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Spontaneous order, also named self-organization in the hard sciences, is the spontaneous emergence of order out of seeming chaos. 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 in human social networks from the behavior of a combination of self-interested individuals who are not intentionally trying to create order through planning. Proposed examples of systems which evolved through spontaneous order or self-organization include the evolution of life on Earth, language, crystal structure, the Internet, Wikipedia, and free market economy.
In economics and the social sciences, spontaneous order has been defined by Hayek as "the result of human actions, not of human design".
In economics, spontaneous order has been defined as an equilibrium behavior among self-interested individuals, which is most likely to evolve and survive, obeying the natural selection process "survival of the likeliest".
History
According to Murray Rothbard, the philosopher Zhuangzi (c. 369–286 BC) was the first to propose the idea of spontaneous order. Zhuangzi 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]".
In 1767, the sociologist and historian Adam Ferguson within the context of Scottish Enlightenment described society as the "result of human action, but not the execution of any human design".
Jacobs has suggested that the term "spontaneous order" was effectively coined by Michael Polanyi in his essay, "The Growth of Thought in Society," Economica 8 (November 1941): 428–56.
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.
Proposed examples
Markets
Many classical-liberal theorists, such as Hayek, have argued that market economies are a spontaneous order, and that they represent "a more efficient allocation of societal resources than any design could achieve." 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. Centralized statistical data, they suppose, cannot convey this information because the statistics are created by abstracting away from the particulars of the situation.
According to Norman P. Barry, this is illustrated in the concept of the invisible hand proposed by Adam Smith in The Wealth of Nations.
Lawrence Reed, president of the Foundation for Economic Education, a libertarian think tank in the United States, argues that spontaneous order "is what happens when you leave people alone—when entrepreneurs... see the desires of people... and then provide for them." He further claims that "[entrepreneurs] 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."
Anarchism
Anarchists argue that the state is in fact an artificial creation of the ruling elite, and that true spontaneous order would arise if it were eliminated. This is 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."
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.
Other examples
Perhaps the most prominent exponent 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 and the brain are also types of spontaneous orders. In The Republic of Science,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, David Emmanuel Andersson has argued that religion in places like the United States is a spontaneous order, and Troy Camplin argues that artistic and literary production are spontaneous orders.Paul Krugman has also contributed to spontaneous order theory in his book The Self-Organizing Economy, 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.
Different rules of game would cause different types of spontaneous order. If an economic society obeys the equal-opportunity rules, the resulting spontaneous order is reflected as an exponential income distribution; that is, for an equal-opportunity economic society, the exponential income distribution is most likely to evolve and survive. 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 structure for the great majority of populations (low and middle income classes) follows an exponential income distribution.
Criticism
Roland Kley writes about Hayek's theory of spontaneous order that "the foundations of Hayek's liberalism are so incoherent" because the "idea of spontaneous order lacks distinctness and internal structure." The three components of Hayek's theory are 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.
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."
Abby Innes has criticised many of the economic ideas as a fatal confrontation between economic libertarianism and reality, arguing that it represents a form of materialist utopia that has much in common with Soviet Russia
See also
- Anonymous
- Deregulation
- Emergence
- Élan vital
- Free price system
- "I, Pencil" by Leonard Read
- Mutual aid
- Natural law
- Natural order
- Revolutionary spontaneity
- Stigmergy
- Tragedy of the commons
- Wu wei (Effortless Action)
References
- Barry, Norman (1982). "The Tradition of Spontaneous Order". Literature of Liberty. 5 (2).
- "Wikipedia's Model Follows Hayek". The Wall Street Journal. April 15, 2009.
- Hayek, Friedrich A. (1969). Studies in Philosophy, Politics and Economics. Touchstone. p. 97. ISBN 978-0671202460.
- Tao, Yong (2016-07-01). "Spontaneous economic order". Journal of Evolutionary Economics. 26 (3): 467–500. arXiv:1210.0898. doi:10.1007/s00191-015-0432-6. ISSN 1432-1386.
- 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)
- Adam Ferguson Archived 2007-05-09 at the Wayback Machine on The History of Economic Thought Website
- Ferguson, Adam (1767). An Essay on the History of Civil Society. The Online Library of Liberty: T. Cadell, London. p. 205. Archived from the original on 2013-06-01. Retrieved 2009-08-02.
- Straun Jacobs, "Michael Polanyi's Theory of Spontaneous Orders," Review of Austrian Economics 11, nos. 1–2 (1999): 111–127
- Barry, Norman (University of Buckingham) Literature of Liberty; Vol. v, no. 2, pp. 7–58. Arlington, VA: Institute for Humane Studies Pub. 1982
- 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
- Hayek cited. Petsoulas, Christian. Hayek's Liberalism and Its Origins: His Idea of Spontaneous Order and the Scottish Enlightenment. Routledge. 2001. p. 2
- Hayek, F.A. The Fatal Conceit: The Errors of Socialism. The University of Chicago Press. 1991. p. 6.
