Spontaneous order
Encyclopedia
Spontaneous order, also known as "self-organization
", is the spontaneous emergence of order out of seeming chaos. It is a process found in physical, biological, and social networks, as well as economics, though the term "self-organization" is more often used for physical 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
, the Internet
and a free market
economy
have all been proposed as examples of systems which evolved through spontaneous order. Naturalists
often point to the inherent "watch-like" precision of uncultivated ecosystem
s and to the universe
itself as ultimate examples of this phenomenon.
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.
Spontaneous order is also used as a synonym for any emergent behavior
of which self-interested spontaneous order is just an instance.
, Zhuangzi
(369 BCE - 286 BCE) was the first to work out the idea of spontaneous order. The Taoist Zhuangzi
said, "Good order results spontaneously when things are let alone".
The thinkers of the Scottish Enlightenment
were the first to seriously develop and inquire into the idea of the market as a spontaneous order. The sociologist and historian Adam Ferguson
described the phenomenon of spontaneous order in society as the "result of human action, but not the execution of any human design".
The Austrian School of Economics, led by Carl Menger
, Ludwig von Mises
and Friedrich Hayek
, would later refine the concept and use it as a centerpiece in its social and economic thought.
in Hayek's "The Fatal Conceit
") is superior to any order human mind can design due to the specifics of the information required. Centralized statistical data cannot convey this information because the statistics are created by abstracting away from the particulars of the situation. In a market economy, price is the aggregation of information acquired when people 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.
This is illustrated in the concept of the invisible hand
proposed by Adam Smith
in The Wealth of Nations
. 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:
. As early as in 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."
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."
movements and in specific 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.
, 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
too has contributed to spontaneous order theory in his book The Self-Organizing Economy, in which he explains that cities are self-organizing systems.
Self-organization
Self-organization is the process where a structure or pattern appears in a system without a central authority or external element imposing it through planning...
", is the spontaneous emergence of order out of seeming chaos. It is a process found in physical, biological, and social networks, as well as economics, though the term "self-organization" is more often used for physical 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
Planning
Planning in organizations and public policy is both the organizational process of creating and maintaining a plan; and the psychological process of thinking about the activities required to create a desired goal on some scale. As such, it is a fundamental property of intelligent behavior...
. The evolution
Evolution
Evolution is any change across successive generations in the heritable characteristics of biological populations. Evolutionary processes give rise to diversity at every level of biological organisation, including species, individual organisms and molecules such as DNA and proteins.Life on Earth...
of life on Earth, language
Language
Language may refer either to the specifically human capacity for acquiring and using complex systems of communication, or to a specific instance of such a system of complex communication...
, the Internet
Internet
The Internet is a global system of interconnected computer networks that use the standard Internet protocol suite to serve billions of users worldwide...
and a free market
Free market
A free market is a competitive market where prices are determined by supply and demand. However, the term is also commonly used for markets in which economic intervention and regulation by the state is limited to tax collection, and enforcement of private ownership and contracts...
economy
Economy
An economy consists of the economic system of a country or other area; the labor, capital and land resources; and the manufacturing, trade, distribution, and consumption of goods and services of that area...
have all been proposed as examples of systems which evolved through spontaneous order. Naturalists
Naturalism (philosophy)
Naturalism commonly refers to the philosophical viewpoint that the natural universe and its natural laws and forces operate in the universe, and that nothing exists beyond the natural universe or, if it does, it does not affect the natural universe that we know...
often point to the inherent "watch-like" precision of uncultivated ecosystem
Ecosystem
An ecosystem is a biological environment consisting of all the organisms living in a particular area, as well as all the nonliving , physical components of the environment with which the organisms interact, such as air, soil, water and sunlight....
s and to the universe
Universe
The Universe is commonly defined as the totality of everything that exists, including all matter and energy, the planets, stars, galaxies, and the contents of intergalactic space. Definitions and usage vary and similar terms include the cosmos, the world and nature...
itself as ultimate examples of this phenomenon.
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.
