ABSTRACT
László Moholy-Nagy, the Hungarian artist and designer who introduced the German Bauhaus pedagogy of Weimar-era Germany to America during the Great Depression, summed up his life’s work teaching applied industrial arts in the interest of social progress in Vision in Motion, his final book, published shortly after his death from leukemia in 1946. 1 The book is a clear statement of the ways in which social-democratic ideas were an essential part of modern industrial progress. With conscious effort, Moholy-Nagy believed that the ideals of community and cooperation could be incorporated into the organization of Western, capitalistic business enterprises as a way of promoting holistic thinking and avoiding the limits of overly narrow specialization. The ultimate goal was the mass production of high-quality, well-designed goods that were widely available to ordinary consumers.
