Comment on Timothy Sandefur's "Some Problems with Spontaneous Order".

• Author: diZerega, Gus
• Position: CONTROVERSY - Essay

Timothy Sandefur's critique A. Hayek's social thought ("Some Problems with Spontaneous Order,' The Independent Review 14, no. 1 [summer 2009]: 5-25) falls into two main parts: first, a critique of Hayek's distinction between spontaneous orders and made orders and, second, a critique of his ethical theory. Although Sandefur makes some legitimate criticisms of Hayek's ethical framework, his overall criticism is vitiated by his misunderstanding of what constitutes a spontaneous order.

Sandefur offers seven significant examples of where he believes Hayek's distinction between a spontaneous order and a made order breaks down.

1. Students spontaneously create paths between buildings on a new campus: Do we interrupt the operation of a spontaneous order when we pour concrete to make sidewalks, once the paths have appeared? (p. 8).

2. If a corporate CEO provides "a single, universal, health care plan for employees," isn't he acting in the same way as a constructivist rationalist who designs a similar plan for a country? Or is he simply a participant in a spontaneous order? (pp. 8-9).

3. Citing Judge Richard Posner, Sandefur asks: How can Hayek oppose rational constructivism yet admire the U.S. Constitution, a "written plan formulated by a committee of experts and thus apparently a constructed order"? (p. 9).

4. Nineteenth-century Shaker communities and analogous experiments were products of extreme constructivism. Yet when taken as a whole, these experiments were part of a spontaneous order, so "the distinction between spontaneous order and rationalist constructivism depends on how one defines the frame of reference" (p. 10).

5. The tradition of holding our hands up when a "robber sticks a gun in our face ... forms a kind of spontaneous order" so that its distinction from coercion is undermined (p. 20). Slavery may be a similar example (p. 12).

6. The previous point is underscored by the additional examples of the "businesses that sell refreshments to people standing in line at the post office on April 15 and the market for accounting firms that help people finish their taxes at the last minute," both of which "are spontaneous orders even though they have sprung from ... taxation" (p. 21).

7. Sandefur also criticizes Hayek's treatment of common law (pp. 10-11). I have little problem with this critique, not because the concept of spontaneous order is flawed, but rather because the common law is more complex than simply being a spontaneous order. The other...