Hayek’s Theory of Cultural Group Selection

This paper establishes what Hayek’s evolutionary theory is, and argues (by reference to the preconditions of Darwinian natural selection) that it is scarcely tenable. It advances a third possible way in which social institutions might develop, and contends that this third way is the mode of social evolution envisaged by Liberal social theorists such as Hume, Ferguson, and Carl Menger, mistakenly cited by Hayek as proponents of his own theory of cultural group selection.

Volume 8, Number 2 (1987)