Flowers

Rudolf Steiner’s teaching on economics, along with his broader social theory of “threefolding,” inspired the emergence of green banking and community-supported agriculture in the 1970s and 1980s. Steiner taught that economics, politics, and culture represent three distinct social spheres, each with its own inner processes; he also taught that the economic sphere should be characterized by “fraternal” cooperation. This idea inspired a cluster of short-lived cooperative enterprises just after World War I and was revived with greater success beginning in the 1970s. Anthroposophical banks and social finance organizations include GLS Bank, Triodos Bank, and RSF Social Finance in the United States. The cooperative principles that govern the banks contributed to the evolution of social entrepreneurship and “B-corps” and inspired biodynamic farmers to create community-supported agriculture, in which a community of consumers shares the costs and risks of maintaining a farm.