Why did Smith and Bastiat emphasize the hidden order behind competition? This is a lesson they felt others needed to learn.

Why did Hayek play up the term "spontaneous order" in popular writings and "competition as a discovery procedure" elsewhere? Hayek thought that the public was too hung up on the notion of dog-eat-dog competition, whereby intense competition is bad and needs to be suppresed- but at the same time the profession was too hung up on imperfect competition, whereby competition is good in theory but supposedly too weak in practice. 

The economy is both competitive and cooperative, in subtle ways, so we try to teach the lesson that we think others need to learn.

D.W. MacKenzie, Ph.D.
Carroll College, Helena MT



--- On Wed, 11/21/12, Bruce Caldwell <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

> I got the following 2 questions from Paul Rubin. Any
> takers?
> Question:  When was "competition" first used in
> economics.  Harder question: Why is the economy called
> "competitive" when it is actually cooperative?
> Please answer to the list, and I'll forward the consensus
> answers (if they emerge) to him.
> Bruce Caldwell
>