I saw a discussion among several friends on twitter about the concept of “spontaneous social order” and I immediately thought of Taoism and the Tâo Te Ching. I thought of the Taoist idea of “mutual arising”.

Taoists see the our universe as being in a continuous state of flux. What we experience is a process where everything is always changing and nothing remains constant. There is a constant interplay of opposing forces that shape our reality, much like rock and water meet to shape the river bed over time. Taoism is the philosophy that gave us the concept of yin and yang and it is from this constant, cooperative competition that the unity and harmony of nature arises. Nature is self-sufficient and uncreated. We don’t need to postulate a conscious, controlling “god” to give orders to nature or to man. We also don’t need human ‘rulers’, bureaucracy, or a panel of “experts” to shape our society. We don’t need central planners to tell man what his best course is. This interplay of forces is often called “mutual arising”. I first became aware of this concept reading Alan Watts who may be one of the best sources of explanation on Taoism that you will find.

The mutual arising of opposites implies many things. For one it means that chaos and order are two sides of the same coin. Order will arise from chaos and the opposite also happens. This Taoist concept is strikingly similar to the idea of a spontaneous order. We see from the Wikipedia entry:

I also agree that the Taoists were the first (that we know) to advocate against central planing or rulers giving orders on how to live. Consider Lao Tzu writing in The Tâo Te Ching Chapter 57.

The Genuine Influence.

1. A state may be ruled by (measures of) correction; weapons of war may be used with crafty dexterity; (but) the kingdom is made one’s own (only) by freedom from action and purpose. 2. How do I know that it is so? By these facts:– In the kingdom the multiplication of prohibitive enactments increases the poverty of the people; the more implements to add to their profit that the people have, the greater disorder is there in the state and clan; the more acts of crafty dexterity that men possess, the more do strange contrivances appear; the more display there is of legislation, the more thieves and robbers there are. 3. Therefore a sage has said, ‘I will do nothing (of purpose), and the people will be transformed of themselves; I will be fond of keeping still, and the people will of themselves become correct. I will take no trouble about it, and the people will of themselves become rich; I will manifest no ambition, and the people will of themselves attain to the primitive simplicity.’

The sage is talking to a ruler and advising him that taking no action at all will lead to the greatest good for all; himself included. This is telling the ruler not to rule! By allowing the people to jointly arrive at “the way” by cooperation and trial and error we will see the best results.

Thousands of years before the thinkers of the Scottish Enlightenment and later the French economists of the 18h century developed the idea that the market is spontaneous order in action and that “laissez-faire” was the wisest path, the Taoists were saying that “The Tao” was the natural force that ordered everything in the universe and to oppose the Tao was folly.

Some define the phenomenon of spontaneous order in society as the “result of human action, but not the execution of any human design“. The Taoist idea of “mutual arising” is that there is no straight line cause and effect in the universe like the simple idea of Newton’s famous “billiard ball universe” in action. The Taoists would tell you that all of us, all of the animals, and everything else is part of one process. Every action is part of every other action — and so the sage can tell us that we experience the whole universe without leaving our dwelling place.

The idea of “mutual arising” is an ancient idea that is basically the same as, or at least very compatible with, “spontaneous order”. And both of these concepts are compatible with modern physics. Some say that Taoism foreshadowed modern physics.

Lao Tzu sees only evil and woe coming from any action by the ruler. He sees government as man’s folly and he offers us advice that might have come from any modern market anarchist:

The more laws and restrictions there are,

The poorer people become.

The sharper men’s weapons,

The more trouble in the land.

The more ingenious and clever men are,

The more strange things happen.

The more rules and regulations,

The more thieves and robbers.

So we can conclude that the idea of a spontaneous order arising from mutual cooperation is not new at all, and it is at the very heart of Austrian Economics and their advocacy of laissez-faire. The central idea is that millions of people working together will come up with ideas far better than some committee of even the brightest of people. Trial and error will lead the “crowd” to outperform the panel of “experts” every time; and that is even on the rare occasions when the government panel is actually trying to help the masses.

Letting the people voluntarily order society is the path to our greatest fulfillment. Let us toss aside all beliefs that some planning board made up of “experts” will do anything but harm.