Warren Samuel's post emphasized the inevitable role of institutions 
in market processes. Somewhat similarly, Mohammad Gani and Edith 
Kuiper in earlier posts referred to history, customs and shared 
habits as important to the fabric of society and markets embedded in 
them. "Spontaneous order" may not be only an unfortunate choice 
of  word, as some have suggested, implying that the underlying 
conception is still valid. Order is definitely not guaranteed as we 
know from all the examples of traffic jams, bubbles and collapses 
folks have pointed out. The spontaneity of markets, elucidated by 
Steven Horwitz as "the unplanned nature of the order that emerged not 
the actions that comprise the eventual emergence of that order" has 
limited validity - what important conclusions do you draw from it, 
except an absolute faith in the market system in spite of being 
challenged by real world complexities.

Robert Heilbroner, no fan of Hayek or free market rhetoric, used to 
say that (unlike other human institutions) markets possessed 
"regularities". That they do. And it explains how Adam Smith and 
classical economists successfully applied the analytical method in 
studying markets and prices. But regularity does not translate in any 
meaningful way into spontaneity, and classical economists did not 
make the economy or markets autonomous, and separate from society. 
Heilbroner preferred the term  'economic society' which describes the 
market phenomenon accurately without attributing characteristics to 
it which are misleading as far as outcomes are concerned. I find it 
puzzling that Hayek's economics, rich in institutional analyses, 
would elevate the unplanned nature of the market above all.

Sumitra Shah