Rudolf Steiner's Vision for the Future - Anthroposophical Society in ...

healthy social boundaries as a basis for this map. He explains
that clarifying boundaries not only prevents confusion and
disharmony, but also enables each sector to focus on what it
does best.
In the second section of the book, Large proceeds to use
the tripolar picture of society to analyze how and why negative
boundary-crossing takes place and what we can do
about it. He presents a summary and analysis of how corporations
and banks have captured the state, estranging it from
its guiding principle of equality, and provides a succinct and
helpful overview of the rise of corporate privilege and power,
of privatization, and of the fashioning of corporate execs into
government officials and back again. But fear not: Large is
as well versed as he is hopeful, so he also charts some of the
route toward establishing boundaries so that government can
maintain autonomy from the clutches of business and protect
freedoms and social justice.
Common Wealth includes equally vivid pictures of our
captive cultural life, systematically identifying the commercial
and political interests that stifle and constrain cultural freedom.
The author ambitiously tackles these issues in all their
complexity. A free cultural life, as he explains it, isn’t just
about some loose promotion of freedom and autonomy for
cultural organizations, the media, science,
and the arts. He brings fresh
data and commentary to bear upon
multiple issues, including both intellectual
and genetic commons; the privatization
of healthcare; and the
commercialization of childhood. In
his words, cultural life means “all the
activities that enable people to develop
their potential, to maintain their
health, wellbeing, and sense of meaning.
The argument is that the freer
and more independent from political
and/or corporate control they are, the
more vibrant our schools, arts, sports,
science and health will be.”
In the final chapter of part 2,
Large addresses capitalism gone wild,
unpacking our current economic
crises and touching on most of the hot-button themes on the
neoliberal agenda, such as deregulation, privatization, and
the rule of free markets. Here it may occasionally overwhelm
the American mind to navigate a text geared toward readers
in the United Kingdom with its emphasis on British history
and passages of unfamiliar facts, figures, and headlines. That
said, Large’s diagnoses and conclusions resound beyond geographic
or national borders, imploring us to inform our-
first issue 2011 • 47