✍ Scribed by Henry E. Kilpatrick Jr
No coin nor oath required. For personal study only.
illiam Tucker [1] argues that complexity theory vindicates Friedrich Hayek's theory of spontaneous order [2,3]. Tucker further argues that complexity theory substantiates Hayek's laissez-faire economic philosophy as well. He accuses W. Brian Arthur and other economists at Santa Fe Institute of using complexity theory to justify government intervention, even though (he claims) they purportedly acknowledge that they have merely rediscovered Austrian economics. Arthur disputes this characterization of his work [4] and justifiably so. Karen I. Vaughn and J. Loren Poulsen extensively review the issue of Hayek and complexity theory in a conference paper [5], a revised version of which was recently published under Vaughn's name [6]. Both papers reach a similar conclusion, arguing that Hayek's work is a precursor of complexity theory. Although they quote Tucker's article, they do not go so far as to claim that complexity theory is simply a rediscovery of certain of Hayek's theories or a vindication of his free market philosophy.
This article includes a very brief discussion of the application of complexity theory to the field of economics, the relationship of complexity theory to Hayek's "spontaneous order," and an answer to the question of whether complexity theory is simply a manifestation of Hayek's spontaneous order theory. It relies heavily upon Arthur's work in defining complexity insofar as it relates to the field of economics. There are overlaps in the respective theories, but complexity theory is qualitatively different. On one level there are differences in the core values of its practitioners. More importantly, the current technological era, or information economy (and now the Internet economy), was not a reality when Hayek was alive.
In Hayek's description of the economic system, markets are not always at equilibrium. Markets may be self-organized by agents with no central controller. Markets
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