Vol 5 Issue 3 + 4 | 2018
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ISSN 2291-5079 Vol 5 | Issue 3 + 4 2018 COSMOS + TAXIS Studies in Emergent Order and Organization COVER ART: COSMOS + TAXIS Paula Wright Studies in Emergent Order and Organization Ryton Oak (Gold) 2016 VOL 5 | ISSUE 3 + 4 2018 www.paulawrightart.wordpress.com IN THIS ISSUE EDITORIAL BOARDS ARTICLES HONORARY FOUNDING EDITORS EDITORS Civil Society as a Complex Adaptive Phenomenon ..... 3 Joaquin Fuster David Emanuel Andersson* University of California, Los Angeles (editor-in-chief) Mikayla Novak David F. Hardwick* RMIT University, Vietnam Reconsidering Urban Spontaneity and Flexibility The University of British Columbia William Butos after Jane Jacobs: How do they work under Lawrence Wai-Chung Lai (deputy editor) Trinity College different kinds of planning conditions? ............... 14 University of Hong Kong Frederick Turner Laurent Dobuzinskis* Stefano Cozzolino University of Texas at Dallas (deputy editor) Simon Fraser University Cities, Agriculture, and Economic Development: Leslie Marsh* The Debate over Jane Jacobs’s ‘Cities-First Thesis’ ... 25 (managing editor) Sanford Ikeda The University of British Columbia Detecting and Directing Emergent Urban Systems: assistant managing editors: a Multi-Scale Approach ............................ 32 Thomas Cheeseman Elena Porqueddu Dean Woodley Ball Alexander Hamilton Institute Connecting the Dots: Hayek, Darwin, and Ecology .... 51 Gus diZerega The Role of Spontaneous Order in Video Games: CONSULTING EDITORS A Case Study of Destiny ........................... 63 Corey Abel Peter G. Klein Denver Baylor University William Gordon Miller Thierry Aimar Paul Lewis Sciences Po Paris King’s College London Nurit Alfasi Ted G. Lewis REVIEWS Ben Gurion University Technology Assessment Group of the Negev Salinas, CA The Infidel and the Professor: David Hume, Theodore Burczak Joseph Isaac Lifshitz Adam Smith, and the Friendship that Denison University The Shalem College Shaped Modern Thought Gene Callahan Jacky Mallett by Dennis C. Rasmussen ............................ 73 Purchase College Reykjavik University Gordon Graham State University of New York Alberto Mingardi Chor-Yung Cheung Istituto Bruno Leoni Legislating Instability: Adam Smith, Free Banking, City University of Hong Kong Stefano Moroni and the Financial Crisis of 1772 Francesco Di Iorio Milan Polytechnic by Tyler Beck Goodspeed .......................... 78 Nankai University, China Edmund Neill Pablo Paniagua Gus diZerega* New College of the Humanities Taos, NM Christian Onof National Economic Planning: What Is Left? Péter Érdi Imperial College London by Don Lavoie ..................................... 86 Kalamazoo College Mark Pennington Pablo Paniagua Evelyn Lechner Gick King’s College London Dartmouth College Jason Potts Envisioning Real Utopias by Erik Olin Wright .......... 94 Peter Gordon Royal Melbourne Institute David Ellerman University of Southern California of Technology Cognitive Autonomy and Methodological Individualism: Lauren K. Hall* Don Ross Rochester Institute of Technology University of Cape Town and The Interpretative Foundations of Social Life Sanford Ikeda Georgia State University by Francesco Di Iorio .............................. 104 Purchase College Virgil Storr Gabriele Ciampini State University of New York George Mason University Andrew Irvine Stephen Turner The University of British Columbia University of South Florida Editorial Information .............................. 109 Byron Kaldis Gloria Zúñiga y Postigo The Hellenic Open University Ashford University *Executive committee http://cosmosandtaxis.org COSMOS + TAXIS Civil Society as a Complex Adaptive Phenomenon MIKAYLA NOVAK RMIT University, School of Economics, Finance and Marketing RMIT College of Business Building 80 445 Swanston Street Melbourne, 3000, Australia Email: [email protected] Web: https://mikaylanovak.com Abstract: I depict civil society as a complex and adaptive phenomenon. Individuals and groups within civil society interact with each other to achieve mutually agreeable outcomes, and this gives rise to identifiable spontaneous orders of economic, communal and political relationships. Civil society is not a mere aggregation of these sub-orders but a combinatorial ensem- ble of them in that a multiplicity of dispositions, interests and values, and relevant feedback mechanisms, co-exist tenuously, often contradictorily and in entangled fashion. This paper describes the general processes in which alternative perspectives within civil society continuously vie against each other for widespread support, and critically appraises the suggestion that certain aspects of economic, social or political evolution portend the “decline” of civil society itself. The distinct value of the civil society concept lies in the capacity of diverse individuals to arrange mutually agreeable adjustments in the absence of domination or subjection. 