Extended order

Extended order is an economics and sociology concept introduced by Friedrich Hayek in his book The Fatal Conceit. It is a description of what happens when a system embraces specialization and trade and "constitutes an information gathering process, able to call up, and put to use, widely dispersed information that no central planning agency, let alone any individual, could know as a whole, possess or control.” The result is an interconnected web where people can benefit from the actions and knowledge of those they don't know. This is possible and efficient because a proper legal framework replaces trust, which is only practical in small circles of people who know each other socially. The extended order is at the heart of Hayek's thesis, in The Fatal Conceit, where he argues that "our civilization depends, not only for its origin but also for its preservation, on what can be precisely described only as the extended order of human cooperation, an order more commonly, if somewhat misleading, known as capitalism.”