Some problems with spontaneous order.

• Author: Sandefur, Timothy
• Position: Critical essay

F. A. Hayek's famous observations about the nature of social order are a cornerstone of much conservative and libertarian thought. Hayek's arguments are frequently cited not only as a useful description of how social orders evolve, but also to support normative positions about the relationship between the state and society, specifically the argument that the social order ought to change as the result of decentralized, or "bottom-up," actions on the part of individuals--that is, "spontaneous order"--as opposed to the centralized, "top-down" planning implemented by bureaucracies, socialist central planners, or the post-New Deal administrative state, which yields "constructed order" or "constructivist rationalism."

The problem is that the distinction between spontaneous and constructed orders, though useful descriptively, cannot bear much normative weight because the difference between spontaneous and constructed orders collapses on close examination. Although Hayek's observation that social orders emerge from an aggregate of individual choices is indisputable, it is not possible to distinguish in principle, either descriptively or normatively, between spontaneous and constructed orders. Instead, the difference depends entirely on the observer's frame of reference. This difficulty explains why Hayek fails to provide a convincing account of the process of conscious social change or the elimination of unjust institutions. The distinction between spontaneous order and planned order may be useful in an explanatory model at a certain level of generality, but it cannot serve as a normative guide in a particular policy dispute (Ogus 1989, 393; Wax 2005).

The Distinction Between Spontaneous Order and Constructivist Rationalism

Hayek's most enduring contribution to political economy is probably his explanation of how social orders emerge through a decentralized process of choices by an indefinitely large number of actors: such orders are the product "of human action, but not of human design" (Hayek 1967); they evolve much as animals do. Genes evolve by a nonrandom selection process applied to random mutations, and the selection pressure is provided by the environment; human social institutions evolve through nonrandom selection among different courses of action, with selection pressure being provided by competition between individuals and groups, and the proposed actions in question being undertaken by individuals. Social institutions such as language are therefore not invented "by" anyone, but emerge out of each person's choices and pursuits. They are grown rather than made. Because social institutions serve people's subjectively perceived needs, the result is that they evolve so that those that obstruct human needs are discarded and those that serve these needs are retained (CL, 63). (1)

We should appreciate the audacity of this seemingly simple observation. At the time Hayek was formulating this theory, virtually every respectable intellectual had concluded that free markets ought to be eliminated in favor of an economy organized by allegedly rational central planners, experts who could direct resources to their most efficient uses. Opposing the ambitions of New Dealers, socialists, and other central planners was a small coterie of dissenters with very little intellectual ammunition. Liberals had largely concluded that limiting government was not sufficient for providing the grounds of human flourishing and that planned economies could do better (Dewey 1935). Against their accusation that free markets waste resources by rewarding the trivial and ignoring the impoverished, conservatives of the period had not yet formulated an effective response, and as a consequence many liberals came to believe that the only decision left was between romantic nationalist traditionalism (represented in its most extreme form by the Nazis) and modernist centralized planning (whose most extreme form was communism) that would eliminate individual choice and achieve an allegedly objective historical "progress."

Hayek, however, appealed to the traditionally liberal concerns for individual choice and flourishing, but used them to advocate limited government and individual freedom. He formulated an explanation of economic choice that responded to the argument that markets were inherently wasteful and irrational, showing that, on the contrary, social and economic institutions can originate, change, and disappear without the intervention of an omniscient planner. He was therefore among the pioneers in modernizing classical liberalism, and his contribution was a major accomplishment (Doherty 2007, 98-111).

On top of his observations about the nature of social order, Hayek built a normative argument: not only did social institutions evolve without planning, but they often evolved so that their utility could not be assessed in isolation from a particular transaction in a particular case. Certain traditional practices might have nonobvious utility, which a planner would overlook and might damage beyond repair when, regarding it as irrational, he took steps to eliminate it. The unanticipated consequences might then be much worse than the supposed irrationality of the now destroyed institution. Because a central planner cannot possibly have the knowledge necessary to evaluate an evolved social institution fully or to anticipate the consequences of altering it, decentralized spontaneous order is preferable to centralized bureaucratic planning.

In the three-volume work Law, Legislation, and Liberty (1973-79), Hayek elaborates on the difference between planned and grown orders. He attributes the central planners' ambitions, which he calls "rationalist constructivism," to classical liberalism's rationalist tradition, tracing it ultimately to John Locke, and he links the idea of "spontaneous order" to Edmund Burke's political philosophy. Rationalism sought to redesign social institutions (or whole societies) on the basis of exogenous principles of justice, principles rooted in concepts of natural law and similar ideas; it was basically radical, willing to substitute the judgment of allegedly objective thinkers for the evolved network of social institutions, a network too sophisticated to be understood in the abstract, and willing to achieve a rational optimum though the heavens fall in the process. The results were generally disruptive, frequently violent, and usually a failure. The archetype of that failure was the French Revolution, when proponents of the new Goddess of Reason slaughtered people and obliterated traditional social institutions, including even the old Roman-derived names of the months of the year. Hayek echoes Burke's challenge to the French Revolution: reasoned inquiry cannot understand the true nature of ancient social structures and therefore cannot appreciate the evils of changing them.

Problems with the Spontaneous Order/Rationalist Constructivism Dichotomy

Useful as Hayek's observations are for understanding how social orders evolve, two significant and interrelated problems obstruct its use as the basis of a normative argument in favor of gradual, decentralized social change and against radical, planned, or conscious social change. First, we have no principled way to categorize the choice that a person might make as either an element of "rational constructivism" or an element of "spontaneous order." This categorization rests entirely on the observer's subjective frame of reference. The distinction is therefore trivial and useless when we decide on a course of political or social action. Second, any attempt to change the social order or to reform an institution on the basis of conceptions of justice--the need for which Hayek himself recognizes--requires an appeal to exogenous principles, or conceptions of political right and wrong that are produced by conscious rational reflection and not simply by adherence to spontaneously generated mores.

When Would Hayek Pour The Cement?

We can appreciate the weakness of the distinction between rational constructivism and spontaneous order through a simple thought experiment. (2) Suppose a new college is being planned, and the architects must decide where to put the sidewalks for students to use when they cross the quad from one class to another. On the one hand, the architect might simply lay out the sidewalks and pour the concrete in the places he takes to be the best walking paths. He might even design the walkways to deviate slightly from the most efficient routes between the buildings in an attempt to manipulate students into keeping off the grass. In such a case, the architect would be a rational constructivist, dictating the terms on which students conduct their lives. On the other hand, an architect reared on Hayekian principles would wait a year before pouring the concrete, to observe how the students actually do cross the quad. They would trample down the grass--producing a spontaneous order--and he could then pour the concrete where they actually walk. The Hayekian architect would better suit the needs of actual individuals.

The problem is that life is dynamic: classrooms are reassigned, and students change their walking patterns. We may make an equally valid argument for the architect's waiting another year before pouring the concrete. If he pours after one year, he is likely to find that the students have now changed their habits, rendering his plans obsolete. Yet at some point he must pour the concrete. Whether he waits a second year or not, he will be accused of engaging in constructivist rationalism the instant he begins to make the sidewalk, and plausibly so because by pouring the concrete, he will put a stop to (or radically alter) the dynamic evolutionary process in which students choose their own paths. Just as the observer cannot avoid interacting with the observed, so the concrete can never be poured without interfering in some fashion with the spontaneous...