We see the coming years and decades as a time of enormous changes, changes that we can use to vastly expand our opportunities and abilities, transforming our lives for the better. Both types of order have their place, but the under-appreciated spontaneous variety are crucial for our social interactions. The principle of spontaneous order is embodied in the free market system a system that does not yet exist in a pure form. We are evolving away from tribalism, feudalism, authoritarianism, and democracy towards a polycentric system of distributed power shared among autonomous agents, their plans coordinated by the economic network. The free market allows complex institutions to develop, encourages innovation, rewards individual initiative, cultivates personal responsibility, fosters diversity, and decentralizes power.
Market economies spur the technological and social progress essential to the Extropian philosophy.
We have no use for the technocratic idea of central control by self-proclaimed experts. No group of experts can understand and control the endless complexity of an economy and society. Expert knowledge is best harnessed and transmitted through the superbly efficient mediation of the free market's price signals signals that embody more information than any person or organization could ever gather. Sustained progress and effective, rational decision-making require the diverse sources of information and differing perspectives that evolve in spontaneous orders. Centralized command of behavior constrains exploration, diversity, and dissenting opinion.