The CSA model came out of some social ideas that surfaced nearly a hundred years ago now called social threefolding. It came about during WW I when Europe was in total chaos. A group of people recognized that great changes were taking place, with some of the old established social traditions crumbling, and a new global consciousness emerging.
I don’t know about all of you, but I’m noticing a sense of some impending great changes in the world today as well. It seems like a change that is both forcing itself on us through environmental uncertainty and resource limitations (especially fossil fuels), but also a strong inner desire for change in our people to people relationships. For the past couple of years, I’ve been involved a bit in the Transition Town movement in our area, which tries to respond to these potential changes. Locally, there seems to have been a fizzling out of this direction, I think in some ways due to the feeling of powerlessness in the face of the floodwaters of our current social trends. I know in myself, it sometimes feels like no matter what I do in my own life to try to do something better, I’m still so entwined in a globally unhealthy social life that it is hard to feel entirely positive. At least I don’t feel alone in this – the Occupy movement over the past year, I think, given momentum by the Arab Spring, shows there are many people feeling this.
I’ve felt compelled lately to try to add the ideas of social threefolding to the conversation. Since I first started working on a CSA farm in the early 90’s, I’ve been trying to understand all that these social ideas entail, and I feel that there are some really positive suggestions that apply to some of the social struggles we are all dealing with.
The essential components of this social threefolding model were introduced by Rudolf Steiner around 1917, in a book called Towards Social Renewal. Regardless of what you might know or not know about the rest of Steiner’s philosophical and spiritual scientific work, doesn’t really matter, as these social ideas stand on their own. It’s called threefolding because it recognizes three basic relationships we have as human beings. First, is our relationships with each other; second, our relationship with ourselves; and third, the relationship we have with nature. These three relationships are connected to three social dynamics: the relationships we have with each other express a sense of rights, and could be called political; the relationship we have with ourselves is expressed in each of our individual abilities and inclinations and is expressed in our cultural/spiritual life; and the relationship we have with nature, in as much as we change it with our activities, is expressed in our economic life.
Our life of rights is defined as that which comes purely out of our human to human relationships. These are laws, and agreements between people that are usually associated with government. The ideal that these relationships cry out for is Equality.
Our cultural life is defined as the aptitudes and abilities of each individual person, and this is expressed in education, the arts and pure sciences, religion or spiritual belief, and self expression. The ideal that we wish for in the relationship we have with our self is Freedom.
Economics is defined as the production, circulation and consumption of commodities. This is an intentionally limiting definition of economics, to be explained shortly. Within this definition of economics, the ideal to work with is Cooperation.
It has been recognized that these three ideals were expressed in another context: during the French Revolution the slogan, Liberte, Egalite, Fraternite, showed these ideals to be living in us. Social threefolding’s recognition of the three sectors of society was not new, and even recognizing the ideals attached to them was not new. But this is a huge question that we are still working with: how do we allow the three ideals of Freedom, Equality and Cooperation to create a healthy dynamic balance in society, without one having to interfere with another. The new concept that threefolding suggests is that the three sectors; the cultural, the political and economic, become as separate and independent as possible. Each sector would be healthier if it could be autonomous, and interact with the other sectors in a similar way that independent sovereign states interact. This would allow each sector, and in turn each ideal, to have equal weight. When these ideals are trying to be embodied under one governmental management the ideals do contradict each other.
Currently, the economic sector is dominating most of the picture. The government is so wrapped up in big business, that we become quite suspicious of its intentions. The popular belief (and I think the government is genuinely trapped in this belief) is that big business is good for everyone, since big business provides jobs. And this economically dominated thinking is carried over into the government directed education system that focuses on preparing children for the “work force.” It is not hard to end up feeling like we are simply cogs in the wheel of a massive economic machine.
From a threefolding perspective, a healthy government need only be concerned with ensuring that there is equality in our people to people relationships. This will have its impact on the economic sector, but it would be better if government didn’t involve itself in economic affairs at all. The government’s ideal of equality can also overreach its bounds, and that is what can be seen in Communism. Communism strove to find a way to meet the material needs of humanity, and recognized the inequality that industrial Capitalism produced. But in the process of equalizing everyone’s economic relationships, individual freedoms were held back, creating its own version of social disease.
A healthy social life would also include a separate cultural sector that would encourage each of us to explore and try to express what is unique about us as individuals. This might be described as our “calling.” This would need to be as free from economic restraints as possible, and free from governmental influences. Finding our calling, is probably one of the hardest things in life. Today this is often discouraged (even by our friends and family) if it does not fit in with the current ideas of economics, because our sense of freedom is so tied to our economic reality. The government, in this regard, need only ensure that each individual has this right: to try to find his or her calling. This I feel is what the Occupy Movement is really looking for. Just redistributing the wealth won’t answer the inner search we each carry in ourselves. But now, with government so tied to big business, we are educated for the work force, and the government is propping up big businesses so they can provide jobs… but we don’t need jobs, we need to find our calling. Within the threefolding ideal, there is a great faith in the good that can come from removing the restrictions holding people back from their calling. But it also recognizes the social responsibility we have in society to make this an equal opportunity, not reserved for only a wealthy few. But what this also means is that each of us needs to take more responsibility for our own lives, and not rely on government to do everything for us.
So if the government would separate itself from the economy, what’s left would be the possibility for true economic associations to form. This is what the threefolding model suggests. These associations would be what are called vertical cooperatives. The cooperation ideal is brought about through associations of producers, distributers, and consumers. With this model, it is recognized that the natural base has its gifts and limitations. The producers will understand this and communicate it to the rest of the association. Economic transparency is essential to create a truly cooperative ideal. Traditional cooperatives are more of a horizontal nature, either representing a group of producers, a group of distributors, or a group of consumers. What usually happens with this model is that these co-ops are looking after primarily the needs of the group, and can very easily end up exploiting (not necessarily intentionally) the needs of another group. Vertical economic associations allow labour and pricing, which is really a human to human relationship, not purely an economic one, to actually be aspects of a rights sector.
This is what the CSA is trying to do. Farming is primarily an economic venture. So is primarily working to be an association of producers and consumers. Currently, there aren’t any distributors, but someday that may change. In this association, one of the farmer’s tasks is to communicate about the gifts and limitations the natural base offers (this of course includes the weather), and to offer as transparently as possible the financial realities of the economic venture. The consumers need to communicate if the products of the farm are satisfying their needs. The open economic picture becomes a way of perceiving the health of the farm.
The way the CSA has an annual share price, has a relationship to the rights sector. Pricing is all about what is “fair.” This is a human to human relationship. The nature of farming, and particularly vegetable farming, is that yields can vary tremendously from year to year. The CSA share system is recognizing that sharing the risks and the bounties of the land is a more fair approach. This, though, changes the sense of responsibility of the farmer. The goals are not just to sell as much as possible at the best price possible, but to provide food for the people who support the farm. The financial arrangement of the CSA creates a sense of commitment both from the farmer to the members, and from the members to the farm.
There is so much more that could be said about threefolding, but I think I’ll stop here. One of the biggest challenges in understanding threefolding, is getting a sense of what the roles of each sector are. I’m still learning how to look at things this way. Often, people who are interested in this threefolding model, feel stumped that it is hard to implement anything without a large part of society and government also on board. But really, the government is only a third of the equation. Also, if we honour the spiritual freedom of each individual, this is not something that can be imposed on a group of people. What is most essential is that communities try to figure out what works and what encourages our sense of each other’s humanity, and what allows, as much as possible, for each of us to express our calling.
