Regarding Mathew Forstater's post on the origins/history of "spontaneous order," I recently addressed this question in the QJAE: http://www.mises.org/journals/qjae/pdf/qjae8_4_2.pdf I must admit to being unfamiliar with the Polanyi-Lowe connection; more evidence on that relationship might change my verdict. However, I will say that the usual evidence presented for Polanyi's having revived the expression is rather unpersuasive. Wilhelm Ropke seems to have used the phrase in print (_Economics of the Free Society_, 1937) before Polanyi did. As for Pete Boettke's belief that Polanyi, not J.S. Mill, is the source of "spontaneous order," I would simply like to remind everyone that Hayek was an accomplished Mill scholar, as well as a classical liberal, and so it would certainly be quite possible for Hayek to have gotten the phrase, directly or indirectly, from Mill. Jack Bladel