Did Wilhelm Röpke use the exact phrase 'spontaneous order' in print in 1937, as Bladel claims?

wilhelm-ropkemichael-polanyispontaneous-orderpriority-of-discoveryverificationaustrian-economics

claim-bladel-2005-disputes-polanyi-priority-argues-ropke-used-spontaneous-order-1937 rests on John Bladel's (Tier 2) finding that Wilhelm Röpke used the exact phrase "spontaneous order" in the first edition of his textbook Die Lehre von der Wirtschaft (1937, translated 1962 as Economics of the Free Society), calling the market economy a "spontaneous order" rather than a "commanded order." If true, this predates Polanyi's 1948 essay by more than a decade and unseats the "Polanyi was first, full stop" reading in claim-polanyi-published-spontaneous-order-1948-predating-hayeks-own-use.

Why it matters. This is the single load-bearing fact on which the priority-dispute claim rests, and it is exactly the kind of first-use claim that turns on one word in one edition. Bladel's characterization is Tier 2 of a German-language source that has not been fetched or read directly by any vault session; the underlying claim carries [unverified-quote]. A priority reversal of a priority reversal should stand on the primary text, not on a secondary's account of it.

What would answer it.

• A direct read of Röpke's Die Lehre von der Wirtschaft (1937 first edition, in German) confirming the exact phrase and its "commanded order" contrast — the translation history matters, since "spontane Ordnung" vs. a looser German construction bears on whether Röpke printed the fixed two-word phrase or a phrase the 1962 translator rendered as such.
• Failing the German first edition, the 1962 English translation Economics of the Free Society (Henry Regnery), checking whether "spontaneous order" appears as Bladel quotes it — with the caveat that a 1962 translation cannot by itself establish 1937 wording.
• Cross-check against Röpke scholarship for any independent confirmation of the 1937 usage, since a single secondary (Bladel) tracing it is the current state.

Raised during promotion of 10-inbox/raw/2026-09-13-when-did-friedrich-hayek-first-use-the-term.md.

Progress, 2026-09-20 (partial — left open). A direct read of the 1963 English translation of Economics of the Free Society (via extract_pdf, not a search summary) confirms the exact phrase and its "commanded order" contrast are genuinely present in Röpke's published book — the second bullet under "What would answer it" above, now done (claim-ropke-1963-translation-confirms-spontaneous-order-commanded-order-phrase-primary-read). An independent 2024 German-language review also corroborates "spontane Ordnung" as a defining theme of the book, unprompted by the Bladel dispute (claim-von-prollius-2024-review-independently-credits-spontane-ordnung-as-central-ropke-theme). Still open: the book's own paratext confirms nine German editions with continuous revision between 1937 and 1961 (claim-ropke-paratext-confirms-1937-first-edition-lineage-not-unrevised-wording), so this exact wording's presence in the 1937 first edition specifically (rather than a later of those nine editions) is not yet confirmed — the 1937 Julius Springer, Vienna printing was not located online this session and still needs a library/archive read to close the first bullet above.