Thread by @PaulLew16394851

@RSAMatthew has written a really interesting and thought-provoking post on individualism. In this thread, I’d like to compare some aspects of his fascinating account with the ideas of an individualist whose work I know well, namely Friedrich Hayek. I do so less ...

https://twitter.com/theRSAorg/status/1389523953916563460

to rebut some of the criticisms Taylor makes – he’s right on many counts - but rather to identify more precisely some of the possible shortcomings of individualism.

(1) “A core individualist assumption is that progress is best secured though leaving people to their own devices. Individualists, and we are all individualists sometimes, believe this is the best way of doing things not just for each person but for society as a whole.”
Taylor...

is spot on here: Hayek, rightly or wrongly, believes the scope for progress rests on giving people the opportunity to make use of the particular, local knowledge they possess (about the availability of resources, of possible methods of production, of people’s tastes, etc).

(2) The individualist view of order and change, Taylor states, is one that “plays down the role of structures and impersonal forces and instead sees outcomes as the reflection of the manifold choices of separate, distinct people pursuing their own aspirations and interests.”

This, I think, isn’t quite right, posing too stark a dichotomy between individual agency and social structures. For Hayek, successful outcomes are contingent on having the right structures – the right institutions - in place. Hayek departs significantly from individualism in ...

this regard, conceptualising the coordinative power of the market is an (impersonal) emergent property of the relevant system of rules (i.e., one that is irreducible to human agency). See papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cf… for details)

(3) “Equally, those who endorse individualism as a worldview often imply that the social institutions they favour, in particular markets, are natural phenomena. But free markets, however they are defined, do not emerge in vacuums, they require social consent and tacit rules ...

along with generally hierarchical (regulatory) measures to address their internal contradictions and sometimes malign externalities.”
Hayek does not regard markets as natural phenomena. Indeed, he spent much of the 1930s and 1940s trying to differentiate classical liberalism ...

from crude forms of laissez-faire on the grounds that the existence of properly-functioning markets requires legal rules and social norms (so that the rules in question help to constitute markets, rather than interfering in them) (see sec 4 of this for ...

more papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cf… ). Moreover, Hayek acknowledged that judicious state action can improve the rules in question (as well as acknowledging that a role for the state in providing both public goods and a minimum level of income for people outside the market).

Of course, significant differences undoubtedly remain concerning the scope for intervention, but – on the issue of whether or not markets are ‘natural’ - I think Hayek and Taylor are not as far apart as one might first think.

(4) “Advocates of each of the forms of coordination have a tendency to argue that theirs is a way of thinking and acting which is somehow the most natural for human beings. But individualists are perhaps the most prone to say this ... For the vast majority of Homo sapiens’...

existence individualism has played a minor role. Although the traditional view of prehistoric life is being challenged by new evidence, it is still safe to assume that egalitarian cooperation within bands of hunter-gatherers and basic structures of hierarchical authority in...

agrarian communities were vital to the survival and spread of the human species.” This makes for a fascinating point of comparison. Hayek explicitly argues that for most of history people lived in hunter-gatherer bands that were hierarchical and egalitarian. But what he also ...

argues, in his theory of cultural evolution via group selection, is that greater prosperity and higher living standards become possible only when people began to trade beyond such small groups, adopting the more impersonal rules of the market. But he thinks people retain many...

of the instincts they first acquired in hunter-gathered society, in particular by feelings of personal loyalty and obligation that enjoin people to meet the visible needs of the small number of others with whom they are directly acquainted. Those instincts are ‘atavistic'...

in Hayek’s view, in the sense that they are based on primordial emotions quite at odds with the impersonal morality appropriate for modern societies, the maintenance of which requires people to do two things: observe abstract rules of just conduct that are applied equally to ...

close acquaintances and strangers alike; and to pursue financial gain by responding to price signals which lead us unintentionally to serve the needs of many unknown people without having to know anything specific about them. Hence Hayek’s remark that “we have all inherited ...

from an earlier different type of society . . . some now deeply ingrained instincts which are inapplicable to our present civilisation.” Those inherited instincts are, for Hayek, more natural but less appropriate to modern societies than the pursuit of self-interest. This...

points to what I think is an important weakness in Hayek’s analysis. While Hayek views people as social beings many of whose most important attributes have been shaped by their environment, and while he is not an uncritical supporter of models that portray people as only ...

pursuing their own self-interest, he arguably fails to do justice to the ideas expressed by Taylor in the following remark: “Today we know that there are many evolutionary drivers and that the pursuit of individual self-interest may not even be the most important. Cooperation ...

for example, has left a considerable imprint through the survival-benefits of altruism.” Hayek acknowledges the existence of selfless behaviour, but tends to confine it to small-group behaviour between people well known to each other. More recent work - such as that of Elinor...

Ostrom, Stan Bowles and Herbert Gintis, and David Sloan Wilson - supports Taylor’s view that altruistic behaviour (aka other-regarding preferences and/or reciprocity). Groups which have at least some members with such altruistic tendencies arguably do better at solving...

collective action problems than than ones where people only pursue their self-interest. A key question then becomes what (non-market) institutions best cultivate those important attributes. I look forward to future posts from Taylor in which (I hope) he'll discuss those issues.