Kerby Anderson

Throughout the years, John Stossel has been trying to find ways to simplify economics and illustrate the benefits of free markets. He has found that Adam Smith’s “invisible hand” is often invisible to his viewers. Friedrich Hayek’s “spontaneous order” is clearer but still hard to show.

That is why he began to use some of the ideas found in the article, “Rinkonomics: A Window on Spontaneous Order.” It inspired him to rent a skating rink in order to illustrate some of these key economic principles.

He says, imagine you have never seen a rink and are trying to get a government regulator to approve this new business. You will flood an area, freeze the water, and then charge people to strap sharp blades on their feet and zip around the ice. There will be few rules. Most regulators would resist your bizarre skating idea. They would want stoplights, barriers, and someone on a megaphone directing skaters.

John Stossel decided to do just that. He rented a rink and began to boss people around: “You, turn left; you, slow down.” The skaters hated it. And it didn’t make the skating any safer. Some people responding to him actually lost their balance and fell.

Perhaps you think they needed some experts. Government regulators would say he failed because he is not a skating expert. So he hired an Olympic skater. She did no better with the megaphone.

Actually, for skating to work, you only need a few rules, like skate counterclockwise. And you might need an employee to police reckless skaters. The rest comes from spontaneous order. “Skaters make their own decisions. No regulator knows the wishes, skills and immediate intentions of individual skaters better than the skaters themselves.”

The principle here is simple. Let people make their own choices, and spontaneous order will surface. Skaters find their own path. Buyers and sellers make lots of independent decisions in a market economy. Spontaneous order arises. This is the simple lesson from a skating rink.