Spontaneous order

Spontaneous order, also named self-organization in the hard sciences, is the spontaneous emergence of order out of seeming chaos. It is a process in social networks including economics, though the term "self-organization" is more often used for physical changes and biological processes, while "spontaneous order" is typically used to describe the emergence of various kinds of social orders from a combination of self-interested individuals who are not intentionally trying to create order through planning. The evolution of life on Earth, language, crystal structure, the Internet and a free market economy have all been proposed as examples of systems which evolved through spontaneous order.[1]

Spontaneous orders are to be distinguished from organizations. Spontaneous orders are distinguished by being scale-free networks, while organizations are hierarchical networks. Further, organizations can be and often are a part of spontaneous social orders, but the reverse is not true. Further, while organizations are created and controlled by humans, spontaneous orders are created, controlled, and controllable by no one. In economics and the social sciences, spontaneous order is defined as "the result of human actions, not of human design".[2]

Spontaneous order is an equilibrium behavior between self-interested individuals, which is most likely to evolve and survive, obeying the natural selection process "survival of the likeliest".[3]

History

According to Murray Rothbard, Zhuangzi (369–286 BCE) was the first to work out the idea of spontaneous order. The philosopher rejected the authoritarianism of Confucianism, writing that there "has been such a thing as letting mankind alone; there has never been such a thing as governing mankind [with success]." He articulated an early form of spontaneous order, asserting that "good order results spontaneously when things are let alone", a concept later "developed particularly by Proudhon in the nineteenth [century]".[4]

The thinkers of the Scottish Enlightenment developed and inquired into the idea of the market as a spontaneous order. In 1767, the sociologist and historian Adam Ferguson described society as the "result of human action, but not the execution of any human design".[5][6]

However, the term “spontaneous order” seems to have been coined by Michael Polanyi in his essay, “The Growth of Thought in Society,” Economica 8 (November 1941): 428–456.[7].

The Austrian School of Economics, led by Carl Menger, Ludwig von Mises and Friedrich Hayek made it a centerpiece in its social and economic thought. Hayek's theory of spontaneous order is the product of two related but distinct influences that do not always tend in the same direction. As an economic theorist, his explanations can be given a rational explanation. But as a legal and social theorist, he leans, by contrast, very heavily on a conservative and traditionalist approach which instructs us to submit blindly to a flow of events over which we can have little control.[8]

Examples

Markets

Many conservative theorists[9], such as Hayek, have argued that market economies are a spontaneous order, "a more efficient allocation of societal resources than any design could achieve."[10] They claim this spontaneous order (referred to as the extended order in Hayek's The Fatal Conceit) is superior to any order a human mind can design due to the specifics of the information required.[11] Centralized statistical data, they suppose, cannot convey this information because the statistics are created by abstracting away from the particulars of the situation.[12]

For Hayek, prices in a market economy are the aggregation of information acquired when the people who own resources are free to use their individual knowledge. Price then allows everyone dealing in a commodity or its substitutes to make decisions based on more information than he or she could personally acquire, information not statistically conveyable to a centralized authority. Interference from a central authority which affects price will have consequences they could not foresee because they do not know all of the particulars involved.

According to Barry this is illustrated in the concept of the invisible hand proposed by Adam Smith in The Wealth of Nations.[1] Thus in this view by acting on information with greater detail and accuracy than possible for any centralized authority, a more efficient economy is created to the benefit of a whole society.

Lawrence Reed, president of the Foundation for Economic Education, describes spontaneous order as follows:

Spontaneous order is what happens when you leave people alone—when entrepreneurs... see the desires of people... and then provide for them.

They respond to market signals, to prices. Prices tell them what's needed and how urgently and where. And it's infinitely better and more productive than relying on a handful of elites in some distant bureaucracy.[13]

Hayek, or at least his followers on the contemporary British and American political scene ‐ have wrongly inferred strong conclusions from these theories which are inimical to the welfare state by failing to reconcile the rule of law to social justice.[14]

Game studies

The concept of spontaneous order is closely related with modern game studies. As early as the 1940s, historian Johan Huizinga wrote that "in myth and ritual the great instinctive forces of civilized life have their origin: law and order, commerce and profit, craft and art, poetry, wisdom and science. All are rooted in the primeval soil of play." Following on this in his book The Fatal Conceit, Hayek notably wrote that "a game is indeed a clear instance of a process wherein obedience to common rules by elements pursuing different and even conflicting purposes results in overall order."

