Towards a One-World Economy

43 colleagues of the Economics Conference from 14 countries reflected in fourteen one-hour online presentations on Rudolf Steiner’s Economics Course.

---

One hundred years ago, Rudolf Steiner met with young economists from 24 July to 6 August to give them a new language with which to overcome post WW1 economic nationalism. A hundred years later on the same dates, a commemoration was held online. Marc Desaules set the tone by observing that, ‘…the Economics Course does not displace or replace the serious striving to install a threefold social order […]. Rather, as I understand it, it is a last attempt by Rudolf Steiner to address the social question.

There were daily presentations on topics including: local associations as organs of perception using ‘money-as-bookkeeping’; personal credit, not collateral, to free human creativity; Christological aspects of economic life; associative financial literacy, youth bonds and bankless capital for entrepreneurs; the hope of a new role for the West. To take Rudolf Steiner’s Economics Course seriously is to walk with him in learning to overcome egotism in economic life. Such thoughts can be as calming drops in a sea of angry waves.

Some further key ‘take-aways’: lending direct and uncollateralized can drain today’s over-full ‘pools of capital’; true price operates when we serve others’ economic needs, not our own, the urgent need for associative financial literacy in Waldorf schools. Note for diary: the 2024 centennial of the World Energy Council, established by Daniel Dunlop.

---

---