… is from page 267 of my late Nobel economics laureate colleague Jim Buchanan’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 (2001), which is volume 18 of the Collected Works of James M. Buchanan (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.
