ALBERT Schmelzer, an anthroposophical historian and Waldorf school pedagogue, contends that when Prussian philosopher Wilhelm von Humboldt (1767-1835) produced a 1792 essay in which he argued the case for states to confine their activities to safeguarding the security of the citizenry “through legal protection domestically and military defence outwardly,” that the opposition between capital and labour had not yet emerged. Although Marx and various other critics of capitalism had yet to outline the friction between them, the issues surrounding the nature of unprincipled profiteering and lack of effective wealth distribution among the poor – however one defines it – were certainly under discussion throughout Europe.
Schmelzer, an advocate of Rudolf Steiner’s (1861-1925) threefolding system, favours a dramatic reorganisation of political, social and economic life to the extent that
(a) the social effects of capitalism are somehow alleviated without curtailing the dynamic forces of the entrepreneur, and
(b) that out-and-out socialism is also tempered, not by nationalisation of industry, but through allowing the state to intervene in a regulatory fashion without becoming the manager of the economy itself.
Steiner even believed that the continuation of material incentives would act as a necessary impetus for business leaders, but at the same time he suggested in Towards Social Renewal (1919) that the overriding motive should concern ‘social understanding’ and not the maximisation of profits. Although he correctly believed that capitalism had reduced man to an economic unit, he also knew that socialism was not the answer.
Unfortunately, whilst during the transition between the end of the First World War and the beginning of the Weimar period Steiner’s ideas were being seriously examined by some of Europe’s leading statesmen and economists, the situation in Germany was far too unstable for people on either side of the fence to set aside their differences and work together for the common good.
Today, of course, the forces of capital and labour have become even more entrenched in their rigid ideological positions and, as we have seen with the more peripheral ‘fascist’ and ‘antifa’ elements in the United States, there are people who have an interest in perpetuating the wider left-right dichotomy. Indeed, despite the fact that the Hidden Hand of international finance now controls both sides of this fabricated chasm, we find the same counter-productivity operating at the centre and thus Steiner’s proposals – as sincere as they may be – have even less chance of being applied in the present climate than they did almost exactly a century ago. At least in terms of universal applicability.
National-Anarchists, themselves attempting to overcome the problems of both capitalism and its contrived ‘opposition,’ realise that reform is no longer an option and that fundamental change can only take place away from the centre, on the periphery. In that sense, we do not have to arrange a marriage of convenience between two estranged parties, but concentrate on strengthening ourselves at their expense. In fact we must divorce ourselves from the System as much as we possibly can.
