The Immortality of Living Beings
The article: The Necessity of Spiritual Science
Chapter 11
How democracy and communism have become the opposite of what they were intended to be
Real democracy and communism are thus exactly the opposite of the existing political systems of today the world over. Today the government of each state has become a power-group with a more or less open or camouflaged dictatorial authority and expression, while the mass of citizens to a corresponding degree are enslaved in a more or less open or camouflaged way by the above-mentioned power-group. Against this power-group the individual is quite unprotected in ratio to the dictatorial authority of this group. That such political systems do not constitute "peace" but "war" is a matter of course. The fact that the right to vote or freedom of choice exists within the so-called democratic countries has not resulted in securing a form of government that could remove the dictatorial restrictions, injunctions, encroachments on private property and financial circumstances that have become prevalent in all countries. It has likewise become evident that trade-union movements, employers' unions, strikes and lock-outs have also been unable to create peace within society. Wage-increases and price-rises have become an endless spiral that in no way whatsoever guarantees security for its originators. Everything within the democratic states runs counter to democracy, just as everything within the communist states runs counter to real communism. Are there not in the communist countries the same class differences as in the democratic states? Are there not here an upper class and a lower class, a nobility and a proletariat, which can be compared with the class differences that existed under the kings of the great absolute monarchies? Neither democracy nor communism are any longer the elevated ideals they were intended to be from the start. This is why the prevailing political structures of today from idealistic beginnings have gradually, as previously mentioned, ended up in a crash-dive towards an abyss, a dive towards war and mutilation, a dive towards a total cessation of real cultural manifestation or creation, a dive towards that "doomsday" that has already begun to ruin the most efficient dictatorial states and has brought their relentless dictators to a degrading death or annihilation in the form of murder and suicide, and their henchmen to death on the scaffold as war-criminals.