Theories of spontaneous social order versus a return to design: Mandeville and Hayek

Bernard Mandeville is often cited as one of the most influential thinkers on the theories of spontaneous social order. According to Friedrich August Hayek, B. Mandeville, in his The fable of the Bees (1714), enables a completely transformed understanding of social order. Is the order we observe in society the product of human design or does it, conversely, come about spontaneously? Far from being the product of some kind of human intention, the order observed in society is the result of a self-regulating and self-perpetuating process. Mandeville's approach aims to invalidate any form of social constructivism. Society is therefore seen as an "edifice without an architect" (Gilles Dostaler, Le liberalisme de Hayek). Mandeville, like the thinkers of the Scottish Enlightenment, considers social order to be the outcome of human action rather than human intention.However, neither Mandeville nor Hayek succeeds in eliminating human design in their approach of social order. This paper seeks to establish that human design is even at work in the theory of spontaneous social order.