Anarchism
See also: Self-organization § Principles, and Anarchist symbolism § Circle-A

Anarchists argue that the state is in fact an artificial creation of the ruling elite, and that true spontaneous order would arise if it was eliminated. Construed by some but not all as the ushering in of organization by anarchist law. In the anarchist view, such spontaneous order would involve the voluntary cooperation of individuals. According to the Oxford Dictionary of Sociology, "the work of many symbolic interactionists is largely compatible with the anarchist vision, since it harbours a view of society as spontaneous order."[15]

Sobornost

The concept of spontaneous order can also be seen in the works of the Russian Slavophile movements and specifically in the works of Fyodor Dostoyevsky. The concept of an organic social manifestation as a concept in Russia expressed under the idea of sobornost. Sobornost was also used by Leo Tolstoy as an underpinning to the ideology of Christian anarchism. The concept was used to describe the uniting force behind the peasant or serf Obshchina in pre-Soviet Russia.[16]

Recent developments

Perhaps the most prominent exponent[17] of spontaneous order is Friedrich Hayek. In addition to arguing the economy is a spontaneous order, which he termed a catallaxy, he argued that common law[18] and the brain[19] are also types of spontaneous orders. In "The Republic of Science,"[20] Michael Polanyi also argued that science is a spontaneous order, a theory further developed by Bill Butos and Thomas McQuade in a variety of papers. Gus DiZerega has argued that democracy is the spontaneous order form of government,[21] David Emmanuel Andersson has argued that religion in places like the United States is a spontaneous order,[22] and Troy Camplin argues that artistic and literary production are spontaneous orders.[23] Paul Krugman too has contributed to spontaneous order theory in his book The Self-Organizing Economy,[24] in which he claims that cities are self-organizing systems. Credibility thesis suggests that the credibility of social institutions is the driving factor behind the endogenous self-organization of institutions and their persistence.[25]

The competitions between huge numbers of self-interested individuals will lead to many possible income distributions. Among all possible income distributions, exponential income distribution will occur with the highest probability. Following the natural selection process "survival of the likeliest", the exponential income distribution is most likely to evolve and survive, and hence is called the "Spontaneous Order" by Tao.[3] By analyzing datasets of household income from 66 countries and Hong Kong SAR, ranging from Europe to Latin America, North America and Asia, Tao et al found that, for all of these countries, the income distribution for the great majority of populations (low and middle income classes) follows an exponential income distribution.[26]

Criticism

One commentator states that (Hayek's) theory of spontaneous order, “the foundations of Hayek’s liberalism are so incoherent” because the “idea of spontaneous order lacks distinctness and internal structure.”[27]. The three components: lack of intentionality, the “primacy of tacit or practical knowledge,” and the “natural selection of competitive traditions.”. While the first feature, that social institutions may arise in some unintended fashion, is indeed an essential element of spontaneous order, the second two are only implications, not essential elements.[28]

Hayek's theory has also been criticized for not offering a moral argument, and his overall outlook contains “incompatible strands that he never seeks to reconcile in a systematic manner.” [29].

