Education for a threefold society

Freedom in thinking, equality in rights, fraternity in economic life

Courses, essays and videos on Rudolf Steiner’s threefold social order, and what it asks of how we live, learn, work and use money today.

[PORTRAIT OF RUDOLF STEINER]
Rudolf Steiner (1861–1925) Austrian philosopher, educator and founder of anthroposophy, best known today for Steiner (Waldorf) education and biodynamic farming. In 1919, amid the upheaval after the First World War, he set out the threefold social order in Towards Social Renewal. He argued that liberty, equality and fraternity cannot all be imposed on society as a whole; each belongs to its own self-governing sphere: freedom in cultural life, equality in the life of rights, fraternity in economic life. The first Waldorf school, founded that same year, grew directly out of this movement.

Three spheres, each free to breathe

After Steiner’s blackboard drawings, chalk on black

When the state runs culture, or the market runs our rights, something living hardens. The threefold social order lets each sphere govern itself, so no single power holds a person’s livelihood, rights and thinking at once.

  • Cultural life · Freedom
    Education, the arts, science and religion.
  • Rights life · Equality
    Law, government and human rights, decided equally.
  • Economic life · Fraternity
    Meeting one another’s needs through association.
Cultural life Freedom Economic life Fraternity Rights life Equality

Featured course

The Art of the Threefold Social Order

An introductory course for adults. Each session works through living pictures, conversation and contemplation, so the ideas reach thinking, feeling and will, and grow from one form into the next.

Cultural lifeFreedom
Rights lifeEquality
Economic lifeFraternity
  1. I

    The social question today

    Why so many sense society is not working, and what Steiner saw in 1919.

  2. II

    Three spheres, three ideals

    The threefold human being and the threefold social organism, side by side.

  3. III

    Money, value and the living economy

    Purchase, loan and gift money, and how value moves between the spheres.

  4. IV

    Becoming a social sculptor

    Bringing the ideas into daily choices, work and community.

Starts [START DATE] Format [ONLINE / IN PERSON] Investment [PRICE] Register your interest
The healing social life is found
when in the mirror of each human soul
the whole community finds its reflection,
and when in the community
the virtue of each one is living.
Rudolf Steiner, Motto of the Social Ethic

Essays & videos

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Lloyd, smiling, standing in front of a carved stone archway

About

Hi, I’m Lloyd

I’m a UK-qualified maths and economics teacher with ten years of experience in schools across the UK, Malaysia and Brunei, and a former IB Economics examiner. Today I teach in Steiner education on the Sunshine Coast, Queensland.

Synarchy Education brings these worlds together: the rigour of economics and the depth of Steiner’s social and spiritual thought, offered in a way you can carry into everyday life.

New essays and course dates, once a month

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