Criticism of free markets, or capitalism more generally, is the system’s negligence toward altruism and social support services. In this video Hayek broaches the subject by delineating three levels of moral beliefs. At the most intimate level their exists rules of the game for the small person-to-person society. “We act by people that we know and are served by people that we know.”
He goes on to say that at the next level we have a society that operates under norms and moral traditions. The extended order of human cooperation is due to upholding personal property rights and the organization of the family. At the third level, moral beliefs are aspirational. People who dwell here are working at changing tradition to advance a new set of rules that will better satisfy man’s instincts.
These three sets of standards come into constant conflict. This is true in part because they are carried out in various fashions. The first is inate and spontaneous. The second lives on through traditions. And the third set of moral standards are intellectually determined.
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