Social Threefolding is a principle and pedagogy first promoted in 1917 by Rudolph Steiner who is acknowledged as the founder of Anthroposophy. Social Threefolding posits that there are three spheres of influence that comprise our social life: the spheres of business, government and civil society. The key principle is the autonomous accountability and responsibilities of the individual spheres while also acknowledging the interdependence as well as the need for coordination and cooperation between the spheres.  We have chosen the Venn diagram to illustrate this relationship and specifically to highlight a paramount point of intersection between the three, which is our youth. 

Social Threefolding promotes the principle that the Civil Society is responsible for empowering the cultural life and it can only do this from a position of freedom. This impacts the other spheres of business and government as this cultural impulse flows into those realms as well. In the government sphere a more just legal and political system is created whereby individual freedoms are protected while the inherent rights and needs of society as a whole are attended to. In the business sphere we see a more socially responsible economy that is based on greater collaboration between producers, distributors, and consumers.  

As we instill the principles of Social Threefolding through our various education modalities, the youth are exposed to and encouraged in the practices of mutual respect, harmony, balance and creativity.  This is paramount because as youth they have not yet matriculated into the sphere of service and/or life work that they will later identify with.  Social Threefolding is strengthened generationally as we endeavor to promote this to our youth.  Thus, as they mature they are balanced, non-dominating, non-threatened, creative and free adults ready to make their contributions to society. 

The ultimate goal of Social Threefolding is a more cohesive and healthy society. The missing ingredient to this equilibrium is a self-aware and self-defining civil society that is cognizant of its own resources and responsibilities. This new paradigm of interaction upholds that the civil society organizations are only available to those relationships and agreements that are equitable, while also promoting harmony and mutual respect between the three spheres. Thus, Social Threefolding becomes a pathway for realizing the high ideals as articulated in the Declaration of Independence, “the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness” as well as the rallying cry of the French Revolution, “liberty, equality, fraternity”.