Emergence—A Missing Variable

Riker's analytical method, consistent with the standard model, is linear, reduc­ible and deductive. He presumes that humans form governments to acquire or consolidate power, and that human social order is created from the top down.

We see this reductive, linear and deductive method at work again in Riker's claim that he can predict a federal state's fate at its founding merely by assess­ing whether the federal government or constituent units hold the preponder­ance of power. If the bulk of power lies with the states, he predicts, then the nation will eventually become confederal; otherwise, a unitary nation will evolve (Riker 1964). Riker's focus on power and his deductive methodology turns the origin and operation of federal states into competitions for power, measured by the ‘autonomy' those officials possess, and with only a backward glance to democracy.

Riker's claims fit the standard model's support for consolidating and cen­tralizing government. so that elites, drawing on science and an army of bureau­crats, can adopt and implement policies that would more efficiently order society.^[10] In short, power is to Riker as gold and silver were to mercantilists; he cannot imagine that order or organization could flow from anything else.

Reductive, linear and deductive methods, however, are blind to an import­ant new concept called emergence.^[11] One form of emergence is ‘spontaneous order', which is the idea that order need not be imposed top down, but may emerge spontaneously from simple rules (Colander and Kupers 2014; Lane 2017; Milbank and Pabst 2016; Pally 2016; Schelling i960).

Emergence claims that interactions and relationships at the micro level, under the right conditions, generate complex emergent characteristics and patterns at the macro level. These emergent macro properties persist, despite continual turnover in their constituent parts (Holland 1995). They are irreduc­ible: that is, they are found only in the whole and are often completely different from anything found in the parts (Morgol 2012; Vermeule 2011). These emer­gent elements exert downward causation: that is, they feed back into the sys­tem, affecting the behaviour of the components of the system (Morgol 2012).¹¹

A few counter-intuitive examples illustrate emergent, spontaneous order. Consider a pack of hunting wolves, a flock of birds and a school of fish. Biologists did not understand how these groups behaved without some central direction until learning that a few rules can create spontaneous and complex order. An incredibly effective and efficient wolf pack can be explained with two rules: first, get as close to the target prey as possible without being injured or killed; second, move away from your closest hunting companion (Muro, Escobedo, Spector and Coppinger 2011). Three rules explain how birds can flock and fish can school without crashing into one another or other physical objects (Hartman and Benes 2006). Movie makers and computer programmers apply this knowledge to create armies of orcs and 101 dalmatians that move across the screen like real objects.

Spontaneous orders share certain properties. First, the system's aggregate characteristics and behaviour will usually differ significantly from what is pre­dicted by its components. Second, inputs are not always linear (that is, propor­tional)—micro causes may have large macro effects, and macro causes may have micro effects (Colander and Kupers 2014). Third, the interactions among agents within the system may be so dense and integrated that the system resists command and control by external forces.

Emergent, spontaneous orders are found throughout human societies. The ‘invisible hand' in Adam Smith's market economy appears to be one. Another example is the complex order that emerges from the USA's institutions and basic rules (Vermeule 2011). Nobel Prize winner Elinor Ostrom describes many spontaneous orders in her (1990) study, Governing the Commons. The simple rules that create emergent human order may be derived from our natural human sentiments and moral sense's innate norms or they may be ^[12] conventional; often it is a combination of both (Bicchieri 2006; Fiddick 2006; Gintis, Bowles, Boyd and Fehr 2005; Joyce 2007; Nichols 2004).^{[13] [14]}

Another human example of emergent order achieved through bottom-up, negotiated interactions are the traffic intersections that eliminate all top-down and external controls—that is, traffic signs and traffic lights. At these inter­sections, pedestrians, cyclists and motorists must interact and negotiate their movement through the ‘shared space' without outside guidance or direction. ‘When people do not know who has the right of way', states the engineer Hans Monderman, ‘they seek eye contact with other users, reduce speed, and take greater care'. These intersections increase the risk factor slightly by giving indi­viduals greater control and less direction, which induces individuals to accept responsibility and exercise restraint. The result is fewer accidents and traffic that flows more efficiently (Monderman n.d.; Vanderbilt 2008)J³

The nature of spontaneous orders is that the agents in them are not con­trolled or directed, only influenced. In such systems there is often no direct, linear, causal link between government actions and outcomes (Colander and Kupers 2014; Morgol 2012). Rather, public policy needs to be understood as a self-organizational process in which government officials are one of many self­conscious actors trying to influence the system (Lane 2017; Morgol 2012).

The idea that complex order can emerge endogenously runs counter to the standard model and positivistic science which holds that causation is exoge­nous and linear, and the whole is reducible to its parts (Morgol 2012). In other words, elites cannot know, control or predict as effectively as the standard model claims they can and requires they must in order to achieve its promises (Brooks 2018; Colander and Kupers 2014; Hayek 1945; Hooghe and Marks 2012; Lane 2017; McArdle 2013; Morgol 2012; Tetlock2005).

Consider the American war on poverty: despite federal oversight and bil­lions spent, systemic, multi-generational poverty has grown (Deneen 2018; Eberstadt 2016; Gramm and Early 2018; Mitchell 2018). Similarly, at the global level, a top-down, fully funded effort that spared no expense failed to signifi­cantly reduce poverty and, more significantly, failed to produce self-sustaining growth (Barnett, Massett, Dogbe et al. 2018; Christensen, Ojomo and Dillon 2019). In contrast, after the Cold War, the spread of neoliberalism and the institutions that support and protect freedom has led to the most signifi­cant decline of global poverty ever witnessed and a convergence of incomes between nations (Acemoglu and Robinson 2016; Paris 2004; Patel, Sandefur and Subramanian 2018; Radelet 2016; Roy, Kessler and Subramanian 2016; Shleifer 2009; World Bank 2018). In short, under the right conditions and insti­tutions, individuals acting freely may create spontaneous orders that have broad social benefits.

This is not to say that elites know nothing. Elites are often correct when they share a strong consensus, and they have and will continue to contribute to bet­ter government and a better society (Tetlock 2005). However, the new science of complexity provides the theoretical basis to explain why top-down, elite- driven policies have often failed to accomplish their objectives. It also helps explain why individual freedom under the right conditions and institutions may address social problems more effectively and efficiently than top-down policies.

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