WEBVTT NOTE Spontaneous Order: Commentary 1 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:18.000 So 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. 2 00:00:18.000 --> 00:00:29.000 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. 3 00:00:29.000 --> 00:00:38.000 In Johnson's paper, Women's Inequality of Economic Power, and from Long's paper, The Desire for Unity with Others. 4 00:00:38.000 --> 00:00:47.000 Why are these aspects of the issues omitted, and does their omission point to some limits of the concept of spontaneous order? 5 00:00:47.000 --> 00:00:55.000 So these papers highlight spontaneous order as arising within the current system, rather than as an alternative to it. 6 00:00:55.000 --> 00:01:03.500 The pattern of oppression of women through the pervasive threat of violence is one that might emerge within as well as without a state. 7 00:01:03.500 --> 00:01:08.500 It's more basic and conceptually prior to any given system of government. 8 00:01:08.500 --> 00:01:18.500 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, 9 00:01:18.500 --> 00:01:25.500 which discriminates against everyone not within a small powerful elite of big government and big business 10 00:01:25.500 --> 00:01:31.500 Long is thus interested in phenomena that have the current system as a necessary condition 11 00:01:31.500 --> 00:01:36.500 and which encompasses as victims not just half the population but almost everyone 12 00:01:38.500 --> 00:01:41.500 Although I find the concept of spontaneous order attractive 13 00:01:41.500 --> 00:01:48.500 I'd like further elaboration on the term, especially on what might not count as an instance of spontaneous order. 14 00:01:48.500 --> 00:01:56.500 Spontaneous order is described by Johnson as contrasted with organized orders that are the result of someone's deliberate plan. 15 00:01:56.500 --> 00:02:08.500 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. 16 00:02:08.500 --> 00:02:17.220 So, in the two papers together, the examples given of spontaneous order range far and wide, 17 00:02:17.220 --> 00:02:23.740 including human language, common law, international postal standards, even as the proper subject 18 00:02:23.740 --> 00:02:27.100 of study for any social science. 19 00:02:27.100 --> 00:02:31.780 The mechanisms attributed to these patterns include psychological habits of seeing what 20 00:02:31.780 --> 00:02:38.480 we expect to see, and professional preferences for attention to smaller-scale abuses or interpretations 21 00:02:38.480 --> 00:02:44.480 over larger scale or structural concerns, as in journalism or education. 22 00:02:45.480 --> 00:02:49.480 So my concern here is that the concept is being used to do too much. 23 00:02:49.480 --> 00:02:55.480 If spontaneous order describes every identifiable, non-centrally planned pattern or habit, 24 00:02:55.480 --> 00:03:01.480 this surely expands the concept beyond anything particularly interesting or helpful. 25 00:03:01.480 --> 00:03:16.480 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. 26 00:03:16.480 --> 00:03:23.480 Are there some non-planned phenomena that spontaneous order does not claim to explain? 27 00:03:23.480 --> 00:03:46.480 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? 28 00:03:46.480 --> 00:03:55.680 So what counts as an example of spontaneous order and what forms the contrast class might 29 00:03:55.680 --> 00:04:00.320 be further developed by considering what was not discussed in the papers. 30 00:04:00.320 --> 00:04:04.280 In response to Johnson's paper specifically, I wonder about the ultimate fittingness of 31 00:04:04.280 --> 00:04:08.480 the concept of spontaneous order to sexism. 32 00:04:08.480 --> 00:04:11.640 This connects with the limits of that term in a couple of ways. 33 00:04:11.640 --> 00:04:28.220 First, the pervasive threat of violence, while surely one aspect of sex discrimination is 34 00:04:28.220 --> 00:04:34.840 poorly suited to explaining other manifestations of sex discrimination, like unequal pay or 35 00:04:34.840 --> 00:04:39.640 unequal representation in certain professions. 36 00:04:39.640 --> 00:04:48.320 Since these do not presumably represent centrally planned discrimination, are they also the 37 00:04:48.320 --> 00:04:53.840 result of distinct spontaneous orders or of some other phenomenon? 38 00:04:53.840 --> 00:05:04.020 Johnson's analysis of women's oppression, it's unclear how this analysis of the threat 39 00:05:04.020 --> 00:05:11.440 of Violence could explain these other forms of women's oppression. 40 00:05:11.440 --> 00:05:17.180 So he would have two options, either the unequal earning power of women could be explained 41 00:05:17.180 --> 00:05:22.840 in terms of our fear of violence or in terms of some other phenomenon in society. 42 00:05:22.840 --> 00:05:28.580 If the former, then we need that explanation, since the link between the threat of violence 43 00:05:28.580 --> 00:05:32.340 and economic inequality is not obvious. 44 00:05:32.340 --> 00:05:52.340 So 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. 45 00:05:52.340 --> 00:06:13.340 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. 46 00:06:13.340 --> 00:06:20.840 So what was missing from his account, then, were mechanisms expressing sociability, the desire to fit in with the group. 47 00:06:20.840 --> 00:06:28.840 Unlike subrational psychological habits, they're rational expressions of value, on a par with self-interest, I claim, 48 00:06:28.840 --> 00:06:33.340 which don't necessarily function as distractors from the truth. 49 00:06:33.340 --> 00:06:37.340 Indeed, a nuanced account of value acquisition in human development 50 00:06:37.340 --> 00:06:43.340 would rely more on the instinct to sociability than on self-interest, I believe. 51 00:06:43.340 --> 00:06:51.340 It's not irrational to want to get along with those around you, even if it comes at some personal expense, 52 00:06:51.340 --> 00:06:54.340 including an expense of personal liberty. 53 00:06:54.340 --> 00:06:58.340 So I don't offer this as a defense of the status quo, 54 00:06:58.340 --> 00:07:04.340 rather for someone interested in understanding the mechanisms by which the current order is maintained, 55 00:07:04.340 --> 00:07:17.060 In the absence of a large-scale shift in perception, people must first be convinced to break with 56 00:07:17.060 --> 00:07:22.620 this basic value of togetherness, a very difficult task. 57 00:07:22.620 --> 00:07:27.100 One possible reason it's left out of Long's paper is that it's not a mechanism associated 58 00:07:27.100 --> 00:07:32.640 with spontaneous order, so it would be helpful to get clear exactly on what place such a 59 00:07:32.640 --> 00:07:34.640 mechanism would have in Long's theory.