I have misgivings about the term. ”Spontaneous” can mean “impulsive” (as in “he spontaneously started dancing”), which is obviously unsuitable. In biology, it means “involuntary”, which also obviously doesn’t apply to human action. I suppose “without external cause” (as in “spontaneous combustion”) fits somewhat, because the direction of market activities occurs within the market and not outside of it.
But on the whole I think the term has the same problem as “invisible hand” and “natural order”. They all make the social phenomena seem involuntary, either in a mystical or mechanistic way. And that is particularly unfitting for the Austrian tradition, which is distinguished for, more than any other tradition, consistently basing social science on purposive, deliberate, voluntary human action. I think “cooperative”, “polycentric”, or “distributed” order would be more accurate.
I also agree with Joseph Salerno, who prefers to use the term “process” instead of “mechanism”. As he wrote:
First, the vague, nebulous, and mystical metaphor of the “invisible hand” is inadequate to capture the richness of the modern Austrian conception of the pricing process. It is, therefore, an easy target for the enemies of the market economy and should be abandoned.(…)
…the term “price mechanism” is–well–too mechanistic. It does not convey the dynamism and human rivalry that is the essence of price making. I suggest the term “pricing process,” which goes back to Boehm-Bawerk and was used by Mises. The former by the way also used the German term “Preiskampf” (“price struggle”) which he adopted from A. E. Shaeffle, one of his teachers.
