Det förra seklet präglades i många avseenden av de stora, centralstyrda ekonomisk-politiska systemen och utopiska drömmar om att kunna planera fram det ideala samhället. Tilltron till individens förmåga och respekten för dennes preferenser, liksom förståelsen av fenomenet spontan ordning, lyste på många håll med sin frånvaro. I The Theory of Moral Sentiments (VI.II.42) varnar Adam Smith för systemmannen, han som tror sig veta hur allt ska styras och ställas:

The man of system, on the contrary, is apt to be very wise in his own conceit; and is often so enamoured with the supposed beauty of his own ideal plan of government, that he cannot suffer the smallest deviation from any part of it. He goes on to establish it completely and in all its parts, without any regard either to the great interests, or to the strong prejudices which may oppose it. He seems to imagine that he can arrange the different members of a great society with as much ease as the hand arranges the different pieces upon a chess-board. He does not consider that the pieces upon the chess-board have no other principle of motion besides that which the hand impresses upon them; but that, in the great chess-board of human society, every single piece has a principle of motion of its own, altogether different from that which the legislature might chuse to impress upon it. If those two principles coincide and act in the same direction, the game of human society will go on easily and harmoniously, and is very likely to be happy and successful. If they are opposite or different, the game will go on miserably, and the society must be at all times in the highest degree of disorder.

Mycket tänkvärda ord.

Fördjupning: F. A. Hayek använder begreppen kosmos och taxis för spontan respektive planerad ordning: han analyserar och kontrasterar dem i kapitel 2 av Law, Legislation and Liberty; Rules and Order. Se också Norman Barrys översikt om spontan ordning.