Catallaxy ® Institute - Classical Liberalism

(the masses') thinking is done for them by men much like themselves, addressing them or speaking in their name, on the spur of the moment, through the newspapers. (...) I do not assert that anything better is compatible, as a general rule, with the present low state of the human mind. But that does not hinder the government of mediocrity from being a mediocre government. No government by a democracy or a numerous aristocracy, either in its political acts or in the opinions, qualities, and tone of mind which it fosters, ever did or could rise above mediocrity, except in so far the sovreign Many have let themselves be guided (which in their best times they have always done) by the counsels and influence of a more highly gifted and instructed One or Few

Mill, John Stuart

On Liberty (1859)

1989 , p. 66

The term "Catallaxy"

"The term 'catallactics' was derived from the Greek verb katallattein (or katallassein) which meant, significantly, not only 'to exchange' but also 'to admit into the community' and 'to change from enemy into friend'. From it the adjective 'catallactic' has been derived to serve in the place of 'economic' to describe the kind of phenomena with which the science of catallactics deals. The ancient Greeks knew neither this term nor had a corresponding noun; if they had formed one it would probably have been katallaxia. From this we can form an English term catallaxy which we shall use to describe the order brought about by the mutual adjustment of many individual economies in a market. A catallaxy is thus the special kind of spontaneous order produced by the market through people acting within the rules of the law of property, tort and contract."
F. A. von Hayek, Law Legislation and Liberty (London, 1982), Vol. 2, pp. 108-109.

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"CATALLAXY" is a Community Trade Mark (CTM) of the European Union