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A Report of the Associative Economics Festival

Economics and Esotericism

“Initiation science must regulate whatever is collected by the different associations … It is precisely the economic realm that makes the influences of the spiritual life mandatory… everything will remain instinctive if it is not brought to consciousness by being developed.

Rudolf Steiner - Spiritual Science as a foundation for Social Forms

That economic life rests upon an esoteric basis becomes clear when the thinking which underlies it is made conscious. Such is the intention of associative economics and to this end a second Associative Economics Festival took place near Canterbury this August. 20 people from 9 countries attended, most of whom already had a longstanding commitment to the development of an associative economic paradigm, but for some this was their first opportunity to participate in such a meeting.

The festival provided the occasion for the publication of Step Into Another World – Economic Life as A Medium for Initiation. This constituted the proceedings of the last festival, held in 2003, which explored the themes of Entrepreneur as Neophyte, Corporation as Temple, Finance as Guardian. A description of the development of sacred architecture was given, culminating in the Goetheanum building designed by Steiner as a venue for the production of mystery dramas. After the first building was destroyed by fire, its structure was reconstituted in a metamorphosed form as an archetype of a new corporation, which was embodied in the refounded Anthroposophical Society.

The Market and The Mysteries

On this occasion the overall theme was the Sacred Nature of Economic Life and its connection to mystery centres such as the one on the island of Samothrace where Aristotle and Alexander were initiated. That economic life is sacred we know from the mystery of exchange, the basis of all economics. That it appears otherwise today is the result of recent trends that have given rise to a thinking that expresses itself in ‘market economics’, places an emphasis on selfishness, and denies the possibility that the human being can think and act out of a bigger picture. But market economics is only a shadow of the reality which one sees in the more concrete experience of the local market, the mediaeval trade fairs and the ancient festivals. Such occasions provided a focus for an equilibriating  element to arise. Steiner describes the following:

Village economies existed for very good reasons. They were once the only form of economy; then came the market – both quite accurate terms. So long as the market is surrounded by a village economy it is a harmless form of economic life. But as soon as the town economy develops, the entire producer-consumer relationship is radically changed. A market surrounded by villages is regulated in effect by natural clear producer-consumer relationships of supply and demand. But in town economies these relationships become confused and obscure. Nowadays one can maintain clear producer-consumer relationships only by way of associative economics.

- Rudolf Steiner Economics, Discourse 3.

It is clear that the more global the world becomes, the more it stands in need of an associative approach to economics. This festival brought together colleagues from around the world to review its development in the context of a large historical perspective that passes from Aristotle to the present day and in particular to consider what the prospects are for influencing current thinking.

Impressions from Participants

-From Kim Chotzen a songstress and bookkeeper in Wisconsin, USA.

We worked in a circle. Listening and presenting to one another in turn, we created a

space in which inner and outer realities met, creating the possibility for a sacred experience. To use a plant metaphor concerning the development of associative economics to date, has it gone beyond the cotyledon stage, has it reached its ‘water table’ and borne its first true leaves? The test would be whether it spanned both academia and practical ways of working, both inner concerns of humanity and modern finance. If we could see economic history as the story of the development of the human being, would we today have thoughts different to those of current economic thinking which so often creates a sense of powerlessness? Since the Renaissance, along with the emergence of capital, humanity has developed the capacity to reason through natural science, but has become stuck in the idea that one cannot observe thinking as such. This distorts the promise of the Renaissance, which only comes to flower with ideas such as those pointed to by Rudolf Steiner, but openly accessible to thought, concerning the three kinds of money and the need to think with “multiple independent variables”, leading to a concept moresophisticated than market economics has yet produced: X f P, S, D (see lecture 8 of Steiner’s Economics Course).

- From Luuk Humblet, founder in 1976 of ‘The Blue Flower’, an endeavour to build economic life on consumer involvement in food production and distribution.

I very much enjoyed the AE Festival and I am really glad I attended. It was an enlightening experience and, in a way of speaking, it even changed my views on the world. But I went with the question: what on earth would I do in England? When acting as a city guide in my hometown of Ghent in Belgium, showing around tourists in French, I feel like a sparrow, flying to and fro in a rather sanguine way. Doing the same in German makes me feel like a swan, gliding firmly over the water. But in English… no such image of a bird comes to me. Like many, I suppose, I thought that the Anglo-American world was there for the natural sciences and the German world for the humanities, or as the German has it ‘Geisteswissenschaften’, inadequately translated into English as spiritual sciences. Being part of the event in Chartham changed my mind, or perhaps I should say: changed my heart. It has always been important for me to put our work on clear, basic concepts and to make those explicit. Therefore, the combination of academic and historical approaches inspired me during the Festival. And the alternation of lectures, discussions (even if we were not always able to deepen the items) and presentations, was instructive and fertilizing. Last but not least: I am glad I finally met the challenge to present my story in English. Thanks for giving me the occasion and for the positive reactions to my presentation. I hope we’ll have other opportunities to meet each other at future occasions.

Questions and Prospects

One recurring theme was the question of whether an association should be understood in the sense of an organization (as a legal entity) or whether one should focus on how individuals come together in order to associate (without necessarily being connected within a shared legal framework).

A further theme retraced the footsteps of pioneers such as D N Dunlop and W J Stein in order to discover what seeds they sowed and whether they are now ripe for further development. Where, for example, can one find examples today of independent research? Can money be given without the giver determining its use? Can western pragmatism be harnessed to serve all of humanity?

 A welcome feature of the festival was the inclusion within it of the event’s finances itself, allowing the participants a view of how the budget had been managed. Given today’s dominance of finance, it is crucial also to address the need for a clear and effective understanding of accounting and finance for these are the main instruments through which modern economic life is shaped and understood. If it is to be a true science and if it is to inform current economic life, economics needs a particular instrument that serves both as an organ of perception (of true prices, for example; the so-called ‘social brain’) and as a means for passing from concept to application. This can be said to be the purpose of accounting from an associative point of view, made effective by way of the financial literacy that derives from it. How then can financial literacy become an essential element in school curricula, thereby fostering education for initiative? This will be a main focus of future work.