As a non-economist, I always worry about writing to this list.  But I   
am struck by Diana Weinert's request about the "vast spontaneous   
order."  She lists as one example Adam Smith's woolen coat.  
But doesn't Adam Smith's pin factory suggest that at work also in the   
modern economy is a vast hierarchical command system (even if some   
portions may have been discovered  spontaneously from local   
knowledge)?  
  
I have nothing against studying the "vast spontaneous order."   
(Well, I probably do, because *I*, unlike Diana, think it has been   
vastly over-studied, to the exclusion of other forms of ordering at   
work in the economy.)  
  
But I kind of think it would be also interesting to study the vast   
hierarchical command order embedded in the modern economy.  
  
Peter G. Stillman