The Patriot Post® · Spontaneous Order

John Stossel: “Most of life happens without a central planner. Yet people think we need one. Suppose you’d never seen a skating rink, and I told you that I want to lay down some ice and charge people money to strap sharp blades on their feet. They will zip around on the ice – young and old, skilled and unskilled. My only rule: Go counter-clockwise. Hillary Clinton would say the rink needs regulation. She calls herself ‘a government junkie.’ Government junkies like government plans. Hillary’d probably demand that my rink have an official who tells skaters when to zoom left or right, when to slow down. I actually tried that while doing a TV special on ‘Spontaneous Order.’ I brought a megaphone to a skating rink and bossed people around. Some skaters fell. No one thought I’d made skating safer or better. That’s because no ‘planner’ knows the wishes and skills of individual skaters better than skaters themselves. Most decision making works much the same way: Leave people free to make their own choices, and a spontaneous order arises – buyers and sellers adjust to changing prices; inventors invent; families raise kids; musicians create jazz.”