Spontaneous order is also used as a synonym for any emergent behavior
Emergence
In philosophy, systems theory, science, and art, emergence is the way complex systems and patterns arise out of a multiplicity of relatively simple interactions. Emergence is central to the theories of integrative levels and of complex systems....
of which self-interested spontaneous order is just an instance.
History of the theory
According to Murray RothbardMurray Rothbard
Murray Newton Rothbard was an American author and economist of the Austrian School who helped define capitalist libertarianism and popularized a form of free-market anarchism he termed "anarcho-capitalism." Rothbard wrote over twenty books and is considered a centrally important figure in the...
, Zhuangzi
Zhuangzi
Zhuangzi was an influential Chinese philosopher who lived around the 4th century BCE during the Warring States Period, a period corresponding to the philosophical summit of Chinese thought — the Hundred Schools of Thought, and is credited with writing—in part or in whole—a work known by his name,...
(369 BCE - 286 BCE) was the first to work out the idea of spontaneous order. The Taoist Zhuangzi
Zhuangzi
Zhuangzi was an influential Chinese philosopher who lived around the 4th century BCE during the Warring States Period, a period corresponding to the philosophical summit of Chinese thought — the Hundred Schools of Thought, and is credited with writing—in part or in whole—a work known by his name,...
said, "Good order results spontaneously when things are let alone".
The thinkers of the Scottish Enlightenment
Scottish Enlightenment
The Scottish Enlightenment was the period in 18th century Scotland characterised by an outpouring of intellectual and scientific accomplishments. By 1750, Scots were among the most literate citizens of Europe, with an estimated 75% level of literacy...
were the first to seriously develop and inquire into the idea of the market as a spontaneous order. The sociologist and historian Adam Ferguson
Adam Ferguson
Adam Ferguson FRSE, also known as Ferguson of Raith was a Scottish philosopher, social scientist and historian of the Scottish Enlightenment...
described the phenomenon of spontaneous order in society as the "result of human action, but not the execution of any human design".
The Austrian School of Economics, led by Carl Menger
Carl Menger
Carl Menger was the founder of the Austrian School of economics, famous for contributing to the development of the theory of marginal utility, which contested the cost-of-production theories of value, developed by the classical economists such as Adam Smith and David Ricardo.- Biography :Menger...
, Ludwig von Mises
Ludwig von Mises
Ludwig Heinrich Edler von Mises was an Austrian economist, philosopher, and classical liberal who had a significant influence on the modern Libertarian movement and the "Austrian School" of economic thought.-Biography:-Early life:...
and Friedrich Hayek
Friedrich Hayek
Friedrich August Hayek CH , born in Austria-Hungary as Friedrich August von Hayek, was an economist and philosopher best known for his defense of classical liberalism and free-market capitalism against socialist and collectivist thought...
, would later refine the concept and use it as a centerpiece in its social and economic thought.
Markets
Many economic classical liberals, such as Hayek, have argued that market economies are creative of a spontaneous order - "a more efficient allocation of societal resources than any design could achieve." They claim this spontaneous order (referred to as the extended orderExtended order
Extended order is an economics and sociology concept introduced by Friedrich August von Hayek in his book The Fatal Conceit. It is a description of what happens when a system embraces specialization and trade and "constitutes an information gathering process, able to call up, and put to use,...
in Hayek's "The Fatal Conceit
The Fatal Conceit
The Fatal Conceit: The Errors of Socialism is a non-fiction book written by the economist and political philosopher Friedrich Hayek and edited by William Warren Bartley.-Main thesis and arguments:...
") is superior to any order human mind can design due to the specifics of the information required. Centralized statistical data cannot convey this information because the statistics are created by abstracting away from the particulars of the situation. In a market economy, price is the aggregation of information acquired when people 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.
This is illustrated in the concept of the invisible hand
Invisible hand
In economics, invisible hand or invisible hand of the market is the term economists use to describe the self-regulating nature of the marketplace. This is a metaphor first coined by the economist Adam Smith...
proposed by Adam Smith
Adam Smith
Adam Smith was a Scottish social philosopher and a pioneer of political economy. One of the key figures of the Scottish Enlightenment, Smith is the author of The Theory of Moral Sentiments and An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations...
in The Wealth of Nations
The Wealth of Nations
An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations, generally referred to by its shortened title The Wealth of Nations, is the magnum opus of the Scottish economist and moral philosopher Adam Smith...
