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== Spontaneous Order and The Evolution of Behaviors ==


== General Overview==
The history of spontaneous order begins with the tradition of Adam Smith and the invisible hand.  Adam Smith was one of the first to recognize the importance and efficiency of the market to regulate peoples behavior without requiring the concious intervention of those involved.  Hayek and others applied these ideas of unconcious regulation of the market to social behaviors and institutions, applying the term "spontaneous order".  The idea of spontaneous order posits that many of the institutions and conventions of today such as property rights, trade, honesty, moral systems, languages, contracts, and exchange have evolved through a complex mechanism of behaviors and self-interest passed down through tradition, teaching, and imitation. Individuals pursuing their own interests conform their behavior to common rules and constraints, which enables them to successfully interact among themselves. Thus, spontaneous order is a product of human action and not  of human design ([[1]]).


'''Hayek on Spontaneous Order'''


Hayek argues that people interpret the events they experience through the light of a preexisting system of classification, which is built through a process of cultural evolution and individual learning. The experiences people pass through have a crucial influence in them building a “growth of knowledge” process, which will define their future responses to various situations they will be facing. It is thus misleading to believe that humans can simply design a set of rules and impose it upon their environment, as is it the environment in which they live that shapes their behavior. Hayek considers that humans did not adopt laws and institutions because they were able to foresee the benefits these would bring. Rather, their adoption was due to spontaneous order, as they evolved through a process of the logic of choice. People’s behavior follows patterns that have previously been accepted by their society; this allows them to not only pursue their own means but the means of others as well.  
Additionally the theory of spontaneous order rejects the tradition of Marx and what Hayek terms "rational constructivism", or the idea that the extended order of human society and civilization is incapable of being created or designed by reason. According to Hayek, order and "adaptation to the unknown" can be achieved much more efficiently through evolutionary development which allows decentralization of decisions and division of authority to extend the human order, rather than allowing reason, which is itself the result of an evolutionary selection process,  to subordinate the system of spontaneous order to itself.


 
<p align="center"> [[General Overview]] | [[Major Contributors]] | [[Game Theory Models]] | [[Objections/Arguments]] | [[Sources]]</p>
Hayek considers that the market is not simply a guide or a communication mechanism, but a complex mechanism which allows participants to spontaneously adopt their actions to circumstances and events they previously had no knowledge of. The market is not a social institution but a “value-free result of the Logic of Choice”, which not only makes use of the existing knowledge market participants have but continuously generates new knowledge. The market operates as a mode of coordination and information is being transmitted through a series of general mechanisms (i.e. the price mechanism).

Latest revision as of 23:21, 18 April 2006


General Overview

The history of spontaneous order begins with the tradition of Adam Smith and the invisible hand. Adam Smith was one of the first to recognize the importance and efficiency of the market to regulate peoples behavior without requiring the concious intervention of those involved. Hayek and others applied these ideas of unconcious regulation of the market to social behaviors and institutions, applying the term "spontaneous order". The idea of spontaneous order posits that many of the institutions and conventions of today such as property rights, trade, honesty, moral systems, languages, contracts, and exchange have evolved through a complex mechanism of behaviors and self-interest passed down through tradition, teaching, and imitation. Individuals pursuing their own interests conform their behavior to common rules and constraints, which enables them to successfully interact among themselves. Thus, spontaneous order is a product of human action and not of human design (1).


Additionally the theory of spontaneous order rejects the tradition of Marx and what Hayek terms "rational constructivism", or the idea that the extended order of human society and civilization is incapable of being created or designed by reason. According to Hayek, order and "adaptation to the unknown" can be achieved much more efficiently through evolutionary development which allows decentralization of decisions and division of authority to extend the human order, rather than allowing reason, which is itself the result of an evolutionary selection process, to subordinate the system of spontaneous order to itself.

General Overview | Major Contributors | Game Theory Models | Objections/Arguments | Sources

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