Perhaps a general heuristic can be abstracted: Macro*-scale interference with any spontaneous order will disrupt and/or nullify many of the benefits of that spontaneous order.
*Micro-scale “interference” is just called participation
Just a few minutes after I wrote the above, I was reading about the use of the gender-neutral “they” as in “A person came into the store and they bought a cake.” This usage is considered wrong by most so-called experts, but it is useful for a lot of people (who say, for instance, that “he” seems sexist, “she” is confusing, “he or she” doesn’t flow well). Grammar and language are of course great examples of spontaneous orders:
The wording near the end is remarkably similar to how I might describe the free market, the customary law processes of old, or ecosystems and evolutionary symbiosis (fruit trees and fruit eating species, etc.). I broached this topic a long time ago here but made a few inapt word choices which led the comments toward the not-so-relevant issue of whether plants have free will. I wouldn’t say natural selection per se is like the free market, but that symbiosis is - at least when it is mutually non-interfering like in the fruit tree example.
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Question for a statist environmentalist: “Wild horses love apples. Apple trees produce tasty and attractive fruit, which causes animals to spread their seed over a greater area. But the cyanide in the apple core is poisonous. A pony could be harmed! Should we humans take on the role of regulators and force apple trees (by genetically modifying or destroying all noncompliant strains) to remove the cyanide from the core, or to create a thicker layer of hard tissue around the core to lessen the chance of accidental ingestion? To be fair, should we also force horses to “pay” for the apples by always carrying the cores someplace far away from the tree? Instead of using cyanide as a defense mechanism to prevent destruction of the seeds, central planning would come to the rescue. Both species would seemingly benefit. Think of the ponies!”
AJ, I know your post wasn’t really focused on this statement, but it stuck out to me.
It sort of is similar though, because natural selection ain’t completely random. Lamarckism is starting to creep back into the discussion through Epigenetics.
On the other hand, the market ain’t an exact science. Speculation and entrepreneurship always carry a risk and an element of random chance.
So, I’d say the two are more similar than distinct.