Regarding spontaneous order, another line of the discussion of 
this matter going back into history has been discussed within the 
Austrian context in a paper by the late Don Lavoie, "Economic chaos 
or spontaneous order? Implications for political economy of the new 
viw of science," Cato Journal, 1989, vol. 8, pp. 613-635.  Lavoie was 
influenced by Hayek in his discussion, citing both his 1967 paper on 
complex phenomena (thus linking to an early strand of the economic 
complexity literature) and also his 1948 book, Individualism and 
Economic Order.  In turn, Lavoie traced this idea of spontaneous 
order back to Adam Smith, and Hayek regularly made such a linkage 
himself, although it is also the case that Smith never used such 
terminology himself to the best of my knowledge.
      Obviously this is a somewhat complicated business, as many have 
noted problems with this phrase, "spontaneous order," which leave it 
open to a number of possible interpretations.  I find some of the 
examples discussed here problematic.  Thus, while all situations have 
constraints of some sort or other, I see spontaneous order as being 
limited the stronger are the constraints, even if it might be 
operative to some extent.
      Thus, to go back to the example of traffic, I do not think it 
is meaningful to talk about a "spontaneous order" when one is talking 
about traffic flows within a fixed traffic network or system.  As has 
been noted, within such a system one often finds considerable 
disorder in any meaningful sense, as at rush hours within many 
metropolitan areas, although such flow patterns are amenable to 
analysis by methods of complex sociophysics as in the current work of 
Dirk Helbing, a student of Wolfgang Weidlich at Stuttgart.
      I am more inclined to see spontaneous order in the longer run 
formation of the traffic networks themselves. Off course in modern 
societies such networks are generally eventually built or determined 
by governmental entities, but their decisions often reflect earlier 
patterns that are more spontaneous, especially regarding the routes 
of major roadways, which may involve path dependence based on earlier 
transportation patterns and routes, which can involve complicated 
interrelationships between geographical peculiarities and the 
evolution of the location of cities and economic activities.  I think 
in the US of the many interstate highway routes that parallel older 
US highway routes, which in turn parallel much older Indian paths.
      Likewise in the arguments about the evolution of money, the 
commodity or commodities that might "spontaneously" emerge as regular 
media of exchange often are ones widely in use within an economy, 
although, depending on how one defines "money," such emerged 
commodities may only become "full money" after some state becomes 
involved as with the chartalist view, which then puts the process 
more distinctly within some constraints.

Barkley Rosser