I will start off this article by saying that i‘m not an expert in this topic, i'm not an expert in anything and this is not financial advice, take everything i say with a gigantic grain of salt and at the bottom i’ve linked a few things on this topic which may be of interest as further reading after this by people who know much more than i do.
So; with Anthroposophy, what is there to be learned about money?
What is Money?
This is a big question, it would be a valid thing to argue to say "nothing" or "whatever backs up the money" or "agreement that money is real", but Steiner says;
Money is nothing other than the externally expressed value that has been created through the division of labor, and that is transferred from one person to another.
Interesting. But we can go a bit further;
In capital, the separate elements are again gathered together into a total process. Capital formation is a synthesis — indeed, entirely a synthesis. And the one who appears in this way as someone whose work produces excess capital, who through the necessity of the emergence of money can transform his capital into money-capital, becomes the lender for someone who has nothing but spiritual capacity. The latter receives the money. That person is the proper representative of economic values that are brought forth through spirit.
We must view the matter economically. From a religious or ethical standpoint, money may be something ever so questionable; but from an economic standpoint, money is the spirit operative within the economic organism. It cannot be otherwise.
Thus, in the economic process, money must be created so that spirit can make its progress beyond the point where it only works upon nature. Spirit would remain in a primitive condition if it worked only upon natural materials. In order to pour the achievements of spiritual life back into the economic process, it must realize itself as money. Money is spirit realized.
But then the concrete returns again. At first, money is an abstraction — one can say: it is all the same whether I buy a piece of clothing for five francs or get my hair cut (not necessarily with one single haircut). I mean: money is indifferent to the use.
But the moment money returns to the human person, and thereby to the human spirit, at that moment money once again becomes something that acts economically in its concrete, particular character.
That is to say: the spirit is economically active within the money.
TLDR
When someone, through their initiative, brings in more money than they need, that money is capital; the dictionary says capital is;
Wealth in the form of money or other assets owned by a person or organization or available for a purpose such as starting a company or investing.
And that capital can be turned into money, which can be lent to people with initiative and spiritual capacity (intelligence, skill, creativity), platforming them and helping them bring their ideas down from their ideas into the material world. It’s an abstraction at first, it doesn’t care what it buys, but once a human uses it with intention, it becomes spirit at work in the economy.
- Capital = surplus money (or value) created by human ability.
- Money = money (obviously)
- Lending = passing spiritual capacity from one person to another.
- Money is “spirit made real” because it allows human creativity to keep circulating through the economic system.
The moment money is picked up and used by a real person with real initiative, it stops being an abstraction and becomes spirit acting economically.
Is that.. it?
Well. This description of money, to some, is a far cry from what money is to them, which is fair, so i think we can add the following modern considerations to the above theory;
- By most people, money is purely used as a purely material tool for transactions, getting the things they need to live and maybe a few things they want (like a paid subscription to the epoch or something), to the people who use money entirely in this way money has no other meaning than the coins in their pocket or the number on their phone. It's mildly Ahrimanic, but also it's also the way of thinking about money that basically every single modern financial institution is going with, which, most people will just go along with. If we change the way we think about money, and to some degree the way change the way we use it, though of course day-to-day transactions have always and will always be a thing, being more conscious of what money is what do with it, and how we can help the world with it; how we can use money for what it is.
- Wealth inequality is higher than it has ever been and people at the bottom and top see money through wildly different lenses. Those who were raised with less money sometimes have big problems in the way that they see it and use it, sometimes hoarding more than they need when they get it and being unhealthily frugal, or seeing it as the solution to all their problems, many also tend to not fully grasp how money works in organisations as they have spent so much time thinking with small amounts of money, large amounts spent on things that aren't super important seem completely insane. Those with raised with more on the other hand; many just don't understand the struggle of those with less, and have an equally unhealthy relationship with money in the sense that they just don't care because all the doors have been held open for them. Though of course these are GENERALISATIONS and don't apply to everyone obviously, people are individuals and have had different upbringings, educations, etc, etc, but speaking in general terms i think there's kind of a ahrimanic/luciferic spectrum here, and we should be aiming for the middle, furthest away from both of them which is just being more conscious about the way you use money and how your individual finances fit in the financial whole.
There is probably much more to be said here but i want to actually publish this article in a reasonable timeframe so i'm going to continue on, but i might come back and edit this at some point.
Something that is important to recognise here though is that whilst the description given by Steiner is half describing the reality of things and half describing what it should be like; Money is spirit realised, but this idea of lending is something that we have to consciously work on and do, and if we don't do it, then it doesn't happen.
Money also, on the whole, should always be flowing. From one good place to another, for good reasons. Money should not be hoarded. On an individual basis, and on an organisational basis also (i'll get into that later)
Threefold Money
And on the topic of things that apply both to individuals and organisations, here is something else; we can generally divide our use of money into three important categories;
Purchase Money
Purchase money is money used to buy things with. Obviously.
Purchase money corresponds to the legalsphere in social threefolding, if you know about all that stuff.
Loan Money
Loan money is money loaned and given to people with initiative, in the ways described above. But i feel that loan money also could be called investment money to reflect more how people use their money today, and how people talk about their money today.
