ABSTRACT
Although the interpretation of Hayek’s ideas on cultural evolution and group selection is still a controversial issue among his scholars (Caldwell 2000; Witt 2000), there is wide evidence that by means of this concept he refers to how learnt rules, group norms of conduct, habits, routines and institutions emerge and evolve. Furthermore, the role played by the human mind’s nature and its limits appears evident in Hayek’s conception of evolution of rules and institutions. Briefly, we can state that rules of conduct, habits and routines emerge from human limits in interpreting the very complex external world. Following rules and codifying them in institutions is an ‘economic way’ to act successfully. Rules and organic institutions, in fact, standardize the world and in so doing they simplify the ambit in which humans use their limited cognitive capacity.
