale Dreigliederung in Theorie und Praxis'
  • De drieledige maatschappijstructuur (1974)
  • Te-recht of on-terecht : her-, ver-, ont-kenningen van sociale driegeleding' (1976)
  • Leven met afhankelijkheden : driegeleding als levenspraktijk (1978)
• Hans Erhard Lauer: 'Die Entwicklungsstufen der menschlichen Gesellschaft : ein Beitrag zum Verständnis der Idee der sozialen Dreigliederung' (1973)
• Hans Kühn: 'Dreigliederungs-Zeit : Rudolf Steiners Kampf für die Gesellschaftsordnung der Zukunft' (1978)
• Stefan Leber: 'Selbstverwirklichung - Mündigkeit - Sozialität : eine Einführung in die Dreigliederung des sozialen Organismus' (1978)
• Wolfgang Latrille: 'Assoziative Wirtschaft - ein Weg zur sozialen Neugestaltung : die pragmatische Aspekte der sozialen Dreigliederung' (1985)
• T.P. Loosjes: 'Driegeleding van het sociale organisme : een inleiding' (1985)
• Peter Schilinski: 'Wat is sociale driegeleding?' (1994 in NL, based on articles 1982-88 in 'Jedermensch') Christof Lindenau
  • Die Keimkräfte der sozialen Dreigliederung und ihre Pflege (1983), also in NL 1988 as 'Ontmoeting en samenwerking : de kiemkracht van de sociale driegeleding'
  • 'Soziale Dreigliederung : Der Weg zu einer lernenden Gesellschaft : ein Entwurf zum anthroposophischen Sozialimpuls' (1989)
• Dieter Brüll (1922-1996) - see profile in DE
  • Der anthroposophische Sozialimpuls - ein Versuch seiner Erfassung (1984)
    • Vol 2
    • also in NL 1985 as 'De sociale impuls van de antroposofie'
  • De drieledige maatschappijstructuur : Arts en driegeleding (1991)
  • The Waldorf School and the Threefold Structure: The Embarrassing Mandate: The Risk of Being an Anthroposophical Institution'
    • in DE 1992 as 'Waldorfschule und Dreigliederung - der peinliche Auftrag : vom Risiko, eine anthroposophische Institution zu sein' and in NL 2001 as 'Vrije School en sociale driegeleding : De pijnlijke opdracht : Over het risico een antroposofische institutie te zijn'
  • Bausteine für einen sozialen Sakramentalismus: Entdeckungsreise zu den Quellen des Sozialimpulses (1995)
  • Landbouw, economie en sociale driegeleding (1998)
  • The Mysteries of Social Encounters: The Anthroposophical Social Impulse (2002)
  • 'Gemeinschaft und Gemeinsamkeit', in NL as 'Gemeenschap en gemeenzaamheid'
  • Sociale driegeleding (Verzamelde geschriften) (2019)

• Walter Kühne: 'Die Stuttgarter Verhältnisse und Rudolf Steiners Impuls der sozialen Dreigliederung' (1989)
• Albert Schmelzer: 'The Threefolding Movement, 1919, A History: Rudolf Steiner's Campaign for a Self-Governing, Self-Managing, Self-Educating Society' (2017 in EN, original in DE 1991 as 'Die Dreigliederungsbewegung 1919. Rudolf Steiners Einsatz für den Selbstverwaltungsimpuls')
• Nicanor Perlas: 'Shaping Globalization: Civil Society, Cultural Power and Threefolding' (2003) (also in DE as 'Die Globalisierung gestalten : Zivilgesellschaft, Kulturkraft und Dreigliederung')
• Sylvain Coiplet: 'Die soziale Dreigliederung oder - Wie werden Einrichtungen menschlich? (2003)
• Peter Tradowsky: 'Die Dreigliederung als die Christus gemässe Gestalt des sozialen Organismus und die Widersachermächte' (2007)
• Edward Udell: 'A Curious Conversation about Social Threefolding' (2013)
• Albert Schmelzer: 'The Threefolding Movement, 1919. A History' (2017)
• John Hogervorst: 'Sociale driegeleding Wat, hoe en waarom' (2018)
• Richard Masters: 'Rudolf Steiner and Social Reform: Threefolding and Other Proposals' (2022)
• Valentin Wember 'Dreigliederung' (2022)
• John Mugge: 'Threefold Steps Out: Essays Inspired by Rudolf Steiner's Threefold Social Organism' (2023)
• Martin Large and Steve Briault (editors): 'Free, Equal and Mutual - Rebalancing Society for the Common Good'

Internet

• Institut für soziale Dreigliederung:
  • www.dreigliederung.de
  • www.threefolding.org
• Dornach Goetheanum: social.goetheanum.ch/en/fields-of-work/threefolding
• GlobeNet3 or GN3 - Global Network for Social Threefolding: www.globenet3.org

Introductory articles

• https://www.rudolfsteinerweb.com/Threefold_Social_Order.php/Rudolf_Steiner_and_Art.php
• https://www.threefolding.net/fileadmin/user_upload/pdf/EN/Christoph_Strawe_The_Threefolding_Movement_of_1917-1922.pdf
• https://www.neweconomy.org.au/journal/issues/vol1/iss2/world-economy-and-rudolf-steiners-social-threefold/