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Rudolf Steiner wrote much on the history and nature of modern economic life. Not all of this is available in English. A list of titles and publishers is under preparation.
Participants in the Economics Conference receive an occasional newsletter:
Associate - Economics, Business and Finance in the Light of Spiritual Science.
Editor: Dr. Christopher Houghton Budd
In 1922, Rudolf Steiner gave a seminal course on economics, available in English as a revision of an earlier version, published as "World Economy" but without the annexed discussions and without explanatory notes for the modern reader. The revised version also takes account of certain terminology used in modern economics, includes an introductory essay on 'Rudolf Steiner, Economist' (available separately) outlining his work in the broader sweep of economic history, and the following Lecture Synopsis:
1: From Industrialism to World Economy (24.7.22)
Contrast between England and Germany in 19th century - Instinctive and conscious transitions to industrialism - Virgin soil of India and old middle-European agrarian economy - Emergence of the State in German economics instead of 1830’s and 1840’s ideals (Liberalism) - Inability to enter world economy - Absence of life’s contrasts, in particular the contrast between cultural, rights and economic life - The threefold social order - Insufficient thinking in economics - Comparison of economics to a complete theory of light - Expansion beyond single personalities - Intelligence (ultra-violet)/Land (infra-red) - Unsuitability of natural scientific concepts - Invalidity of economics of isolated regions - World as a whole economic and social organism.
2: The Economic Process (25.7.22)
Economic process in perpetual motion - Exchange as essence of economics - Price - Fluctuation in price - Unreality of definitions - Ordinary doctrine of land, labour, capital - Animal economics - Apparent labour - Human labour connected to providing for more than oneself - Value created by elaboration of land by labour - Nonsense of Marx’s view of labour - Economic irrelevance of labour in itself - Labour directed by intelligence also creates value - Exchange of values - Price and interplay of values - Cannot observe at rest what is in flux.
3: Economic Science (26.7.22)
Proper form of economic science - Ethics and natural science - Religion and economics in early history - Distinction between commandment and law - Distillation of law and appearance of labour and emancipation from religious life - Rise of egoism and search for democracy - Division of labour - Individual works for community - Economic impossibility of egoism - Division of labour requires altruism - Egoism contradicts facts of world economy - Labour exchanged “for a living” - Mean price - Trader.
4: Division of Labour and Creation of Value (27.7.22)
Cheapening effect of division of labour - Origin of capital through division of labour - Intelligence emancipates capital from land - Money - Capitalism and finance - Money as realised intelligence - Intelligence envalues capital - Investments - Borrowings - The circulation of capital - “difference of level” in terms of capacities - Diversity of capacities - Relation of two value poles to commodities and money - Essential nature of commodity and money - Mobility of thinking.
5: The Production and Consumption of Values (28.7.22)
The polarity of production and consumption - The economic process as an organic process - Envaluation and devaluation - Value-creating tension and value-creating movement - Analogy to kinetic and potential energy - Personal credit and the rate of interest - Real credit - Congestion of capital in land and its disappearance in intelligence - Land has no value - Real and apparent values - Associations - Distribution of the workforce - Variety of skill.
6: “True Price” (29.7.22)
“True price” formula - Capitalised land opposes production of goods - Two rates of interest - The economic significance of freed activity - Pure consumption - Goods and payment - Capital and lending - Cultural life and giving - Gift as 100% interest on land.
7: The Factors of Price Formation (30.7.22)
Purchase, loan and gift as three factors of price formation - The factors of rest - Fiction of purchase of labour - Reciprocal determination of values - Products of labour - True price and falsification of price - Origin of rent - Rent as compulsory gift - Creation of rent inherent in economic process - Agriculture as a single entity - Industrial capital constantly undervalued - Tendency of industrial capital to devalue - Self-provision with agriculture, not with capital - The need to establish equilibrium - Means of production - Industrial capital - Commodities - Goods - Need to be within process only possible in associations.
8: On Supply and Demand (31.7.22)
The idea of supply and demand - Supply, demand and price as primary factors - The role of rights - The role of individual faculties - Economic impossibilities - Economics and natural science - Associations for production, consumption and distribution - The economics of barter, of money and of human faculties.
9: The Forms of Capital (1.8.22)
Concept of “internal economies” - Distance between outlay and return - Role of gift - Association - Trade, loan and industrial capital - Loan capital and authority - Industrial capital - Raw materials and concepts of might - Markets and intelligence (wise or cunning) - Trade capital and competition - The rise of banking - The withdrawal of financial control from the human being - “Pure money business” and “objectless imperialism”.
10: On Associations (2.8.22)
Circulation of values - Profit - Exchange creates value - Transformation of commodity into money - Associations - Advantage (profit) as pressure - Loan capital (enterprise) as suction - Interest, human mutuality and lending - Imagination and economic judgement - Associations - Public spirit - Threefold social order.
11: The Conditions and Consequences of a World Economy (3.8.22)
Evolution of economic life - Private economies - National economies - State economies - State as economic and cultural organism - Profit by consolidation of economies - Ricardo and Smith - England as leader of world trade - Origin of gold-based currencies - Transition from world trade to world economy - World economy as the end of consolidation - The falsity of Versailles and after - World economy as a closed economy - Relation of commodities and money - The non-depreciation of money - Total consumption by all humanity - Unsuitability of national economic thinking for world economy - Closed economic domains presuppose free gifts - Non-capitalisation of land - Relation of food production to free gifts to cultural life.
12: Money (4.8.22)
Money and price - The envaluation of money - Money as a medium of exchange - Purchase money (exchange money) - Loan money - Gift money - Correcting the function of money - The ageing of money - Associative management - Money and control of the economy.
13: The Economics of the Spirit (5.8.22)
Valuing intelligence - Premise of cultural needs - Freed activity as saved labour - Inherent compensatory balances.
14: Key Concepts for World Economics (6.8.22)
Modern economic science - Living concepts - Parallelism of real and false values - World-wide book-keeping - Medium of exchange as proper quality of money - The polarity of spent labour and saved labour - Land and its elaboration as the basis - Stored up labour requires saved up labour - Money as sum total of means of production - Ratio of population to land - Relation of currency to land and to gold - Prices.
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