Thursday, August 30, 2012

Introduction to the Second Edition (July 22, 1999)


The first edition of 50 copies of The Just Price was printed in New York City overnight on the eve of July 6 and picked up the next morning – the day that the internal part of the Social Science Section Conference Deepening our Understanding of Threefolding in New Lebanon NY, was to begin. During the three days of lectures, research reports and deliberation on the conference theme, I was able to refer, among other things, to the new and actual form of threefolding as propounded in this working translation. Unfortunately, I cannot report that the indications given by Rudolf Steiner in 1922 to think and talk about Threefolding in a new way – indications which are taken up by Herbert Witzenmann in this volume, and to which I referred at last year’s annual meeting of the Social Section – have as yet had any noticeable effect.[1] Practically all the participants spoke of threefolding in the manner that Rudolf Steiner presented in his book Towards Social Renewal from 1919, which was updated, and – thereby, as regards the form – outdated in 1922 by the World Economy Course.

The one who most closely approached this fundamental new approach (for particulars I refer to the following three lectures) was the last speaker of the public part of the conference on the theme of elite globalization, Joel Kobran, one of the co-editors of the American journal The Threefold Review, who – not being a member of the Social Section, and thus not having attended its annual meeting – was therefore not in a position to react to my critical remarks. Another newly found ‘comrade in arms’ strongly tending towards this new approach advocated by Rudolf Steiner to present the threefold idea, was the international numismatist and monetary speaker, Hank Passafero from Oregon.

From this conference site – a former Shaker Village in New Lebanon, where in 1787 the first celibate Shaker Order in America devoted to “Hands to work – Hearts to God” was established – two other participants and myself were given a ride by John Moses to the “Other America Convocation” in Concord MA, organized by Stuart Weeks of the “Center for American Studies”. It turned out to be a ride of some three hours filled mainly with conversations on how to counteract Mammon and his cronies who – through their control of international capital and the central banks – are, next to our own spiritual indolence, the most formidable opponents to the realization of a world economy that is not only efficient, but also just.[2]

After this eventful Convocation on some of the historic sites in and around Concord – during which I was given ample time to present this booklet – I spent a few days assisting Stuart Weeks in an effort to lay the social organic groundwork for a series of public summits in New Hampshire with presidential candidates this coming fall. More about this later. Stay tuned!

Robert J. Kelder, Ithaca, July 22, 1999


[1] See my report Threefoldness and the Anthroposophical Society on last year’s Social Science meetings Munsalvaesche in America, p. 21, 4th edition Amsterdam, which was to be presented at the Rudolf Steiner Library on September 2, 2001, but which will appear later this fall (2001). A slightly revised version of the report on this conference itself is given in the following foreword.
[2] See the statement by the British economist Richard Jolly in Globalization Widens Rich-Poor Gap, U.N. Report Says, The New York Times, July 13, 1999: “The international community has yet to figure out how to deal with global market concentrations of economic power.” 

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