I personally haven't really considered money in this way before, but thinking about it more brings to mind many ideas of new potential anthroposophical securities, but i'll leave that for now because again i don't want this article to be incredibly long and also i feel as if regulators would not like that idea as much as i do. Though maybe in the future...
Loan or Investment money corresponds to the economic sphere in social threefolding.
Gift Money
Gift money is money that supports the spiritual, the artistic, the cultural, and charity. So for example, if you signed up for a Seek subscription to the epoch, for only £33 (or equivalent in any other currency) a year on the membership tab, this would be gift money, supporting a cultural initiative to continue and grow.
Giving money at church, membership to the anthroposophical society, etc, etc, all are gift money. Trying to make money with gift money is probably not a good idea.
Gift money corresponds to the cultural or spiritual sphere in social threefolding.
Why do this?
Mixing up the purpose of money is, basically, bad. I'll explain;
If i were to pull money out of my investments to buy things (which sometimes is needed but let's say in this case it's not), it's just bad financial planning, on an individual level it's bad for my future, on a world-level if everyone did that they'd eventually not have any investments or savings, so anytime anyone got themselves into financial trouble, they wouldn't be able to do anything about it, and nobody would be able to help.
If i was given loan money for something, and i used it as my personal income to buy whatever i wanted rather than to start the initiative the funds were for in the first place, it would lead to a breaking-down of trust between lenders and borrowers, which, if enough people did it, could lead to many people being excluded from lending. And i would probably also find myself in court.
If i used gift money to buy art that i wanted to sell, i'm not supporting artists because i like them, i'm picking based off of money, not because i care about pure artistic expression. Small artists stop because they need to get a job, and big artists just get bigger and can do basically whatever they want. A good example of gift money used in a bad way is NFTs. While not all of them, many solicit and use gift money as investment or purchase money.
Hmm.. If only there was a TLDR red box somewhere around here that could explain all this pretty quickly...
So, what can we do personally and organisationally to put these insights (and the wider insights of anthroposophy) into practice with money?
Personally
Using money as an individual, just being more conscious is a start;
When you buy stuff, do you need it? Is whatever you're buying the best thing to buy?
When you invest in things, are they good things? Where does the money go? What does it do?
Are you using gift money as a gift? What are you expecting in return? Where does that money go?
I think i'll leave this section here, it isn't alot, but i think maybe in the future i'll write an article about using money anthroposophically as an individual if anyone is really interested.
Organisationally
There are a few kinds of organisations, and i want to cover as much ground as possible here so this will both be for buisinesses and charities, and also banks and financial institutions. Again this is not financial advice don't sue me please.
The below sections are basically just random suggestions that i personally think are good ideas.
Credit
This is one thing i'm really keen on trying to make a reality. No idea when, but i guess if you're an incredibly wealthy Anthroposophical individual and share this intrest, feel free to reach out. Unlikely, but "you don't ask, you don't get". Anyway, Anthroposophical financial institutions (in my humble opinion) need to;
- Guarantee credit. If money is the spirit moving economically, blocking anyone from access to credit is like deciding that they are untrustworthy and not worthy of being in society basically. Especially in the context of anthroposophical finance this means that you don't trust them at all. That isn't to say give everyone loads of money, but there's nothing to say you can't give someone a £1 credit limit.
- Give credit based on potential and past failures/successes, an evaluation of the whole person, their potential and their will, not strictly based on credit score and income.
- Acnowledging and not closing the doors to those who don't have "normal jobs" or normal income streams, basically being sensible with your requirements, manually reviewing applications.
- Help people to game mainstream lenders and improve their credit scores and how they appear to other lenders because most of that sector is evil and dead anyway
Obviously buisiness and personal credit will be different in the way you handle things and also obviously the way financially vunrable people will be handled is different to most people. There are lots of considerations and regulations in this area specifically, but the above principles are something to think about when trying to make finance anthroposophical.
Debit
Allow people full control of their money for free. People should get a debit card for free, and access to every fundemental banking feature for free.
It might be interesting to have different pots for purchase, investment, and gift money with different features.
Growth Spiral
Currently, the way that finances are organised in the Anthroposophical Movement is.. not very good. Grant-giving organisations, with not very good consistant income streams give grants to stuff, and slowly empty the money that they do have. But there is a way to make it better. In my opinion.
And another important principle of anthroposophical finance is that money should not be hoarded or kept stagnant. Money should flow, inwards and outwards, and it will grow while doing so.
M0re anthroposophical buisinesses is the key. These grant-giving organisations need to give grants and loans to anthroposophical buisinesses and startups, and those buisinesses establish themselves, and when they grow to a size that lets them, they donate to the grant-giving organsiations with their gift money. More money = more grants = more stuff happening = more money, etc etc.
So what we see happening is essentially a spiral of money that grows bigger and bigger with time.
Afterword
I understand that some things i've said here might seem weird or tone-deaf, but i think lots of things here are simply a matter of perspective, the amount of money is slightly irrelevant, these same principles can be applied to £5, £50, and £50,000. But think about it! Consider it! And it might come in useful one day.
If you're interested in learning a bit more about this, below are a few links that might be helpful;
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