Trust and spontaneous order don’t require heavy hand of the state

By David McElroy · July 25, 2013

What do you do if you want to buy vegetables? If you’re like most people, you head to the grocery store to buy food grown far away from where you live by people you don’t know under conditions you aren’t sure about. What if you had a choice to buy veggies from somebody around the block instead?

Sadly, I don’t eat vegetables the way I should, so I can’t remember the last time I’ve been in the vegetable section of a grocery store unless I was on my way to the meat counter or the ice cream aisle. But if I did suddenly become a healthy eater, I’d have a choice that a lot of people don’t have. I could walk two blocks to the little old house you see above and buy fresh vegetables grown in their yard — all without any licensing or health permits.

I feel pretty certain that this must be against city vending ordinances to do it in a residential area, but this older couple have been doing this since before I moved to the neighborhood more than 20 years ago. They’ve lived there in their modest little house since long before an affluent suburb grew up around them. The mayor of this little suburb lives within 50 yards of the house where these folks live, so I’m sure the city knows about it. Even though my little suburb likes to see itself as progressive and upscale these days, it leaves these people alone. Why? I assume it’s because they’ve been doing it for so long and because the people who live nearby actually like it.

This older couple aren’t going to win any awards for marketing or merchandising displays, but there’s something reassuring and honest about their little operation. I was thinking last night — not for the first time — that what they do is a perfect example of how commerce works when the state doesn’t give orders.

First, nobody tells these people what to grow. If they want to grow tomatoes and green beans and corn, they can do it. If their customers want to buy those things, even better. They don’t have experts telling them what to do. They just know what’s worth their time and effort, because they know local conditions far better than any expert might. (And if they’re wrong, only they will pay the price, but it’s a risk they decide to take.)

Second, nobody tells them the prices or gives them permission to sell. They sell with the permission of their customers. Nobody else.

Third, they trust their customers and their customers trust them. They don’t hire someone to sit at the road and wait next to the cash box. Instead, there’s just a table with the produce and instructions about where to put the money. (See the picture on the right? I took that after midnight Saturday night. The produce is still there, and so is the cash box — with money still inside. I checked.)

The instructions aren’t a model of simplicity or good spelling, but they work. They trust that the customers aren’t going to steal their stuff, and for those who might be thinking about stealing, they have a reminder — on the sign from a couple of years ago — that says, “Thou shall not steal.” At the same time, their customers trust them not to be selling food that’s been poisoned in some way.

Here’s the thing that planners of all stripes don’t understand. We don’t need them forcing their top-down plans on us. There’s nothing wrong with planning. I’m sure the older gentleman who lives near me plans his plowing and seeding each year. The problem is when there’s coercion. Nobody tells him what he has to do — and that’s what state planners are fond of doing.

The Austrian school of economics has been the biggest bastion of support for what’s been called spontaneous order. In this terrific essay from six years ago, economist Russ Roberts says that the great Austrian-school economist Friedrich A. Hayek complained that language is really inadequate at describing processes that emerge without intent ahead of time. Hayek and his fellow Austrians emphasized that it’s not just that the state shouldn’t plan things for people; it’s that the state can’t plan things adequately, because it’s impossible.

(For more on Hayek’s critique of why top-down planning doesn’t work, I recommend his book, “The Fatal Conceit: the Errors of Socialism.”)

Order emerges when people trust each other and pursue their own interests, not when bureaucrats make up rules that seem to make sense to them.

One final point to make is that the story of this older couple in my neighborhood isn’t all about the glories of locally grown food. Honestly, I don’t care much about that. Some people do. The point is that it’s your choice. You can buy your food — when it’s in season — from these nice folks around the block from me or you can buy your food from the Super Target or Winn-Dixie or Publix or Walmart or any of the other dozens of choices near my house. (That’s part of the produce selection at the Target near my house in the picture above.)

The point isn’t that one choice or the other is the better one for you to make. There isn’t a One True Way. The point is that it’s your choice to make. We don’t need the state making it for us, in produce or education or health care or anything else.

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I’m seeing a lot of simplistic and dishonest explanations right now for the current rioting in France. Those on the populist far right claim it’s all about Muslim immigrants to France disrupting the culture. Their message is that this sort of thing is going to happen in the U.S. unless “we defend the border.” On the far left, socialists and their fellow travelers claim the riots are all about wealthy people in France not paying enough taxes, resulting in cuts to government services. The truth is far more complicated, but it’s rooted in the decline of population growth in Europe. There simply aren’t enough young workers paying into the tax system anymore, so cuts in social services were inevitable. There is genuine cultural tension as more and more people immigrate from other countries, but government cuts to education and other services are even more important to what’s happening. The situation is complicated, so don’t let dishonest people with U.S. political agendas tell you that it happens to support whatever they were already promoting for partisan reasons.

Here’s another reason to appreciate the cats in your life: New research involving 93 countries found that places with more cats per person also tended to have happier people. The researchers say the finding fits with previous evidence that living with pets can reduce loneliness and stress while providing companionship, emotional attachment and social support. The study doesn’t prove that cats cause greater happiness, but it certainly adds to the evidence that sharing your home — and your life — with a cat might be good for you.

The company that owns Facebook and Instagram is heavily promoting its new AI-based software assistant called Muse, but people who are using it as it was designed are incredibly foolish. An early adopter of the software discovered that a few days ago when he advertised an item for sale on Facebook Marketplace — and he inadvertently gave Muse full authority to act on his behalf. The software agreed to a lowball offer made by another Facebook user and then gave that man the home address of the man for whom he was an agent. The software told the buyer that the seller was home and waiting for him. When the buyer showed up and waited angrily, the would-be buyer left an angry review for the man. And this angry man had the seller’s home address. It was only well after that that the software reported what it had done and admitted it had made a mistake. I won’t be putting that much power into the hands of any software. I think anyone who agrees to such terms is a fool. And the software’s user agreement says you’re responsible for purchases the software makes in your name. Nope.

Meet my new girlfriend. Her name is Meg. And she’s my little sweetheart. A couple of months ago, a neighbor across the street told me about a new stray in the neighborhood that she and I were both soon feeding. The cat had been very skittish about contact and she had a lot of scabs and parasites in her fur, but a trip to the vet last week revealed that she was otherwise in good health. The vet estimates her to be 1 to 2 years old. I named her for Meg Murry, the 13-year-old protagonist of Madeleine L’Engle’s wonderful book, “A Wrinkle in Time.” (Please read the book. Don’t watch the horrible movie.) Since we lost Lucy almost a year ago, it seems appropriate that we finally have a new little girl to join the household. She’s already captured my heart, but Alex, Oliver and Sam aren’t there quite yet.

There’s nothing socially acceptable that’s as dangerous as drinking alcohol. Most people grow up being told to “drink responsibly” — and all of us see people abusing this drug in one way or another — but the truth is that drinking alcohol is always a terrible risk. The alcohol in these drinks is toxic and the human liver has to work hard to filter the toxins out. What most people don’t realize is that alcohol is classified as a known carcinogen by the World Health Organization — because of the well-established connection between imbibing and various cancers. Many people have taken refuge behind the idea that light or moderate drinking might be safe, but a new study shows that drinking even one drink a day increases the risks of 10 types of cancer. When I was a teen-ager, I looked around and saw the negative effects that this behavior had on a lot of people and decided not to start drinking, so I’ve never even tried this poison. The evidence keeps piling up that I was lucky to have come to that conclusion early.

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