Walther Rathenau, author of _Die neue Gesellschaft_ and other studies
of economic and social conditions in modern Germany, was born in 1867.
His father, Emil Rathenau, was one of the most distinguished figures
in the great era of German industrial development, and his son was
brought up in the atmosphere of hard work, of enterprise, and of
public affairs. After his school days at a _Gymnasium_, or classical
school, he studied mathematics, physics and chemistry at the
Universities of Berlin and of Strassburg, taking his degree at the age
of twenty-two. Certain discoveries made by him in chemistry and
electrolysis led to the establishment of independent manufacturing works,
which he controlled with success, and eventually to his connexion with
the world-famous A.E.G.--_Allgemeine Electrizitätsgesellschaft_--at
the head of which he now stands. During the war he scored a very
remarkable and exceptional success as controller of the organization
for the supply of raw materials. He is thus not merely a scholar and
thinker, but one who has lived and more than held his own in the thick
of commercial and industrial life, and who knows by actual experience
the subject-matter with which he deals.
The present study, with its wide outlook and its resolute
determination to see facts as they are, should have much value for all
students of latter-day politics and economics in Europe; for though
Rathenau is mainly concerned with conditions in his own land the same
conditions affect all countries to a greater or less degree, and he
deals with general principles of human psychology and of economic law
which prevail everywhere in the world. It is not too much to say that
"The New Society" constitutes a landmark in the history of economic
and social thought, and contains matter for discussion, for sifting,
for experiment and for propaganda which should occupy serious thinkers
and reformers for many a day to come. His suggestions and conclusions
may not be all accepted, or all acceptable, but few will deny that
they constitute a distinct advance in the effort to bring serious and
disinterested thought to the solution of our social problems, and in
this conviction we offer the present complete and authorized
translation to English readers.