. 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
Lawrence Reed
Lawrence W. Reed is president of the Foundation for Economic Education , headquartered in Irvington-on-Hudson, New York, a position he has held since September 1, 2008. Before joining FEE, Reed served as president of the Mackinac Center for Public Policy, a Midland, Michigan based free-market...
, president of the Foundation for Economic Education
Foundation for Economic Education
The Foundation for Economic Education is one of the oldest free-market organizations established in the United States to study and advance the freedom philosophy. Murray Rothbard recognizes FEE for creating a "crucial open center" that he credits with launching the movement...
, 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.
Game studies
The concept of spontaneous order is closely related with modern game studiesGame studies
Game studies or the new modern term "gaming theory" is the discipline of studying games, their design, players, and their role in society and culture more broadly...
. As early as in the 1940s, historian Johan Huizinga
Johan Huizinga
Johan Huizinga , was a Dutch historian and one of the founders of modern cultural history.-Life:Born in Groningen as the son of Dirk Huizinga, a professor of physiology, and Jacoba Tonkens, who died two years after his birth, he started out as a student of Indo-Germanic languages, earning his...
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
The Fatal Conceit
The Fatal Conceit: The Errors of Socialism is a non-fiction book written by the economist and political philosopher Friedrich Hayek and edited by William Warren Bartley.-Main thesis and arguments:...
, 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
AnarchistsAnarchism
Anarchism is generally defined as the political philosophy which holds the state to be undesirable, unnecessary, and harmful, or alternatively as opposing authority in the conduct of human relations...
argue that the state
State (polity)
A state is an organized political community, living under a government. States may be sovereign and may enjoy a monopoly on the legal initiation of force and are not dependent on, or subject to any other power or state. Many states are federated states which participate in a federal union...
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
Anarchist law
Anarchist law is a hypothetical body of norms regarding behavior and decision making that might be operative in an anarchist community. The term is used in a series of ongoing debates within the various branches of anarchist theory regarding if and how norms of individual and/or collective...
. 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
Symbolic interactionism
Symbolic Interaction, also known as interactionism, is a sociological theory that places emphasis on micro-scale social interaction to provide subjective meaning in human behavior, the social process and pragmatism.-History:...
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 slavophileSlavophile
Slavophilia was an intellectual movement originating from 19th century that wanted the Russian Empire to be developed upon values and institutions derived from its early history. Slavophiles were especially opposed to the influences of Western Europe in Russia. There were also similar movements in...
movements and in specific the works of Fyodor Dostoyevsky. The concept of an organic social manifestation as a concept in Russia expressed under the idea of sobornost
Sobornost
Sobornost is a term coined by the early Slavophiles, Ivan Kireevsky and Aleksey Khomyakov, to underline the need for cooperation between people at the expense of individualism on the basis that the opposing groups focus on what is common between them. Khomyakov believed the West was progressively...
. Sobornost was also used by Leo Tolstoy
Leo Tolstoy
Lev Nikolayevich Tolstoy was a Russian writer who primarily wrote novels and short stories. Later in life, he also wrote plays and essays. His two most famous works, the novels War and Peace and Anna Karenina, are acknowledged as two of the greatest novels of all time and a pinnacle of realist...
as an underpinning to the ideology of Christian anarchism
Christian anarchism
Christian anarchism is a movement in political theology that combines anarchism and Christianity. It is the belief that there is only one source of authority to which Christians are ultimately answerable, the authority of God as embodied in the teachings of Jesus...
. The concept was used to describe the uniting force behind the peasant or serf Obshchina
Obshchina
Obshchina or Mir ) or Selskoye obshestvo were peasant communities, as opposed to individual farmsteads, or khutors, in Imperial Russia. The term derives from the word о́бщий, obshchiy ....
in pre-Soviet Russia.
