A contribution of thoughts about conversation and society.  This was prompted by a comparison of conversation with the economic life and specifically thinking of conversation as a kind of flow of currency.

Steiner talks of an organic threefolding of society into spiritual (liberty), rights (equality) and economic (fraternity).  Human activities are typically participating in all three realms to some extent.  Even the Christian Community I attend reaches into the rights realm (e.g. as an incorporated association it has a legal status in Australia) and the economic realm (the needs of the congregation, priest, members and friends being the main focus in this area).  Its functioning in the spiritual realm is (I hope) obvious.

Likewise Steiner talks of the threefolding of the human body into limbic system (willing), rhythmic breathing/circulatory system (feeling) and nerves/senses system (thinking).  Any one part of the body - an arm for example - is not involved only in one of the three intertwined systems but to some extent in all three.  The arm is primarily an organ of the limbic system/willing but obviously functions within the nerve/sense and circulatory/breathing systems also.

So on to conversation and speech as a human activity viewed from the point of view of the threefold society - obviously in one sense conversation or speech is quite versatile because it can work in the spiritual realm (e.g. the Christian Community sacraments, a play, a poem or a study group), the rights realm (e.g. a court case or refereeing a football match) or the economic realm (e.g. ringing up a call center to get assistance or buying fruit and vegetables at the local market).  And any given conversation can easily move from one to the other in the twinkling of an eye, or even cover all three at once.

If I think now of my experience of the Christian Community Sacrament, I would experience it as quite "wrong" if our priest were in the middle of elevating the host (for example) and suddenly started humming her favourite tune, for example.  I think that is the kind of thing you may be talking about when you speak of an economy of words (and actions) in conversation - in the spiritual realm things actually get quite demanding and this is where the principle of "right speech" finds its home.

I know people will take this the wrong way so let me give another example - if I write a poem I will try for an economy of words again.  This means that I want neither too much nor too little but just what is required.  That is simply dictated by the poem itself, which I am trying to bring into being, and it is a paradox that the realm of greatest liberty (the spiritual realm) is the one which also demands the greatest rigorousness and exactness to bring it to fruition.

On the other hand, if I am speaking with a dearly beloved friend on equal terms, I experience a different kind of freedom - typically I do not address them as if I were a poet or priest but as a feeling participator, as one who "goes with the flow" as it were, and listens and speaks with warmth, respect and love.

And then again when I am an economic consumer (in conversation this could be an expression of a need, for example, or a question), I am asking for something, I can experience this as a lowering of myself beneath another being and the best way to do this from my experience is in a spirit of gratitude.  The least thing I receive each day, each moment, can be experienced as a gift, as a grace from the spiritual worlds as well as from the hand of my benefactor.

I am quite deliberately conflating speech and conversation in the above because to me they are intertwined and both need to be imagined to get a fuller picture and understanding - after all the Gospel of John starts with "in the beginning was the Word" not "in the beginning was the conversation"!