[snarkpup]

There is a powerful tendency in the human mind to believe that the more complex the world is, the more centralized management and design is needed to keep things from falling apart. Spontaneous order is how things work, but people have difficulty grasping this.

[poconopundit]

Spontaneous order is how things work, but people have difficulty grasping this.

* * *

Here's Emerson's explanation of capitalism. What do you think?

The men of the mine, telegraph, mill, map, and survey,-- the monomaniacs, who talk up their project in marts, and offices, and entreat men to subscribe: -- how did our factories get built? how did North America get netted with iron rails, except by the importunity of these orators, who dragged all the prudent men in?

This speculative genius is the madness of few for the gain of the world. The speculators are sacrificed, but the public is the gainer.

Each of these idealists, working after his thought, would make it tyrannical, if he could. He is met and antagonized by other speculators, as hot as he.

The equilibrium is preserved by these counteractions, as one tree keeps down another in the forest, that it may not absorb all the sap in the ground.

And the supply in nature of railroad presidents, copper-miners, grand-junctioners, smoke-burners, fire-annihilators, etc., is limited by the same law which keeps the proportion in the supply of carbon, of alum, and of hydrogen.

Wealth from The Conduct of Life (1860, rev. 1876)