There once was a man who came to the Amazon and was disappointed at seeing the trees and bushes, vines and orchids hanging in the limbs, leaves scattered everywhere, insects crawling along the leaf litter, limbs, and lianas, birds singing and squawking, mammals calling and walking about. He shook his head and said, “You know what this bunch of chaos needs? It needs me to come in here and regulate it. That’s the only way it’s ever going to produce maximum biodiversity. In fact, it would be even better if I could turn it all into a massive farm. That would ensure it would have maximum biodiversity.” Those who were with him said to him, “Are you mad? Were you to farm this forest the only thing that you’d accomplish would be to destroy this great complexity. Maximum biodiversity comes about naturally and cannot be imposed. It certainly cannot be farmed! What are your real plans? Are you merely seeking to excuse your own selfish ends?” The man dismissed their concerns, saying, “Don’t be such ideologues! You must trust me. Have I not fought by your side to protect the environment? Have I not spent my every waking hour with you in the fight to keep the world as biodiverse as possible? How then can you not trust me? I am telling you that out of chaos no good thing can come. Disorder doesn’t make diversity. Only order, structure, rationally made can ensure the continued wealth of nature. I will come and order this place, farm it into the greatest wealth of biodiversity you or anyone has ever seen!” This convinced his friends, who agreed to help him organize and order the chaos and improve the Amazon.
What,
then, do you suppose happened to the Amazon where this man rationally ordered
the plants and animals? In a decade it became a nearly barren grassland, with
few of the original plants and animals remaining, and in much, much less
biodiversity.
When
regulators, socialists, and other reformers come along and say the same thing
about the epistemic ecosystem of the economy as did the man about the Amazon,
they too are considered most sensible, while the defender of the
naturally-occurring emergent complexity, wealth, and diversity of that
epistemic ecosystem is considered the out-of-touch ideologue. And yet the
former has always created deserts wherever he has set to work.
