Rod Hay wrote:  
> I guess we will just have to disagree. I think that "intended" order is much  
> more important than Hayekians allow.  
>     
  
I'm hoping that wasn't a reaction to having read my piece, because my   
point there was precisely (as Sam Bostaph noted later) that a great deal   
of what happens in the economy IS the creation of intended order by what   
Hayek labelled "organizations."  For all the talk of his work on   
unintended order, he also was very clear to state that what comprises   
the unintended order of the Great Society is the interaction of millions   
of smaller-scale intended orders:  firms, families/households,   
governments, etc.  Unintended order requires the existence of intended   
orders. As modern Austrians (in particular a great paper by Peter Lewin   
in the AJES a few years ago) have argued, all of that smaller-scale   
activity, in turn, requires the background conditions provided by the   
unintended order of the market place for firms etc. to begin to act with   
intention.  They need market prices to formulate budgets, for example.  
  
Good Hayekians - or perhaps good Austrians - recognize that economic   
activity is characterized by both intended and unintended orders.    
Mises's "human action" and Hayek's "spontaneous order" are two elements   
of the same story.  Again, rephrasing Sam, the problem Austrians have   
traditionally noted arises when people attempt to subsume the unintended   
order of the market place within some consciously created intended   
order.  Hayekians hardly deny that attempts at intended order in the   
broader Great Society occur and are part of the reality of the economic   
world.  They are very important, if very damaging.  I would also add   
that it's equally problematic when the institutions, values, and   
practices of the market subsume smaller-scale intended orders, such as   
the family.  
  
If you'll pardon one more round of self-citation, I address this whole   
constellation of issues in a recent paper "The Functions of the Family   
in the Great Society," published in the Cambridge Journal of Economics,   
that can be found here:    
http://cje.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/reprint/bei041?ijkey=mHm33v0YBFbIz6h&keytype=ref  
  
I provide that citation so that Rod might rethink his claim that   
Hayekians are paying insufficient attention to intended orders.  
  
Steven Horwitz