More than any other single period, World War I was the critical watershed for the American business system. It was a “war collectivism,” a totally planned economy run largely by big-business interests through the instrumentality of the central government, which served as the model, the precedent, and the inspiration for state corporate capitalism for the remainder of the twentieth century.

INTRODUCTION

In contrast to older historians who regarded World War I as the destruction of progressive reform, I am convinced that the war came to the United States as the “fulfillment,” the culmination, the veritable apotheosis of progressivism in American life.1 I regard progres

Adams, Henry Carter, 106

Alexander, Magnus, 112

American Economic Association, 97

American Navy, 10

Naval Consulting Board, 10

See also Committee on Industrial Preparedness

American Press Association, 11

American Social Hygiene Association, 77

American Society for Sanitary and Moral Prophylaxis (ASSMP), 77

Anthony, Susan B., 67

SPONTANEOUS ORDER IN CULTURE

Edited by
Paul A. Cantor & Stephen Cox

LUDWIG VON MISES

Cover credit: The Money Lender and His Wife (oil on panel), Marinus van Reymerswaele (c. 1490–1567), Museo Nazionale del Bargello, Florence, Italy. The Bridgemann Art Library International. Permission granted.

© 2009 by the Ludwig von Mises Institute and published under the Creative Commons Attribution License 3.0. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/

Ludwig von Mises Institute
518 West Magnolia Avenue
Auburn, Alabama 36832
mises.org

ISBN: 978-1-933550-64-0

Acknowledgments

In preliminary versions, several of these essays were presented at conferences at the Ludwig von Mises Institute in Auburn, Alabama. In particular, “The Poetics of Spontaneous Order” was delivered as the Ludwig von Mises Memorial Lecture at the Austrian Scholars Conference on March 15, 2002. The contributors wish to express their gratitude to Lew Rockwell, Jeffrey Tucker, Judy Thommesen, Kathy White, and other members of the Institute for their support and encouragement of this project over the years.

Preface

This book explores the possibility that forms of economic thinking sympathetic to capitalism may be able to illuminate our understanding of literature in new ways. For example, the idea that free competition spurs creativity and progress in commerce and industry is well-established and well-documented. Might it be possible that competition is a healthy force in the cultural realm as well?

PAUL A. CANTOR

To find a form that accommodates the mess, that is the task of the artist now.

—Samuel Beckett

The task of art today is to bring chaos into order.

—Theodor Adorno