Hayek cast market progress as requiring the abandonment of tribal solidarity and egalitarian loyalties

Evidence

Appropriating the work of Adam Smith and Adam Ferguson – for whom human history supposedly passed through a sequence of stages, from the hunter to the herdsman to the farmer to the trader – Hayek argued that the evolution from the ‘small band’ to the ‘Great Society’ required the abandonment of feelings of personal loyalty and egalitarian commitments more suitable to tribal existence. It required that the purpose-driven rules of small societies, in which individuals worked together towards shared ends, were replaced by abstract rules applicable to large numbers of strangers – and ultimately to all of humanity. From this perspective, the transition to the market economy was achieved through (deeply resented) breaches of the solidarity that governed earlier social relations. ‘Man’, Hayek contended, ‘has been civilized very much against his wishes.’ — Jessica Whyte, The Morals of the Market, 29

Categorization

• SEED: Potential article angle: the market as a moral breach of solidarity rather than a natural outgrowth of it — a reversal of common pro-market rhetoric.
• XREF: Connects to the reader’s austerity/neoliberalism literature and debates on market ethics as a normative transition. — connects to: Hayek framed social rights demands as atavistic tribal regressions threatening civilization — Jessica Whyte, The Morals of the Market: Human Rights…, 30; Hayek saw collectivist mass politics as the long-standing destroyer of free markets. — Jessica Whyte, The Morals of the Market: Human Rights…, 69; Hayek saw market society as requiring deliberate breach of tribal solidarity. — Jessica Whyte, The Morals of the Market: Human Rights…, 29