Economics with Everything

If we act on the belief that we possess the knowledge and power to shape social processes entirely as we wish, when that knowledge is not actually available to us, we are very likely to cause serious harm. In the natural sciences, attempting the impossible may do relatively little damage. In society, however, the mistaken belief that exercising power can produce beneficial results usually leads to an authority being granted new powers to compel others.

Even if such power is not bad in itself, using it generally disrupts the spontaneous forces that bring order to our activities and help us pursue our aims, often without our truly understanding them. We have only begun to grasp the delicate system of communication on which advanced industrial society rests. We call this system the market, and it has proved more effective at absorbing and using dispersed information than any mechanism deliberately designed by human beings.

If our efforts to improve the social order are to bring more benefit than harm, we must therefore accept that, in this domain, as in any domain marked by inherent, organised complexity, we cannot obtain the complete knowledge that would allow us to command events.

We should instead use the knowledge we can acquire to nurture a process of growth, rather than mould its outcome as a craftsperson moulds an object. Our task is to provide a suitable environment, much as a gardener provides the conditions in which plants can grow.

Recognising the limits that human knowledge cannot overcome should teach students of society humility. That lesson should keep them from joining humanity's dangerous attempt to control society. Such an attempt can turn a person into a tyrant over others and may even make them the destroyer of a civilisation that no single mind designed, but that grew out of the free efforts of millions of individuals.