Hayek argues inLaw, Legislation, and Liberty, and even more clearly in The Fatal Conceit, that one reason people are inclined toward socialism and have difficulty accepting the market order and its rules is that we spent a long evolutionary past in small, face-to-face, kin-based groups in which broadly collectivist and altruistic moral rules held and were effective. That is, we have evolved moral instincts that are disposed to collectivism and socialism. We evolved in a world where top-down or collectivist distribution of goods according to need was more the norm and could work thanks to the limited size of groups, which allowed for face-to-face, intimate knowledge of others. For Hayek, the challenge of modernity is learning to live in a world of abstract rules of just conduct that bind us by agreement on means rather than ends.
---SPSmith
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