Thu Sep 28 08:32:01 EDT 2006
Fred is right, such institutions and laws have emerged
out of trade. However, many laws are the product of
deliberate legislation, and are not an unintended
consequence of decentralized competition in markets.
Hayek himself was ok with planning a few general or
constitutional rules of social interaction, and this
was not a part of his notion of mutual plan adjustment
in a spontaneous order.
Some public choice scholars try to import the idea of
decentralized competition into electoral politics, but
it really does not work the same in that context.
Doug Mackenzie