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Spontaneous order (sometimes called self-organization) is a phenomenon that happens when individuals each follow a set of self-interest-based rules without a central authority designing a "plan" for everyone. The result is the emergence of a pattern that no one individual or central authority designs, but is far more effective than it could be if it were designed. Language, rules of the road and a free market economy are examples of patterns that evolved through spontaneous order. Atheists and Naturalists often point to the inherent "watch-like" precision of uncultivated ecosystems and indeed to the universe itself as ultimate examples of this phenomenon, while Creationists such as William Paley have argued that these intricate arrangements could not have fallen together accidentally and must have been devised by a divine consciousness, or "watchmaker".
Spontaneous order is also used sometimes as a synonym for any emergent behavior of which self-interested spontaneous order is just an instance.
History of the theory
According to Murray Rothbard, Chuang-tzu (369-c. 286 B.c.) was the first to work out the idea of spontaneous order, before Proudhon and Hayek. Chuang-tzu said, "Good order results spontaneously when things are let alone." .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)
Examples
Markets
Many advocates of free market or laissez-faire economies, such as Friedrich Hayek, assert that planned economies fail because it is beyond the human capability to muster all the knowledge necessary to successfully provide for the infinitely complex and ever-changing matrix of millions upon millions of individual desires, interests and needs. No one, it is argued, possesses the requisite omniscience to reliably forecast how much of a given good will need to be produced or (re)allocated, and when or where, in order to match the fluctuating demands of consumers. It is generally accepted that in a market economy, prices convey this information with elegant simplicity and efficiency, allowing what may appear to be a chaotic jumble of many individuals independently pursuing their own economic self-interests to evolve into an orderly and systematic arrangement that maximizes the collective benefit of all involved (otherwise known as a free price system). This last point is illustrated in the concept of the Invisible Hand proposed by Adam Smith in The Wealth of Nations.
Planned or managed economies that seek to circumvent the self-organization and self-regulation of the market through subsidies, price controls, or protectionist measures, have historically resulted in endemic surpluses and/or shortages that impair efficiency. These inefficiencies, while recognized, have been justified by some on political grounds.
Keynesian economics, on the other hand, argues that conscious intervention in the economy can in fact improve upon the natural economic order by mitigating certain negative externalities of the business cycle. According to this school of thought one of the ways this may be accomplished is by, in a sense, having the state play the role of one more "self-interested" participant, spending money on things that will be categorized as public goods.
Information exchanges
The Wikipedia is one of the many spontaneously generated orders that the Internet has enabled. An open encyclopedia that, in the aggregate, exhibits a complex order that not a single one of its editors designed. This emerges from the interaction of many small, continuous, and unplanned editing actions of thousands of people.
References
External Links
See also
"Spontaneous order"