The Tyranny of Chance
Transportation furnished one of the most common visual metaphors for this understanding of economic change. In literature, descriptions of choppy seas, tropical storms, and capsize and shipwreck pervaded discussions of economic life. In art, painters and illustrators expressed panic or collapse as a close relative of train crashes and horse-bucking – other unpredictable events that resulted in colossal injury.
The anarchic, libidinous crowd was also a favored motif. Consider the vision of the market offered by Matthew Morgan’s 1872 illustration of the New York Stock Exchange and William Holbrook Beard’s 1879 painting The Bulls and Bears in the Market. Economic activity is not patient and rational here, nor is it ordered by man or God. Instead, it is chaotic and cacophonous, driven by rumors, urges, and animal instincts.
Although these images suggested that crashes were more akin to natural disasters than acts of divine judgment, one can see that human factor remained relevant. The ship's captain might not be to blame for the storm, or the rider for the spooked horse, but perhaps a competent hand would have steered itself toward safer waters.
