The Economics and Political Science Room
I speak often of emergent order, the existing social order, that arises from our interactions in communication, markets, and other social institutions. Some react incredulously wondering how can it be. Rather than me explain again, here is Russ Roberts, an economist at George Mason, with a hockie little poem about it. Some of you who understand this will note similarities and references to Adam Smith invisible hand and Leonard Reed's "I, Pencil."
You can find out more at It's a Wonderful Loaf.
So why do some of you fail to grasp what's all around you? But here's a debate on that...
Bryan Caplan, Progressive/Libertarian: The Alliance That Isn't writes
That's Don Boudreaux's Bonus Quotation of the Day… where he adds:I regretfully invoke my Simplistic Theory of Left and Right. The heart of the left isn't helping the poor, or reducing inequality, or even minority rights. The heart of the left is being anti-market. With some honorable exceptions, very few leftists are capable of being excited about deregulation of any kind. And even the leftists who do get excited about well-targeted deregulation get far more excited about stamping out the hydra-headed evils of market.
Boudreaux in The Essence of the Political Left:I suspect that the single biggest factor that distinguishes “Progressives” from libertarians and free-market conservatives is the simple fact that “Progressives” do not begin to grasp the reality of spontaneous order. “Progressives” seem unable to appreciate the reality that productive and complex economic and social orders not only can, but do, emerge unplanned from the countless local decisions of individuals each pursuing his or her own individual plans. Therefore, “Progressives” naturally adopt a creationist view of society and of the economy: without a conscious and visible (and well-intentioned) guiding hand, society and the economy cannot possibly work very well. Indeed, it seems that for many (most?) “Progressives,” the idea that a spontaneously ordered economy can work better than one directed consciously from above – or, indeed, that a spontaneously ordered economy can work at all – is so absurd that when “Progressives” encounter people who oppose “Progressive” schemes for regulating the economy, “Progressives” instantly and with great confidence conclude that their opponents are either stupid or, more often, evil cronies for the rich and the powerful.
...“Progressives” simply don’t ‘get’ spontaneous order in human society. They see a problem and leap to the only conclusion that for them is sensible – namely, that that problem’s only realistic ‘solution’ is that it be directly addressed by government officials. Indeed, even “Progressives'” frequent misdiagnoses of the results of trade-offs as being “problems” (or “market failures”) reflect a failure to understand spontaneous-ordering processes. Many phenomena and patterns that “Progressives” assume to be problems – for example, increasing inequality of monetary incomes – are often the benign results of the countless and nuanced individual trade-offs made by individuals. For “Progressives,” though, these ‘outcomes’ are often assumed to be the consequence of sinister designs.
Bryan Caplan is not persuaded by my argument that the essence of political leftists is their failure to appreciate the reality and power of spontaneous-ordering forces. Also unpersuaded is Ben Zycher. Pasted below is Ben’s e-mail to me, shared here in full with his kind permission.
Hi Don. I don’t think it’s correct to argue that leftists do not “grasp the reality of spontaneous order.” It is precisely that spontaneous order and the freedom that yields it that the left hates, because it is the opposite of the centralized control that is the reason d’etre of the left. Here is a simple conceptual experiment: Suppose that the left did understand spontaneous order and its implications. Can anyone believe that they would applaud it? Of course not, because it is a specific set of evolving allocational outcomes that they demand, along with the coercion needed to effect them. That is why the left is fundamentally anti-human.
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