Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/242969 
Authors: 
Year of Publication: 
2021
Citation: 
[Journal:] Evolutionary and Institutional Economic Review [ISSN:] 2188-2096 [Issue:] Latest Articles [Publisher:] Springer [Place:] Berlin [Year:] 2021 [Pages:] --
Publisher: 
Springer, Berlin
Abstract: 
According to neoclassical economics, the most efficient way to organize human activity is to use the free market. By stoking self interest, the theory claims, individuals can benefit society. This idea, however, conflicts with the evolutionary theory of multilevel selection, which proposes that rather than stoke individual self interest, successful groups must suppress it. Which theory better describes how human societies develop? I seek to answer this question by studying the opposite of the market: namely hierarchy. I find evidence that as human societies develop, they turn increasingly to hierarchical organization. Yet they do so, paradoxically, at the same time that the language of free markets becomes more common, and culture becomes more individualistic. This evidence, I argue, contradicts free-market theory, but only if we treat it as a scientific doctrine. If instead we treat free-market theory as an ideology, the pieces come together. Free-market thinking, I speculate, may stoke the formation of hierarchy by cloaking power in the language of ‘freedom’.
Subjects: 
culture
development
energy
evolution
free market
hierarchy
multilevel selection
power
sociality
JEL: 
P16
P26
P48
L1
URL of the first edition: 
Published Version’s DOI: 
Creative Commons License: 
cc-by-nc-nd Logo
Document Type: 
Article
Document Version: 
Manuscript Version (Preprint)

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