Order Without Design... And Fatal Conceit

A chance conversation during our walkabout last evening led to some interesting philosophical insights - and I thought I ought to write about them. It all began with a kingfisher perched atop a post, and the discussion turned to how its brilliant blue feathers are hidden when it sits, and how this might be its means of camouflage and survival. The discussion then turned to Darwin and his theories of "evolution" and "natural selection." Darwin established that the order of the natural world we are witness to is an "order without design." The comings and goings of the species has proceeded without the services of any supreme designer of all the various species.

We hemmed and hawed about this idea of "order without design" when I turned the discussion towards the worldview of "classical liberals" - from Adam Smith to Frederic Bastiat to Carl Menger, right down to Friedrich Hayek - that they too saw the market economy as an example of natural order: an "order without design."

Take Adam Smith and the "invisible hand." He begins by saying that the individual entrepreneur "neither intends to promote the public interest, nor knows how much he is promoting it." He goes on to say that the individual entrepreneur "intends only his own gain, and he is in this, as in many other cases, led by an invisible hand to promote an end which was no part of his intention. Nor is it always the worse for the society that it was no part of it. By pursuing his own interest he frequently promotes that of the society more effectually than when he really intends to promote it. I have never known much good done by those who affected to trade for the public good."

Adam Smith was a bitter critic of all those who fancied themselves capable of "designing" the market order - and we can see from the following quote why our "central economic planners" do not like students of Economics to read Smith. These are his famous words on the "conceit" of such people:

The man of system... is apt to be very wise in his own conceit; and is often so enamoured with the supposed beauty of his own ideal plan of government, that he cannot suffer the smallest deviation from any part of it.... He seems to imagine that he can arrange the different members of a great society with as much ease as the hand arranges the different pieces upon a chess-board. He does not consider that the pieces upon the chess-board have no other principle of motion besides that which the hand impresses upon them; but that, in the great chess-board of human society, every single piece has a principle of motion of its own, altogether different from that which the legislature might chuse [sic] to impress upon it.

Frederic Bastiat wrote with awe about the "natural order" - which, to him, a devout Catholic, was a testament to the wisdom of God. The "invisible hand" of Smith became, to Bastiat, the hand of God. When Bastiat argues in favour of Liberty, he argues in favour of a world that Providence has ordained. The world of government controls and dirigisme was, to Bastiat, an "artificial order." His book Economic Harmonies is entirely devoted to showing how the natural order of Liberty is devoid of conflict, is harmonious.

Carl Menger, of course, put it best when he wrote - and this marks the beginning of a true "science of Economics," for here he is writing about method, about epistemology:

How can it be that institutions which serve the common welfare and are extremely significant for its development come into being without a ‘common will’ directed towards their establishment?

It was left to Hayek to develop these ideas to their fullest, especially in his last book Fatal Conceit: The Errors of Socialism. The opening chapter is titled "Between instinct and reason" - and, in this, Hayek makes the case that the natural order of human society, including markets, laws and morality, has "evolved" and is a part of our "culture." We have suppressed our instinct to snatch and grab, to plunder, and prefer to trade instead - but we have not reasoned why. We do not even know that the golden rule of our market order is Property. We therefore cannot see through the madness of communists and socialists - and I read just the other day that one more appeal has been filed with our Supreme Court on our non-existent right to Property. Between instinct and reason, indeed.

The word "conceit" is common to both Adam Smith and Hayek. It is a fitting word for all those "intellectuals" who believe that they know how to "design" something that is beyond the comprehension of any single mind, or group of minds. The market order utilises the knowledge of each one of us - it relies on the "fragmentation of knowledge." The conceited planner imagines himself to be a super-mind, capable of "centralising knowledge."

The idea of an "order without design" is a powerful one - and the idea of "central economic planning" is as ridiculous as considering the diversity of nature to be the product of "intelligent design." What reason informs us in all these matters is that there are limits to reason. There is much that reason cannot accomplish. Designing a market order - which is the ONLY "Social order" - is one of them. Its diversity is the product of human diversity. It is God's work. No mortal man should be allowed to tinker with it. Note that these mortals use another extremely evil term to designate their intentions, a term far more evil than "central economic planning" - and that term is "social engineering." Today, they call it "public policy" - and the "knowledge" contained in this "subject" should be treated with extreme suspicion.

Of course, the human market order is different from the Darwinian natural order in some very important ways, which we must carefully note. In the jungle, every species survives through camouflage; its survival depends on its ability to hide from predators. In the market order, there are no predators, and we all try to loudly advertise our wares. The market order is the truest human society - for in this, every man gains only by serving his customers better than his competitors. All entrepreneurs are driven by the desire to serve their fellowmen better. The flourishing of human society depends entirely on the universalisation of this natural, market order.