We must find our way into the true process of modern economic life, wherein no man has to provide for himself, but only for his fellow-men. We must realise how by this means each individual will, in fact, be provided for in the best possible way.
Ladies and gentlemen, this might easily be taken for a piece of idealism, but I beg you to observe once more: In this lecture I am speaking neither idealistically nor ethically, but from an economic point of view. What I have just said is intended in a purely economic sense. It is neither a God, nor a moral law, nor an instinct that calls for altruism in modern economic life — altruism in work, altruism in the production of goods. It is the modern division of labour — a purely economic category — that requires it.
Rudolf Steiner, lecture III, 26 juli 1922.
