One of the least explored yet most important aspects of how spontaneous orders manifest in the modern world is that of the tensions between them, tensions that undermine the traditional classical liberal vision of harmony arising out of voluntary interactions. A fascinating example is that of the tensions between the incentives rewarded by the market order versus those rewarded by science.
The Scientist reports that In December US Representatives Darrel Issa (R-CA) and Carolyn Maloney (D-NY) introduced a bill into the House to abolish the National Institutes of Health Public Access Policy requiring published research funded by the NIH be submitted to the publicly accessible digital archive PubMed Central upon its acceptance for publication . Issa and Maloney’s bill would also outlaw other agencies pursuing similar open access policies.
This blow against the free flow of scientific research is supported by the corporate publishers of academic journals. In the market order scarcity plus demand leads to value. In science abundance plus demand leads to value. They pull in opposite directions. This point is not just theoretical.
For example, the United States and Canadian Academy of Pathology created what it terms a “knowledge hub” where papers presented at their annual meetings are put online by 5 pm the last day of the meeting, to be made available free to anyone in the world. Within a few years the Knowledge Hub was visited millions of times by doctors and scientists around the world, enabling the latest scientific research to be easily available in every corner of the world. No corporation made a dime, but the Academy grew to be the largest such organization in the world, and having a paper accepted made a person the world expert on the topic for that year.
This innovation grew out of Dr. David Hardwick’s work in emergent order theory and practice, by the way, and many who have attended our conferences have met him.
Science was enriched immeasurably even as corporations lost profit opportunities. Interestingly, “free market” advocates in Congress seem to be doing their best to make sure science is subordinated to corporate profits, regardless of the damage done to scientific research. In terms of the paper I gave this fall, soon to appear in this journal, I hope, this is a clear example of the distinction I made between capitalism and the market, with only the latter a part of a free society.
Studies in Emergent Order 
Allen Dalton
January 15, 2012
Referencing the last sentence of the post, the title should reflect the argument. Science v. Capitalism, not science v. the market.
Gus diZerega
January 15, 2012
Yes and no Allen. (But explaining why yes and why no will take some paragraphs.)
On the one hand I think clear thinking requires us to distinguish between the market and capitalism as a subset of market phenomena. The market includes all contractual exchange where money prices serve as signals assisting people in making their choices. Being signals, they are not determinative. Each of us integrates them with other values we hold, and then we make our choices. We can seek to make all the money we can, or we can moderate that by allowing other values to intervene. We are free.
Capitalism as I have developed the concept includes those market exchanges where the system of exchange itself generates serious penalties for not using money prices as the only criteria for making decisions. Capitalism is not a realm of freedom. In a paper I anticipate appearing here in the near future I will argue that under capitalism the market “owns” resources and people are its employees, rewarded according to their service to the market.
Joint stock corporations are capitalist institutions. If a CEO operates on other values than money maximization he or she risks a hostile take over. If I wish to run my small business not to maximize income I am free to do so. If I wish to manage a corporation I am not similarly free to do so.
Capitalist institutions will likely use their resources to game the rules of the system to enhance their income, no matter what the damage to individuals or to spontaneous orders. I am pretty confident the lobbyists behind Issa and Maloney’s bill are paid by capitalist institutions.
However, there is still and always will be a difference in the feedback generated by the spontaneous order of the market through price signals and the more complex feedback generated within science that ultimately determines a scientist’s standing in his or her community. My market evaluated resources are most valuable when there is the most demand, which means they must be relatively scarce. My science evaluated resources are most valuable when they are most widely known and able to be employed by others who then credit me for the discovery.
As a scientist I want my work read and cited by as many people as possible, and if making it free increases that likelihood, great. If I were seeking to make a living from my writing I would abhor this approach and seek to control access so that people would have to pay me for its use.
These tensions are unavoidable, as with trying to determine what “fair use” amounts to when giving a quotation from someone else’s work. There are no intrinsic good guys vs bad guys – these are two different spontaneous orders and because the human world cannot be fully understood within either, navigating the tensions between them is unavoidable.
So it is possible, using my definitions of market and capitalism, to imagine a hugely successful publisher of scientific papers within a single proprietorship (a market institution) also lobbying for the same legislation that Issa and Maloney have submitted, and for the same reason: to make more money. Here would be a case of market institutions that are not capitalist using their resources to try and game the system.
Donnie McLeod
January 21, 2012
Sharing knowledge creates more wealth than hoarding knowledge to profit on transactional trading. If knowledge is a treated as a commodity like pork bellies the market economy will fail. All wealth, like in a vortex, will be sucked up. Every one will make $10.00 an hour jobs doing puzzles. With per capita health care cost tracking towards $10.00 an hour. 99% of the population will not cover the cost of their own health care, let alone rent, food or a car.
Gus diZerega
January 21, 2012
Yes. Those who see everything in terms of private property rights best bought and sold forget that for hundreds of years rapacious nobles retarded the well being of an entire continent by treating river crossings and such as their own little domains to charge people to use. In many European nations as economic freedom and political freedom emerged those ‘rights’ were abrogated, to the advantage of almost everyone, and certainly to the advantage of all who benefited others by their existence. To this day landowners in many prosperous market based countries cannot prevent others from crossing their land. This is an excellent example of where property rights should serve public values rather than