By the time Lippmann published The Good Society, which was partially serialized in the Atlantic Monthly before its fi nal publication in the fall of 1937, he had traveled further along the path that the Godkin Lectures had set. The transformation was partially inspired, he acknowledged in the opening pages of the book, by his readings in Austrian economics, and in par tic u lar by a volume edited by Hayek and published in 1935, Collectivist Economic Planning. “In a crude way I had discerned the inherent diffi culty of the planned economy,” Lippmann wrote to Hayek as the fi nal proofs of the book were being submitted to the publisher, “but without the help I have received from you and from Professor von Mises, I could never have developed the argument.” On the American side Lippmann had been “greatly helped” by his readings of Henry Simons's essays and pamphlets, and the two of them had initiated an active correspondence.

Angus Burgin, The Great Persuasion, loc. 154