Recent Developments
Perhaps the most famous theorist of social spontaneous orders is of course F.A. Hayek. In addition to arguing the economy is a spontaneous order, which he termed a catallaxyCatallaxy
Catallaxy or Catallactics is an alternative expression for the word "Economy." Whereas the word Economy suggests that people in a community possess a common and congruent set of values and goals, Catallaxy suggests that the emergent properties of a market are the outgrowths of the diverse and...
, he argued that common law and the brain are also types of spontaneous orders. In "The Republic of Science," Michael Polanyi
Michael Polanyi
Michael Polanyi, FRS was a Hungarian–British polymath, who made important theoretical contributions to physical chemistry, economics, and the theory of knowledge...
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
Democracy
Democracy is generally defined as a form of government in which all adult citizens have an equal say in the decisions that affect their lives. Ideally, this includes equal participation in the proposal, development and passage of legislation into law...
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
Paul Krugman
Paul Robin Krugman is an American economist, professor of Economics and International Affairs at the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs at Princeton University, Centenary Professor at the London School of Economics, and an op-ed columnist for The New York Times...
too has contributed to spontaneous order theory in his book The Self-Organizing Economy, in which he explains that cities are self-organizing systems.
See also
- AnonymousAnonymous (group)Anonymous is an international hacking group, spread through the Internet, initiating active civil disobedience, while attempting to maintain anonymity. Originating in 2003 on the imageboard 4chan, the term refers to the concept of many online community users simultaneously existing as an anarchic,...
- DeregulationDeregulationDeregulation is the removal or simplification of government rules and regulations that constrain the operation of market forces.Deregulation is the removal or simplification of government rules and regulations that constrain the operation of market forces.Deregulation is the removal or...
- Free price systemFree price systemA free price system or free price mechanism is an economic system where prices are set by the interchange of supply and demand, with the resulting prices being understood as signals that are communicated between producers and consumers which serve to guide the production and distribution of...
- I, PencilI, Pencil"I, Pencil" is an essay by Leonard Read. The full title is "I, Pencil: My Family Tree as Told to Leonard E. Read" and it was first published in the December 1958 issue of The Freeman. It was reprinted in The Freeman in May 1996 and as a pamphlet entitled "I... Pencil" in May 1998. In the reprint,...
by Leonard ReadLeonard ReadLeonard E. Read was an American economist and the founder of the Foundation for Economic Education, which was the first modern free market think tank in the United States.... - Mutual aidMutual aid (politics)Mutual aid is a term in organization theory used to signify a voluntary reciprocal exchange of resources and services for mutual benefit. Mutual aid is arguably as ancient as human culture; an intrinsic part of the small, communal societies universal to humanity's ancient past...
- Natural lawNatural lawNatural law, or the law of nature , is any system of law which is purportedly determined by nature, and thus universal. Classically, natural law refers to the use of reason to analyze human nature and deduce binding rules of moral behavior. Natural law is contrasted with the positive law Natural...
- Natural order
- Organised order
- Revolutionary spontaneityRevolutionary spontaneityRevolutionary spontaneity is a tendency to believe that social revolution can and should occur spontaneously from below, without the aid or guidance of a vanguard party, and that it cannot and should not be brought about by the actions of individuals or parties who might attempt to foment such a...
- Stand Alone Complex
- StigmergyStigmergyStigmergy is a mechanism of indirect coordination between agents or actions. The principle is that the trace left in the environment by an action stimulates the performance of a next action, by the same or a different agent...
- Tragedy of the commonsTragedy of the commonsThe tragedy of the commons is a dilemma arising from the situation in which multiple individuals, acting independently and rationally consulting their own self-interest, will ultimately deplete a shared limited resource, even when it is clear that it is not in anyone's long-term interest for this...
External links
- The Tradition of Spontaneous Order, by Norman Barry, Library of Economics and LibertyLibrary of Economics and LibertyThe Library of Economics and Liberty is a free online library of economics books and articles from a libertarian view and is sponsored by the private Liberty Fund.-Content:...