"Spann's authoritarian-corporate holistic doctrine of universalism (also known as Spannism) was based on an ontological metaphysics that Spann created by connecting various lines of thought from politics, social science and economics. In terms of the history of ideas, his universalism was essentially based on Plato's theory of ideas, medieval German mysticism, Hegel's idealism and the philosophy of romanticism. He published works from these schools of thought in his multi-volume anthology Die Herdflamme.
Spann saw the most important task of universalism in 'overcoming individualistic social and economic theory'. During his academic career, Spann wrote numerous socio-political writings, of which his work The True State of 1921 is considered the most important. The term spannism is also used for universalism. In it he developed a 'social model based on medieval guilds, structured by estates and characterized by hierarchy, which, instead of equal voting rights for the citizens, knew the election of a supreme leader by the leaders of the diverse, structured masses and associations.' According to Spann, the people were neither constituted by the state, nor by race or language, but only through a 'spiritual community'. Spann saw this in the Germans in their ethnic 'people' and their 'people’s property'. This universalistic-idealistic social doctrine was directed against rationalism, liberalism, materialism and Marxism and called for a reorganization of state and society on a professional basis (corporate state).
The universalist teachings of Spann did not describe the world as an atomistic structure in the sense of market theory, but as an organic structure in the sense of structure theory. Within this organic whole, in which 'each individual member could only be adequately defined in relation to the unit superior to it', the hierarchically structured social unit took precedence over the individual. Spann thought of the economic system in a tiered structure with the world economy at the top, which is further subdivided in descending order into national economies, regional economies, business associations, companies and individual economists."
