The educational alternatives movement is inspired by many visions of cultural renewal. Because standardized schooling embodies many of the destructive qualities of the industrial/technocratic worldview, such as hierarchy, competition, and reductionism, it breeds dissent and mutiny among all sorts of sensitive people who are exploring various cultural and philosophical alternatives.

There are libertarians who challenge the inflated authority of large institutions, progressives trying to build more democratic community life, child-centered developmentalists (some would call them romantics) who celebrate the “natural” rhythms of growth and learning, and still others who have found more hopeful worldviews in ecological principles or spiritual teachings.

While all these perspectives offer insightful and essential elements to a holistic critique of modern schooling, I am focusing here on the last one, specifically on a spiritual teacher who devised a remarkable analysis of power and authority in the modern world. Rudolf Steiner (1861-1925) was a philosopher, scholar and mystic from what was then Austria-Hungary who wrote and lectured extensively in the early years of the twentieth century. He inspired the development of Waldorf education, biodynamic agriculture, and various other cultural initiatives. Although I am not a follower of his complex, esoteric system of Anthroposophy (to be honest, I find most of it bewildering), I have always been intrigued by his theory of the “threefold” social order: his suggestion that a society is healthiest when its three primary functions, or spheres – economic, political, and cultural – are allowed to maintain their own integrity, without interference from the others.

I find this model to be a refreshingly radical analysis of our technocratic empire. It raises profound questions, which generally remain unasked, about the proper uses of power. The threefold approach is essentially a strategy of decentralization, analogous to the separation of powers written into the American Constitution, suggesting that there are natural limits to the concentration of authority in society. Steiner argued that each of the three spheres has a distinct function in the social order and can only fulfill its purpose by remaining independent of the other two.

The economic sphere, Steiner maintained, is concerned with the production and distribution of commodities, or more broadly with the relationship between human society and the material world. The political sphere is the domain of justice and human rights, or the relationships between people. The cultural sphere, represented by the arts and sciences, religion, and the practice of education and the healing arts, involves the spontaneous creative activity of the individual human mind. Each of these spheres operates according to its own inherent principles. Economic activity, which involves differential and fluctuating material values, should not influence political judgment, which must be based on absolute equality of legal rights, and neither of these modes of social endeavor should interfere with the creative freedom of the artist or scholar, educator or healer.

Economic and political endeavors use categories and criteria that are adequate and appropriate for dealing with the material world and social relations, respectively, but they cannot fathom the deeper sources of our ideas or emotions, our existential or spiritual striving. Trying to apply economic or political criteria to our intellectual, creative, or intuitive capacities, to our efforts to find value and meaning, can only reduce or distort these vital dimensions of our humanity. This is why the principle of academic freedom on university campuses has been held sacred, and it is why, according to threefold theory, education at all levels should be independent of the state – especially the corporate state.

As Steiner saw nearly a century ago, in modern society economic enterprise has spilled over its appropriate boundaries, and the result is that every aspect of our lives, including education, has become a commodity – something with a market value rather than intrinsic value. He commented that people in modern society are “so used up by the economic life that [they] can no longer feel [their] existence to be worthy of a human being.”1 That is to say, an authentic human existence is rooted in realities far deeper and more mysterious than the mechanical workings of the marketplace, and when we allow essential aspects of our culture to become commodified, we lose contact with these existential and spiritual sources.
A primary source of the empire’s power is the alliance between the corporate economy and the state. Their combined powers enable the corporate state to manipulate cultural institutions – the media, universities and research institutes (policy “think tanks” and scientific research), and schools – to further tighten its control over the entire society.    

The invasion of the educational process by economic and political forces is clearly evident in the standards-and-testing movement. The corporate state provides the funding for education, considering it an economic investment and expecting a good return. Young people are considered to be intellectual capital, their learning a product with a certain value to the economy. Knowledge is packaged and delivered, often through textbooks and other materials produced by corporations with political connections. Students and teachers are accountable to these investors, and must demonstrate their success in mastering the authorized body of knowledge.

But this orientation destroys what “education” in a free society, with a free cultural sphere, would be about. The corporate model fails to recognize the student as a unique individual, motivated by an inherent yearning to reach out to the world for purposeful understanding. Standardized schooling does not recognize learning as an organic, flowing relationship between person and world, and instead manages learning coercively. Rather than recognizing teaching as an art form, requiring a carefully honed sensitivity and thoughtful responsiveness, the current system treats teachers as mere technicians tending to the authorized lessons and administering the prescribed tests. In Steiner’s terms, education has been uprooted from the cultural sphere, where it belongs, and engulfed by the economic sphere, which turns it into a commodity, a soulless object to be bought and sold.

Renewing “organic” learning

There is a grassroots revolution taking place in education today, which seeks to return teaching and learning to the sphere of freedom and creativity. The educators, parents, and young people who have left public schooling for independent alternative schools or home schooling are not simply out to privatize the educational system, for this is still to treat learning as a commodity in the marketplace. Rather, they are intuitively responding to the awareness that Steiner articulated a century ago, that genuine learning is an organic, spontaneous, and deeply meaningful encounter that requires autonomy from the political and economic forces that have taken over public education. They have watched as children’s minds and hopes are consumed as fuel for the global economic machine, and they dispute the authority of the corporate state to do this.

There are many dedicated teachers in the public schools, many schools with strong roots in their communities (especially in Vermont), and many idealistic citizens and leaders who believe that a publicly funded system is the only equitable and democratic way to provide learning opportunities to all. But a more penetrating analysis, such as Steiner’s “threefold” model, reveals that this system has become increasingly dominated by forces that are not truly educational, and it has become more and more difficult to realize the public school ideal in a technocratic empire. The principle of noninterference between the distinct functions of society suggests that the corporate state is not the proper provider of a truly nourishing education. School and state need to be separated, just as church and state were separated, to preserve the autonomy of each.

This separation raises complicated questions about how society will provide educational opportunities to everyone. In the current economy, independent schools cost too much to be accessible to all, so in contrast to the original ideal of public education, they appear elitist. Steiner’s response was profoundly radical: He envisioned the economic sphere freely supporting the cultural sphere, with no strings attached; funding for education would not be an investment but would reflect authentic generosity toward this vital element of our common social life. Imagine an educational system fully supported through benevolence and generosity, accountable to young people and their families and communities, replacing a system that serves as an economic venture accountable to investors and technocrats.

Of course we have a lot of rethinking and planning to do to make such a system a reality; the transition will not be easy. But I am convinced that the path from corporate empire to a revitalized, locally rooted society demands this fundamental redesign of public education.

1.    Rudolf Steiner, The Threefold State: The True Aspect of the Social Question. London:  London and Norwich Press, (no date given), reprinted by Kessinger Publishing (no date given), p. 82.

Ron Miller has written several books on progressive and alternative
education, and is currently editor of Education Revolution magazine a
member of the Vermont Commons editorial board. He has taught at
Goddard, St. Michael’s, and Champlain colleges, and established the
Bellwether School in Williston.