The site of the Jamsil democratization movement, where the "blockade of the vote-counting station" continues due to the shortage of ballots during the June 3rd local elections. Participants are chanting slogans in front of the entrance to the Olympic Park Handball Gymnasium in Songpa-gu, Seoul. [Photo = Yonhap News]

“The political power of a free society does not stem from the plans of a small elite, but is formed through the process of free citizens voluntarily associating and cooperating under a general legal order.

Therefore, a true 'Big Tent' is not a massive organization designed from above, but a network (union) of voluntary cooperation formed from below; in this sense, it is fundamentally distinct from elite-centered top-down approaches.”

From Hayek’s perspective, the core of Professor Kim Byung-joon’s writing is not merely an elitist proposal to bundle various political parties and civic groups together, but a question regarding the very method of realizing social change.

He argues that to protect freedom, a "Big Tent" must be formed where various political forces—such as the People Power Party, the Liberty Unification Party, Our Republican Party, the Liberal Democratic Party, and Liberty and Innovation—along with numerous civic groups, voluntarily cooperate.

The essence of the Big Tent is that society is not designed and directed from above by a small elite, but that the very process of diverse individuals and groups freely associating and cooperating based on a common goal (or shared sense of urgency) creates order.

Thus, an interesting question arises: how does the order created in this process relate to what Hayek called "spontaneous order"?

Voluntary cooperation toward a common goal is not itself the "spontaneous order" (cosmos) that Hayek describes. In principle, it is an association or organization (taxis). However, the background order that allows such organizations to exist can be a spontaneous order.

Spontaneous order has no common goal; its members each pursue their own individual purposes. What unifies them is not a shared objective, but general rules of conduct. Common rules of conduct and common goals are fundamentally different in nature.

For instance, consumers, producers, workers, and investors in a market all pursue their own separate purposes. They do not have a goal to be achieved through joint effort—that is, there is no "market-wide goal."

Instead, the market is governed only by shared rules of conduct—general rules related to private property, contracts, a prohibition on fraud, and accountability. This is why the market serves as the background order (cosmos) for organizations.

Conversely, political parties, companies, churches, armies, and civic groups all exist for a common goal. For example, once goals such as electoral system reform, tax cuts, re-elections, or a change in government emerge, the organization (taxis) itself acts as a collective entity.

Hayek never viewed this negatively. In fact, he stated that thousands of such collective entities should exist in a free society. However, these are not spontaneous orders; they are organizations.

Yet, we must note that being voluntary does not make something a spontaneous order. "Voluntary" and "spontaneous" are different. For example, suppose 10 friends voluntarily go hiking together, or people voluntarily agree to have lunch together at 12:00—all very voluntarily. Because there is a common goal, that is an organization.

Conversely, even if people decide to eat at the same restaurant without the common purpose of dining together, they may end up eating together. But in this case, the shared meal is not a common purpose. Likewise, in the market, no one acts for the sake of the market as a whole. This is why the market is a spontaneous order.

The Olympic Park rally, therefore, is a very interesting case. As can be read in Professor Kim’s text, the shared sense of urgency—the "ballot shortage that emerged at polling stations around Jamsil on election day"—led to the result of people "spontaneously appearing in the plaza without a specific leader, shouting for 'a re-election due to election fraud' and 'manual counting of ballots' day and night." If they gathered voluntarily to set and achieve a common goal of tackling election fraud, re-elections, and manual counting, then that gathering itself is an organization (taxis).

The background that made such autonomous gatherings possible includes freedom of assembly, freedom of expression, freedom of association, freedom of the press, the rule of law, and general rules. These are spontaneously evolved free orders. In other words, the assembly exists within the background order (cosmos) of the organization. One must not confuse the two.

The background order (cosmos) of an organization consists of freedom of expression, freedom of association, and general rules. The organization (taxis) formed upon that is the Olympic Park rally. And the internal operations of an organization for a common goal are conducted through voluntary participation, free withdrawal, internal discussion, and cooperation.

The "Big Tent" also has a common goal. Therefore, the Big Tent itself is an organization. However, because the Big Tent is not created by the state or a single master plan, but by the free association of countless civic groups, parties, and individuals, it is a voluntary association formed within a free society.

Hayek never denies such organizations. He simply does not call this organization a "spontaneous order." A more accurate expression would be: an organization formed voluntarily by free individuals and groups under general rules of conduct, within the framework of a spontaneous order.

If the Big Tent were to be a method where a small leadership monopolizes all decision-making, forces uniform behavior upon participants, and unilaterally executes centrally designed strategies, it would take on the character of the socialist organizations Hayek criticized. Such an approach makes it difficult to utilize dispersed knowledge, and carries a high risk that the errors of the leadership will lead to the failure of the entire organization.

Therefore, even if the Big Tent is closer to an organization of the same nature in teleological terms, what is important from a Hayekian perspective is how the Big Tent is operated internally.

Professor Kim understands the operation of the Big Tent as something achieved through the voluntary participation, free discussion, and competitive opinion-forming of diverse individuals and groups. This implies that it operates through a "bottom-up" method, which is distinct from the top-down method designed by elites from above.

Unlike the elite-driven top-down approach, the bottom-up approach allows individuals, civic groups, and political parties to freely utilize dispersed knowledge. Thus, the Big Tent can be understood not as a single massive command organization, but as a union of free associations.

Individuals, as well as each political party and civic group, maintain their independence while cooperating for a common goal, and new participants can freely enter or leave as needed.

Hayek allows us to understand the entire free society as an "order of organizations." That is, a free society is not one giant organization. It is an order where numerous organizations with different purposes coexist and compete under common general rules, rather than a common goal.

In this respect, it is most accurate to understand Hayek’s spontaneous order not as excluding organizations, but as a "meta-order" that allows organizations to freely arise, change, adapt, and disappear. This is the interpretation that most precisely connects Hayek’s cosmos and taxis.

Ultimately, Hayek’s core message can be summarized as follows: The political power of a free society does not come from the plans of a small elite, but is formed in the process of free citizens voluntarily associating and cooperating under a general legal order.

Therefore, a true Big Tent is not a massive organization designed from above, but a network (union) of voluntary cooperation formed from below; in this sense, it is fundamentally distinct from elite-centered top-down approaches.

Min Kyung-kuk, Professor Emeritus, Department of Economics, Kangwon National University