- Hayek cited. Boaz, David. The Libertarian Reader. The Free Press. 1997. p. 220
- Stossel, John (2011-02-10) Spontaneous Order, Reason
- Marshall, Gordon; et al. (1998) [1994]. Oxford Dictionary of Sociology (2 ed.). Oxford: Oxford University Press. pp. 19–20. ISBN 978-0192800817.
- Faith and Order: The Reconciliation of Law and Religion By Harold Joseph p. 388 Berman Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Religion and law ISBN 0802848524 https://books.google.com/books?id=j1208xA7F_0C&pg=PA388
- Hunt L. (2007) "The Origin and Scope of Hayek's Idea of Spontaneous Order". In: Hunt L., McNamara P. (ed.) Liberalism, Conservatism, and Hayek's Idea of Spontaneous Order. New York: Palgrave Macmillian [page needed][ISBN missing]
- The Constitution of Liberty; Law, Legislation and Liberty
- The Sensory Order
- "Archived copy" (PDF). fiesta.bren.ucsb.edu. Archived from the original (PDF) on 25 July 2011. Retrieved 14 January 2022.
{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link) - Persuasion, Power, and Polity
- Dizerega, Gus (2001). Persuasion, Power and Polity: A Theory of Democratic Self-Organization (Advances in Systems Theory, Complexity, and the Human Sciences): Gus Dizerega, Alfonso Montuori: Books. Hampton Press. ISBN 978-1572732575.
- "pp. 195–211: Troy Earl Camplin". Studies in Emergent Order. 2010-08-20. Retrieved 2018-09-17.
- The Self-Organizing Economy
- 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.
- Yong Tao, et al. "Exponential structure of income inequality: evidence from 67 countries". Journal of Economic Interaction and Coordination (2017)
- Kley, Roland (1994), Hayek's Social and Political Thought. pp. 194–211[ISBN missing]
- Gray, John (1997). "Twentieth Century: The Limits of Liberal Political Philosophy", in An Uncertain Legacy, Essays on the Pursuit of Liberty. pp. 193–94. (Edward B. McLean, ed.)[ISBN missing]
- Shearmur, Jeremy (1996). Hayek and After: Hayekian Liberalism as Research Programme, p. 177.[ISBN missing]
- Abby Innes 'Late Soviet Britain' Cambridge University Press 2023
This article or section possibly contains original synthesis Source material should verifiably mention and relate to the main topic Relevant discussion may be found on the talk page June 2024 Learn how and when to remove this message This article needs additional citations for verification Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources Unsourced material may be challenged and removed Find sources Spontaneous order news newspapers books scholar JSTOR January 2017 Learn how and when to remove this message Spontaneous order also named self organization in the hard sciences is the spontaneous emergence of order out of seeming chaos 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 in human social networks from the behavior of a combination of self interested individuals who are not intentionally trying to create order through planning Proposed examples of systems which evolved through spontaneous order or self organization include the evolution of life on Earth language crystal structure the Internet Wikipedia and free market economy In economics and the social sciences spontaneous order has been defined by Hayek as the result of human actions not of human design In economics spontaneous order has been defined as an equilibrium behavior among self interested individuals which is most likely to evolve and survive obeying the natural selection process survival of the likeliest HistoryAccording to Murray Rothbard the philosopher Zhuangzi c 369 286 BC was the first to propose the idea of spontaneous order Zhuangzi 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 In 1767 the sociologist and historian Adam Ferguson within the context of Scottish Enlightenment described society as the result of human action but not the execution of any human design Jacobs has suggested that the term spontaneous order was effectively coined by Michael Polanyi in his essay The Growth of Thought in Society Economica 8 November 1941 428 56 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 Proposed examplesMarkets Many classical liberal theorists such as Hayek have argued that market economies are a spontaneous order and that they represent a more efficient allocation of societal resources than any design could achieve 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 Centralized statistical data they suppose cannot convey this information because the statistics are created by abstracting away from the particulars of the situation According to Norman P Barry this is illustrated in the concept of the invisible hand proposed by Adam Smith in The Wealth of Nations Lawrence Reed president of the Foundation for Economic Education a libertarian think tank in the United States argues that spontaneous order is what happens when you leave people alone when entrepreneurs see the desires of people and then provide for them He further claims that entrepreneurs 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 Anarchism Anarchists argue that the state is in fact an artificial creation of the ruling elite and that true spontaneous order would arise if it were eliminated This is 