<story><title>Friedrich Hayek and the Collective Brain</title><url>https://capx.co/friedrich-hayek-and-the-collective-brain/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>RobertoG</author><text>&amp;quot;[..] Exchange, as practised by people for about the last 100,000 years [..]&amp;quot;&lt;p&gt;We know that exchange is just one more activity that humans do, but, historically, in the thousand of years context, it was not fundamental.&lt;p&gt;We could argue that in the palaeolithic the social organization had little to do with markets. We could argue that in the neolithic, the social organization was, in most cases, hierarchical and top-down.&lt;p&gt;So, the implicit assumption of markets as the &amp;#x27;natural state&amp;#x27; of human organization has not real basis. Even money is an invention of the state.&lt;p&gt;The idea that markets are powerful tools don&amp;#x27;t need to be defended. It&amp;#x27;s the idea that markets know what is better for us what many reject.&lt;p&gt;It&amp;#x27;s like saying that we should just start the lawnmower and leave it to decide what to cut. Then, when we don&amp;#x27;t like the garden, we have to accept it&amp;#x27;s for the best, because if a better garden was possible is what we would have.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>nickik</author><text>&amp;gt; So, the implicit assumption of markets as the &amp;#x27;natural state&amp;#x27; of human organization has not real basis.&lt;p&gt;I would agree. I don&amp;#x27;t think such a general statement is valid.&lt;p&gt;&amp;gt;  Even money is an invention of the state.&lt;p&gt;This I highly disagree with. I think the evidence is quite clear that money was independently arrived at both by state and by trade. It depends a bit on how you define it, but I think no other conclusion is possible.&lt;p&gt;&amp;gt;  It&amp;#x27;s the idea that markets know what is better for us what many reject.&lt;p&gt;I don&amp;#x27;t understand who is making that argument.The hole point of Hayek is that you can follow your own goals and as long as you are in a market structure you will be helped in doing so.&lt;p&gt;If with &amp;#x27;us&amp;#x27; you mean a state by democratic rule then the matter gets more complicated because its not at all clear that the outcome of the democratic process is a better &amp;#x27;aggregation of wills&amp;#x27; then a market process.</text></comment>
<story><title>Friedrich Hayek and the Collective Brain</title><url>https://capx.co/friedrich-hayek-and-the-collective-brain/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>RobertoG</author><text>&amp;quot;[..] Exchange, as practised by people for about the last 100,000 years [..]&amp;quot;&lt;p&gt;We know that exchange is just one more activity that humans do, but, historically, in the thousand of years context, it was not fundamental.&lt;p&gt;We could argue that in the palaeolithic the social organization had little to do with markets. We could argue that in the neolithic, the social organization was, in most cases, hierarchical and top-down.&lt;p&gt;So, the implicit assumption of markets as the &amp;#x27;natural state&amp;#x27; of human organization has not real basis. Even money is an invention of the state.&lt;p&gt;The idea that markets are powerful tools don&amp;#x27;t need to be defended. It&amp;#x27;s the idea that markets know what is better for us what many reject.&lt;p&gt;It&amp;#x27;s like saying that we should just start the lawnmower and leave it to decide what to cut. Then, when we don&amp;#x27;t like the garden, we have to accept it&amp;#x27;s for the best, because if a better garden was possible is what we would have.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>jasode</author><text>&lt;i&gt;&amp;gt;Even money is an invention of the state.&lt;/i&gt;&lt;p&gt;The existence of money precedes sovereign governments.  The only prerequisite for &amp;quot;money&amp;quot; is consumption decoupled from the instantaneous moment of the trade (aka not direct barter) and human memories to keep track of them. That form of &amp;quot;money&amp;quot; has been happening for thousands of years.  The prerequisite for &amp;quot;currency&amp;quot; is any item (coins, cigarettes, hotel loyalty points, scrips, etc)  that&amp;#x27;s frequently used as an intermediate store of value to obtain other items.&lt;p&gt;However, a &lt;i&gt;fiat&lt;/i&gt; currency requires a modern state to convince citizens to put faith into authorized pieces of paper instead of cattle&amp;#x2F;tobacco&amp;#x2F;yams&amp;#x2F;gold&amp;#x2F;diamonds&amp;#x2F;etc.  If the citizens lose faith in government-printed money (e.g. Zimbabwe, Germany Weimar Republic), people will fall back on underground &amp;quot;organic money&amp;quot;.</text></comment>