Food for Thought - Social Threefolding

Steiner distinguished three realms of society:
 
- the economy
- politics and human rights
- cultural institutions, including science, education, arts and religion
He suggested that the three would only function together harmoniously when each was granted sufficient independence. This has become known as "social threefolding".


Among the various kinds of macrosocial imbalance Steiner observed, there were three major types:

- Theocracy, in which the cultural sphere (in the form of a religious impulse) dominates the economic and political spheres.
- State Communism and state socialism, in which the state (political sphere) dominates the economic and cultural spheres.
- Corporate capitalism, in which the shareholder is the only or primary stakeholder, and in which the economic sphere dominates the cultural and political spheres

For more visit the Beats4Change Foundations web about Social Threefolding at http://www.beats4change.org/threefold/

For a world free from violence between North and South, men and women, ourselves and our environment

With the 21st century, comes the fundamental challenge facing every society to create political, economic and social systems that promote peace, human welfare and the sustainability of the environment on which life depends.

  In our hearts we know right from wrong - and there's much we see around us in our environment and the relations between people, both socially, economically and politically, where we feel: "this is not the right way for human beings to live - this is not the way we're supposed to relate to each other and our surroundings"

 As long as we just wait to see where the dynamics of history leads us, we're doomed to be victims of circumstance. This dynamic is often dictated by other concerns, we learn to think in social, economical and political "realities", forcing us to put aside what our hearts tell us and subsequently we stop listening and learn to adapt to these "realities" - powers that dictate our actions and interactions. We may protest against these realities - react, but to really change anything we must create the freedom and strength to turn the tide. When people start working together to build the lives and communities they want, then good things will happen.

 Change must come from people working together from bottom up, reclaiming their lives from the corporate usurpation

"We are convinced that freedom without Socialism is privilege and injustice, and that Socialism without freedom is slavery and brutality." -Mikhail Bakunin