ABSTRACT
Business, like politics, may interfere in the editing and publication of books. Often they intermingle, especially in our times, when business is so miscegenated with politics. We have reached a point where it is realistic to talk about a sophisticated “state capitalism” which has finally appropriated (or misappropriated) purely capitalist tools (Wooldridge, 2012). The 20th century witnessed huge and failed interference by some nations’ governments in art and science. In most cases, the interference resulted in more damage than repair, much less discovery. There were at least two exceptions, in the times of Maecenas and of the “enlightened despots”. The developed system of social exchange and trade known as “capitalism” proved, under a historical vertex, to be beneficial to some extent—when politics were kept at bay. Beethoven brought the bourgeois revolution to art, fully benefiting from the advantages of private enterprise. Nevertheless, people like Franz Schubert and Friedrich Nietzsche—to quote just two examples—did not find a suitable publisher. Schubert could count on a dozen friends who acted as both musicians and audience. They played the compositions of the gifted Franz along with him at events called by the very same friends “Schubertiades”. The small ensembles played mostly on Schubert’s own manuscripts. Through this seemingly fragile 50base his art was preserved in a spore-like state until it was discovered a century later. The not so impecunious Nietzsche had to deal with the indignity of having to pay to see his Also Sprach Zarathustra published in 1888—just 50 copies.
