How starfish embryos become living crystals

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The Chinese Philosopher Who Explained Spontaneous Order 2,000 Years Before Adam Smith

Updated on 6/4/2022

Recommendable!

Spontaneous order is one of the most important, often misunderstood, and wrongly dismissed concepts of classical liberalism!

"... his poem "Butterfly Dream" goes like this:

Once upon a time, I dreamt I was a butterfly,

fluttering hither and thither, to all intents and purposes

a butterfly. I was conscious only of my happiness as a

butterfly, unaware that I was myself. Soon I awaked,

and there I was, veritably myself again. Now I don't

know whether I was then a man dreaming I was a

butterfly, or whether I am now a butterfly, dreaming I am a man. ...

Zhuangzi was not the founder of the [robust libertarian intellectual tradition in Ancient China], however. The tradition ... started with Lao-Tzu (500 BC), a philosopher credited as the father of Taoism who rejected the alleged authoritarianism of Confucianism in favor of individual rights. ...

Zhuangzi followed in Lao-Tzu’s footsteps, and in his most famous work, The Zhuangzi, he shares what ... are the first historical traces of the idea of spontaneous order.

Chuang-tzu reiterated and embellished Lao-tzu's devotion to laissez faire and opposition to state rule: "There has been such a thing as letting mankind alone; there has never been such a thing as governing mankind [with success]." In fact, the world simply "does not need governing; in fact it should not be governed." Chuang-tzu was also the first to work out the idea of "spontaneous order," developed particularly by Proudhon in the nineteenth and by F. A. Hayek of the Austrian School in the twentieth Century:

A perusing of The Zhuangzi shows that Zhuangzi’s conception of spontaneous order could not be more clear: “Good order results spontaneously when things are let alone."

An entire chapter in Zhuangzi’s book is dedicated to “letting alone.” In the chapter, Zhuangzi writes that the natural conditions of human existence require “not artificial aids.” The philosopher touches on the evils of government, traces the failures of coercion in the province, and describes how action springs from inaction (government inaction).

Many tend to think of concepts such as limited government and spontaneous order as “Western” ideas, but this is hardly the case. ..."

The Chinese Philosopher Who Explained Spontaneous Order 2,000 Years Before Adam Smith - Foundation for Economic Education The Chinese philosopher Zhuang Zhou (aka Zhuangzi) is credited with working out one of the most important economic concepts in the world: spontaneous order.

Hayek's Legacy of the Spontaneous Order

Recommendable!

"...  Hayek argued that those who misunderstood or disregarded the notion of spontaneous order did so because they incorrectly divided the world into two categories: "planned" (which implicitly means order and purpose) and "unplanned" (which connotes disorder, randomness and chaos). Hayek argued that society, and its most advanced institution—the market economy—fit into neither category and, therefore, belonged in a third group. Each member of this third group would be bounded by rules, have its own order and increase in complexity in a way that would not be fully understood. Hayek's best example of this third group would be our language. No single individual or group thought it up. It has its own rules of grammar, and language continues to evolve as mankind advances.
The political implications of spontaneous order theory are strikingly evident with the recent fall of the Soviet Union. In fact, Hayek's 1944 book, The Road to Serfdom, foreshadowed what we see and read about daily. No political system could assume, as fascism did on the right and communism did on the left, that men were cogs to be "fit" into the state machine. Tyranny results from government's attempts to plan the workings of daily life.
Second, reliance on institutions that were created through government fiat need to be questioned and reevaluated. Hayek, for example, grew increasingly disenchanted with a central bank as the sole authority for a nation's money supply and called for competitive currencies that would eliminate monopoly control. A competitive currency would allow for all types of previously untried services for producers and consumers alike in a more uncertain environment. Monetary institutions would then evolve naturally rather than being artificially created by government.

Finally, Hayek would argue that centrally directed institutions neither have the wherewithal to keep abreast of all the relevant economic conditions of "the particular time and place" and be able to fully understand the information received. This means the policymakers may not be able to know all the relevant information to make decisions or may base decisions on old data no longer applicable. Only a spontaneously created market, resulting from hundreds of millions of valuations by individuals, would ensure economic vitality. ..."

Hayek's Legacy of the Spontaneous Order | Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis

Adam Smith: The man of the system

Here is one of many famous excerpts of Adam Smith's two classic works An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations (1776) and The Theory of Moral Sentiments (1759):

"The man of system [e.g. elected lifelong career politicians], on the contrary, is apt to be very wise in his own conceit; and is often so enamoured with the supposed beauty of his own ideal plan of government, that he cannot suffer the smallest deviation from any part of it. He goes on to establish it completely and in all its parts, without any regard either to the great interests, or to the strong prejudices which may oppose it. He seems to imagine that he can arrange the different members of a great society with as much ease as the hand arranges the different pieces upon a chessboard."

Adam Smith contrasted the man of the system with spontaneous order and self interest/love!

Here is another take on this famous quote: Adam Smith on social change and “the man of system” (1759)

What is Spontaneous Order?

Very recommendable! Perhaps one of the most important economic concepts of all!