Balanced Economy

It has been 100 years since Rudolf Steiner introduced the breaking idea 'threefolding' of human life. The fundamentals are autonomy of cultural life (based on freedom), social life (based on equality), and economic life (based on brotherhood). He repeatedly emphasized that the threefolding of the social organism is absolutely necessary for the future of our society. Otherwise we inevitably face cultural death and social chaos. During his life Steiner did his utmost to realise this, but he experienced (too) much confusion from people. However, this does not detract from its valuable meaning. An important part of the social threefolding is the basic distinction between three qualities of money: gift-money, lend-money and buy-money. This booklet elaborates on this distinction in more detail and, with a concrete example, shows how this can be applied in practice e.g. in the structure and use of the balance sheet and the statement of income and expenditures. This elaboration yields some remarkable insights. The application has, among other things, major consequences for share trading, the current capital and income distribution and bank lending. A topical and important subject for all!