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See also

References
  1. Barry, Norman (1982). "The Tradition of Spontaneous Order". Literature of Liberty. 5 (2).
  2. Hayek, Friedrich A. (1969). Studies in Philosophy, Politics and Economics. Touchstone. p. 97. ISBN 978-0671202460.
  3. Yong Tao, Spontaneous economic order, Journal of Evolutionary Economics (2016) 26 (3): 467-500 https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00191-015-0432-6
  4. Rothbard, Murray. Concepts of the Role of Intellectuals in Social Change Toward Laissez Faire, The Journal of Libertarian Studies, Vol. IX No. 2 (Fall 1990)
  5. Adam Ferguson Archived 2007-05-09 at the Wayback Machine on The History of Economic Thought Website
  6. Ferguson, Adam (1767). An Essay on the History of Civil Society. The Online Library of Liberty: T. Cadell, London. p. 205.
  7. Straun Jacobs, “Michael Polanyi’s Theory of Spontaneous Orders,” Review of Austrian Economics 11, nos. 1–2 (1999): 111–127
  8. Barry, Norman (University of Buckingham) - Literature of Liberty; Vol. v, no. 2, pp. 7-58. Arlington, VA: Institute for Humane Studies Pub. Date 1982
  9. MACCORMICK, D.N. (1989), Spontaneous Order and the Rule of Law: Some Problems. Ratio Juris, 2: 41-54. doi:10.1111/j.1467-9337.1989.tb00025.x
  10. Hayek cited. Petsoulas, Christian. Hayek's Liberalism and Its Origins: His Idea of Spontaneous Order and the Scottish Enlightenment. Routledge. 2001. p. 2
  11. Hayek, F.A. The Fatal Conceit: The Errors of Socialism. The University of Chicago Press. 1991. p. 6.
  12. Hayek cited. Boaz, David. The Libertarian Reader. The Free Press. 1997. p. 220
  13. Stossel, John (2011-02-10) Spontaneous Order, Reason
  14. MACCORMICK, D.N. (1989), Spontaneous Order and the Rule of Law: Some Problems. Ratio Juris, 2: 41-54. doi:10.1111/j.1467-9337.1989.tb00025.x
  15. Marshall, Gordon; et al. (1998) [1994]. Oxford Dictionary of Sociology (2 ed.). Oxford: Oxford University Press. pp. 19–20. ISBN 978-0-19-280081-7.
  16. Faith and Order: The Reconciliation of Law and Religion By Harold Joseph p. 388 Berman Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Religion and law ISBN 0-8028-4852-4 https://books.google.com/books?id=j1208xA7F_0C&lpg=PA388&ots=p0N6U4zWbf&pg=PA388
  17. Hunt L. (2007) The Origin and Scope of Hayek’s Idea of Spontaneous Order. In: Hunt L., McNamara P. (eds) Liberalism, Conservatism, and Hayek’s Idea of Spontaneous Order. Palgrave Macmillan, New York
  18. The Constitution of Liberty; Law, Legislation and Liberty
  19. The Sensory Order
  20. http://fiesta.bren.ucsb.edu/~gsd/595e/docs/41.%20Polanyi_Republic_of_Science.pdf%5B%5D
  21. Persuasion, Power, and Polity
  22. Dizerega, Gus (2001-02-10). Persuasion, Power and Polity: A Theory of Democratic Self-Organization (Advances in Systems Theory, Complexity, and the Human Sciences) (9781572732575): Gus Dizerega, Alfonso Montuori: Books. ISBN 978-1572732575.
  23. "pp.195-211: Troy Earl Camplin". Studies in Emergent Order. 2010-08-20. Retrieved 2018-09-17.
  24. The Self-Organizing Economy
  25. Grabel, Ilene (2000). "The political economy of 'policy credibility': the new-classical macroeconomics and the remaking of emerging economies". Cambridge Journal of Economics. 24 (1): 1–19. CiteSeerX 10.1.1.366.5380. doi:10.1093/cje/24.1.1. Retrieved 20 October 2016.
  26. Yong Tao et al. Exponential structure of income inequality: evidence from 67 countries. Journal of Economic Interaction and Coordination (2017) https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs11403-017-0211-6
  27. ROLAND KLEY,HAYEK’S SOCIAL AND POLITICAL THOUGHT 194–211 (1994)
  28. John Gray, Twentieth Century: The Limits of Liberal Political Philosophy, in AN UNCERTAIN LEGACY,ESSAYS ON THE PURSUIT OF LIBERTY 193, 194 (Edward B. McLean ed., 1997)
  29. JEREMY SHEARMUR, HAYEK AND AFTER:HAYEKIAN LIBERALISM AS A RESEARCH PROGRAMME 177(1996)
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