Rudolf Steiner on Gifting

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"What are the most productive transformations of capital in the economic process? Follow out especially those portions of available capital which go into foundations, scholarships and other spiritual or cultural "goods" which in the course of time re-act to fertilise the whole process of spiritual production and enterprise of every kind. You will perceive that free gifts are the most fruitful thing of all in the whole economic process".

                                             R. Steiner, World Economy, Lecture IX.

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". . . All that we put into the educational system is a gift - notably when it is a question of a truly free spiritual-cultural life. When you give directly, your intelligence is in the process. As things are now, you do give, but the gift is absorbed into the general pool of taxation. It vanishes into a vague economic fog, and you do not observe what happens. So the situation runs wild. In the other case, conscious intelligence comes into it."

                                                              R. Steiner, World Economy, Lecture XII.

 

 

" . . . everything needed to sustain the cultural, spiritual sphere of life will accrue to it from payments made by individuals participating in the social organism, through their free appreciation and understanding. This spiritual, cultural sphere will have a sound basis in the individual initiatives of those capable of such work, which will arise in free competition. 

                                                             R. Steiner, Towards Social Renewal, p. 91.

 

Christopher Houghton Budd on Gifting 

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"Capital is gift because it must make a complete break with the past and be surrendered to the future. There is nothing in the past that tells what the future use of capital shall be. It should not pass over with any implied intention other that its own inherent purpose to unfold capacities. What these capacities are and in what direction they shall be employed cannot be known economically. It is gift because in gift one hands the baton over, so to speak, trusting to the best endeavours of the next runner". 

C.H. Budd, Prelude in Economics, Chapter 7 (based on the economic ideas of Rudolf Steiner).

 

"Capital belongs to and gravitates to the spirit in us, not to our social standing, ancestry or power base. And the spirit is at work in everyone . . . The great promise and potential of capital is that is always seeks the new in human beings, the uniqueness of their spirit".

C.H. Budd, Prelude in Economics, Chapter 8 (based on the economic ideas of Rudolf Steiner).

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