Spontaneous Order: Commentary

0:00So I'd like to start by thanking the speakers for a great set of papers which shed light on the concept of spontaneous order by analyzing some of its more hurtful or troubling manifestations, oppression of women on the one hand and maintenance of an oppressive political system. In both papers, while the accounts of these issues are interesting, they omit aspects of the issues that I would expect to be addressed in such treatments, so I was surprised to find them absent from the discussion. In Johnson's paper, Women's Inequality of Economic Power, and from Long's paper, The Desire for Unity with Others. Why are these aspects of the issues omitted, and does their omission point to some limits of the concept of spontaneous order?

0:47So these papers highlight spontaneous order as arising within the current system, rather than as an alternative to it. The pattern of oppression of women through the pervasive threat of violence is one that might emerge within as well as without a state. It's more basic and conceptually prior to any given system of government. The way the current governmental system in the U.S. makes use of patterns of behavior and belief reinforces what I'll grant for the sake of argument is an oppressive system, which discriminates against everyone not within a small powerful elite of big government and big business Long is thus interested in phenomena that have the current system as a necessary condition and which encompasses as victims not just half the population but almost everyone Although I find the concept of spontaneous order attractive I'd like further elaboration on the term, especially on what might not count as an instance of spontaneous order.

1:48Spontaneous order is described by Johnson as contrasted with organized orders that are the result of someone's deliberate plan. Instead, quote, it's the interconnected but spontaneous actions of individuals produce an emergent order without putting any one person or committee of people in charge. So, in the two papers together, the examples given of spontaneous order range far and wide, including human language, common law, international postal standards, even as the proper subject of study for any social science. The mechanisms attributed to these patterns include psychological habits of seeing what we expect to see, and professional preferences for attention to smaller-scale abuses or interpretations over larger scale or structural concerns, as in journalism or education.

2:45So my concern here is that the concept is being used to do too much. If spontaneous order describes every identifiable, non-centrally planned pattern or habit, this surely expands the concept beyond anything particularly interesting or helpful. On the other hand, if it's restricted to something like a theory of the best political structure or lack of structure, this excludes many everyday behaviors that probably ought to be included. Are there some non-planned phenomena that spontaneous order does not claim to explain? For instance, how does a theory of community spirit or responsibility, as exhibited by, for instance, individuals spontaneously coming together to benefit the group after, say, a natural disaster, how does that differ? Is that an aspect of spontaneous order or is this an alternative to it?

3:46So what counts as an example of spontaneous order and what forms the contrast class might be further developed by considering what was not discussed in the papers. In response to Johnson's paper specifically, I wonder about the ultimate fittingness of the concept of spontaneous order to sexism. This connects with the limits of that term in a couple of ways. First, the pervasive threat of violence, while surely one aspect of sex discrimination is poorly suited to explaining other manifestations of sex discrimination, like unequal pay or unequal representation in certain professions.

4:39Since these do not presumably represent centrally planned discrimination, are they also the result of distinct spontaneous orders or of some other phenomenon? Johnson's analysis of women's oppression, it's unclear how this analysis of the threat of Violence could explain these other forms of women's oppression. So he would have two options, either the unequal earning power of women could be explained in terms of our fear of violence or in terms of some other phenomenon in society. If the former, then we need that explanation, since the link between the threat of violence and economic inequality is not obvious.

5:32So similarly, I found Long's account of various mechanisms by which spontaneous order can manifest very interesting, but I was surprised by what was left out. Mechanisms, he discusses, fall into two groups. Some express rational self-interest, while others express rational self-interest. This manifest very interesting, but I was surprised by what was left out. Mechanisms he discusses fall into two groups. Some express rational self-interest, like keeping or getting a job, or protecting one's relative power, while others are subrational, psychological habits that blind us to the truth. So what was missing from his account, then, were mechanisms expressing sociability, the desire to fit in with the group.

6:20Unlike subrational psychological habits, they're rational expressions of value, on a par with self-interest, I claim, which don't necessarily function as distractors from the truth. Indeed, a nuanced account of value acquisition in human development would rely more on the instinct to sociability than on self-interest, I believe. It's not irrational to want to get along with those around you, even if it comes at some personal expense, including an expense of personal liberty. So I don't offer this as a defense of the status quo, rather for someone interested in understanding the mechanisms by which the current order is maintained, In the absence of a large-scale shift in perception, people must first be convinced to break with this basic value of togetherness, a very difficult task.

7:22One possible reason it's left out of Long's paper is that it's not a mechanism associated with spontaneous order, so it would be helpful to get clear exactly on what place such a mechanism would have in Long's theory.