This multidisciplinary article brings together social and political theory, evolutionary ethics and political economy in order to shed light on an important question for biopolitics: is classical market liberalism evolutionary adaptive? More specifically, the paper reanalyses F.A. Hayek’s central claim that classical market liberalism is evolutionarily adaptive for social groups. After a comprehensive examination of this assertion, it is concluded that classical market liberalism reveals maladaptive tendencies which impact negatively on the fitness of social groups that institutionalize this liberal political morality. Hence, Hayek’s claim is found wanting.
On the basis of a group selection framework, Hayek justified the evolutionary superiority of market liberalism by asserting that groups operating under a classical liberal morality would reproduce and expand more than groups with alternative tribal moralities. Thus, classical liberal groups would be favoured in the inter-group competitive process of cultural and genetic group selection.
This paper utilises the group selectionist model of multilevel selection theory and the most recent developments in evolutionary theory in order to scrutinize this Hayekian normative underpinning of market liberalism. The article broadly analyses the impact of market liberalism on the evolution of social norms, discussing socio-demographic tendencies and the role of social norms in shaping these very same tendencies.
By discussing the evolutionary tensions between tribal morality and liberal individualist morality, it is argued that individualist liberal morality is insufficiently powerful as a meta-morality to create adaptive social units in the process of inter-group competition. Therefore, a certain degree of tribal morality is required. In this way, Hayek’s assertion that tribal morality is evolutionarily maladaptive for groups is regarded as lacking solid evolutionary foundations.
