World Economy Weekend Intensive On the weekend of November 14 - 16, 2008 the so called G-20 met in Washington, D.C. to discuss and determine the global financial system as it is now understood and manipulated. Meanwhile, at the E.F. Schumacher Library in South Egremont, Massachusetts 28 young people came together to spend that same weekend intensively studying the fourteen lectures of Rudolf Steiner's 1922 course on World Economy, wrestling with Dr. Steiner's attempt to lay the groundwork for a science of economics based on reality. The weekend was organized by Think OutWord, a peer-led training in social threefolding with an emphasis on practical self-education, and co-sponsored and hosted by the E.F. Schumacher Society. A remarkable situation arose from this intense and focused thinking (spiritual activity) where all who were present in the circle contributed toward what one could refer to as an objective spiritual striving, where each participant, even in silence, actively assumed the roles of both instructor and student. Living thinking pulsed through the circle and at times united us in a way that many had never experienced before. It was, as one participant remarked, "powerful medicine." Mention should be made of the last presentation of the weekend given by the Executive Director of the E.F. Schumacher Society, Susan Witt, on the 14th and final lecture of the series. Here Steiner summarizes the content of the course thus far and speaks, after having built up the possibility of doing so, more penetratingly and openly than perhaps anywhere else of the nature and quality of Money in relation to humans and their Labor. Some of the heartfelt and tremendously humble words spoken by Steiner at the close of the original course were read by Ms. Witt to close our time together studying these vital and important lectures. After these words were read there came, instead of the immediate and somewhat urgent discussion that had marked our meeting thus far and moved us forward in thought throughout the weekend, a profound pause and the only true silence of our time spent together as we each began to surmise the significance of what we had just experienced and the challenges that stand before us all.
By John Scott Legg
A good deal of challenging material was dealt with in a short amount of time thanks to a simple but highly effective format, together with the goodwill and presence of mind of all who participated. A prepared presentation was given for each lecture by a different participant who had worked especially intensely with that particular lecture. These presentations were followed (and very often interspersed) with lively and enlightening questions and conversations that ultimately deepened our understanding of the material and led us further into the ever-moving workings of the living economic organism. Widely diverse backgrounds and experiences in working with economic and social thought in general, and Steiner's economic and social thought in particular, contributed to healthy and lively interchanges and real progress as we collectively sought to grasp hold of the economic process, as it has come about historically and how it exists today. The presentations and subsequent discussions were living demonstrations (or at least the beginnings) of exactly the mobile and flexible thinking needed to deal with, for example, the "cardinal question" of Price.