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 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 Other examples Perhaps the most prominent exponent 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 and the brain are also types of spontaneous orders In The Republic of Science 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 David Emmanuel Andersson has argued that religion in places like the United States is a spontaneous order and Troy Camplin argues that artistic and literary production are spontaneous orders Paul Krugman has also contributed to spontaneous order theory in his book The Self Organizing Economy 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 Different rules of game would cause different types of spontaneous order If an economic society obeys the equal opportunity rules the resulting spontaneous order is reflected as an exponential income distribution that is for an equal opportunity economic society the exponential income distribution is most likely to evolve and survive 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 structure for the great majority of populations low and middle income classes follows an exponential income distribution CriticismRoland Kley writes about Hayek s theory of spontaneous order that the foundations of Hayek s liberalism are so incoherent because the idea of spontaneous order lacks distinctness and internal structure The three components of Hayek s theory are 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 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 Abby Innes has criticised many of the economic ideas as a fatal confrontation between economic libertarianism and reality arguing that it represents a form of materialist utopia that has much in common with Soviet RussiaSee alsoAnonymous Deregulation Emergence Elan vital Free price system I Pencil by Leonard Read Mutual aid Natural law Natural order Revolutionary spontaneity Stigmergy Tragedy of the commons Wu wei Effortless Action ReferencesBarry Norman 1982 The Tradition of Spontaneous Order Literature of Liberty 5 2 Wikipedia s Model Follows Hayek The Wall Street Journal April 15 2009 Hayek Friedrich A 1969 Studies in Philosophy Politics and Economics Touchstone p 97 ISBN 978 0671202460 Tao Yong 2016 07 01 Spontaneous economic order Journal of Evolutionary Economics 26 3 467 500 arXiv 1210 0898 doi 10 1007 s00191 015 0432 6 ISSN 1432 1386 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 Adam Ferguson Archived 2007 05 09 at the Wayback Machine on The History of Economic Thought Website Ferguson Adam 1767 An Essay on the History of Civil Society The Online Library of Liberty T Cadell London p 205 Archived from the original on 2013 06 01 Retrieved 2009 08 02 Straun Jacobs Michael Polanyi s Theory of Spontaneous Orders Review of Austrian Economics 11 nos 1 2 1999 111 127 Barry Norman University of Buckingham Literature of Liberty Vol v no 2 pp 7 58 Arlington VA Institute for Humane Studies Pub 1982 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 Hayek cited Petsoulas Christian Hayek s Liberalism and Its Origins His Idea of Spontaneous Order and the Scottish Enlightenment Routledge 2001 p 2 Hayek F A The Fatal Conceit The Errors of Socialism The University of Chicago Press 1991 p 6 Hayek cited Boaz David The Libertarian Reader The Free Press 1997 p 220 Stossel John 2011 02 10 Spontaneous Order Reason Marshall Gordon et al 1998 1994 Oxford Dictionary of Sociology 2 ed Oxford Oxford University Press pp 19 20 ISBN 978 0192800817 Faith and Order The Reconciliation of Law and Religion By Harold Joseph p 388 Berman Wm B Eerdmans Publishing Religion and law ISBN 0802848524 https books google com books id j1208xA7F 0C amp pg PA388 Hunt L 2007 The Origin and Scope of Hayek s Idea of Spontaneous Order In Hunt L McNamara P ed Liberalism Conservatism and Hayek s Idea of Spontaneous Order New York Palgrave Macmillian page needed ISBN missing The Constitution of Liberty Law Legislation and Liberty The Sensory Order Archived copy PDF fiesta bren ucsb edu Archived from the original PDF on 25 July 2011 Retrieved 14 January 2022 a href wiki Template Cite web title Template Cite web cite web a CS1 maint archived copy as title link Persuasion Power and Polity Dizerega Gus 2001 Persuasion Power and Polity A Theory of Democratic Self Organization Advances in Systems Theory Complexity and the Human Sciences Gus Dizerega Alfonso Montuori Books Hampton Press ISBN 978 1572732575 pp 195 211 Troy Earl Camplin Studies in Emergent Order 2010 08 20 Retrieved 2018 09 17 The Self Organizing Economy 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 Yong Tao et al Exponential structure of income inequality evidence from 67 countries Journal of Economic Interaction and Coordination 2017 Kley Roland 1994 Hayek s Social and Political Thought pp 194 211 ISBN missing Gray John 1997 Twentieth Century The Limits of Liberal Political Philosophy in An Uncertain Legacy Essays on the Pursuit of Liberty pp 193 94 Edward B McLean ed ISBN missing Shearmur Jeremy 1996 Hayek and After Hayekian Liberalism as Research Programme p 177 ISBN missing Abby Innes Late Soviet Britain Cambridge University Press 2023
