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… is from page 267 of my late Nobel economics laureate colleague Jim Buchanan [2]’s profound January 1989 Business Economics article, “On the Structure of an Economy,” as this article is reprinted in James M. Buchanan, Federalism, Liberty, and Law [3] (2001), which is volume 18 of the Collected Works of James M. Buchanan [4] (original emphasis):
The principle of spontaneous coordination of the market is the principle of our discipline.
DBx: Understanding that the economy and the society of which it is a part are indeed unplanned – and unplannable – orders is a first step for anyone who wishes to understand society and the economy, and who wishes also to master the economic way of thinking. And a large portion of the economic way of thinking consists of being able to distinguish plausible accounts of how order emerges spontaneously from implausible accounts – and no account is more implausible than that the order is the intended result of human consciousness and design.