3 Keywords: adaptation, civil society, complexity, evolution, meso, structure, spontaneous order INTRODUCTION Inspired by developments in complexity and evolution- COSMOS + TAXIS + TAXIS COSMOS ary science literatures, especially their applications in social As observed throughout the course of human history and scientific contexts, I depict civil society as a complex and in all the places human beings inhabit, individuals inces- adaptive phenomenon. To be more specific, civil society is santly interact with others in the pursuit of benefits and that combinatorial sphere of cooperative relations between achievements. A broad-scale conception of the domain individuals and groups of people spanning the economic, through which varying guises of human association takes communal and political orders, with each order consist- place is coined “civil society,” and the objective of this paper ing of both spontaneous and non-spontaneous elements is to provide an account of its nature and salient features. (diZerega 2014; Madison 1997). Any attempt to provide a definitive account of civil soci- The explanation of civil society as a structured process ety surely poses as an intellectually tall order. This reflects (embodying complexity) unfolding in novel, and often recognition that “civil society is a … necessarily contest- unforeseen, ways (reflecting adaptation) yields several im- ed idea” and is “not a concept that yields to easy consen- portant insights. This approach invites an inclusive, non- sus, conclusion, or generalization” (Edwards 2011, 480). reductionist approach toward examining the kinds of Ambiguities surrounding the definition of civil society re- relationships and interdependencies forged when humans flect scholarly disputes over the appropriate scope of human act to procure gains from each other. It also draws attention activity to be encompassed within the civil society notion, to the claim economic, communal and political situations as well as contestation surrounding the normative propriety within civil society are, themselves, the manifestation of of claims made about its efficacy in explaining the trends decentralised actions by the many, and not the intentional and tendencies of actual societies. Difficulties in grasping design by the few. Finally, understanding civil society as a the idea of civil society may also be attributable to shifts complex, adaptive phenomenon helps us to understand and and permutations in the kinds of cooperative human activi- appreciate the implications of observed changes that both ties undertaken therein. surround us, and in which we participate. CIVIL Society as A Complex Adaptive PHENOMENON I now turn to the structure of the paper. First, I draw tive opportunity to enhance living standards, even for those upon a range of contemporary social scientific insights to in economically impoverished positions. Furthermore, depict some generic properties of civil society as a complex, in sentiments reminiscent of the doux-commerce thesis of adaptive phenomenon. This is followed by an analysis of a France’s Montesquieu, the Scotsman conceived that com- multi-phase processes in which change is realised through mercial development “contributes greatly to the extirpa- the economic, communal and political orders of civil soci- tion of prejudice and parochialism and the cultivation of ety. Entrepreneurial action sets out to discover novel modes a shared sense of humanity. Commerce polishes away the of conduct, the entrepreneurial insight is then competitive- rough edges of human nature and leads to the cultivation of ly tested against other insights for prospective support, and civility and manners” (Boyd 2013, p. 444). the most popular insights potentially become embedded in The nineteenth-century French aristocrat Alexis de the institutional frameworks of civil society as enduring Tocqueville studied the social and political conditions un- rules. Next, I draw upon the dynamic picture of civil soci- derpinning the formative American democracy, and in so ety explicated in this paper to critically assess the claim that doing formulated yet another version of civil society theo- observed changes necessarily illustrate that civil society is ry. Intermediate associations, both local and voluntary in in “decline.” I finish by making concluding remarks. their character, were elevated as the pivotal component of civil society. Tocqueville noted that diverse associations CIVIL SOCIETY AS A COMPLEX MEDLEY OF and social groupings encouraged Americans to devise their SPONTANEOUS ORDERS own solutions to problems, rather than depending upon government to do so purportedly on their behalf.