A demand for encompassment: A Hayekian experimental parable about political psychology

Emile Durkheim said that when all of the members of a tribe or clan come together, they can sanctify the sacred and experience a spiritual “effervescence.” Friedrich Hayek suggested that certain genes and instincts still dispose us toward the ethos and mentality of the hunter-gatherer band and that modern forms of political collectivism have, in part, been atavistic reassertions of such tendencies. Picking up on Hayek, Daniel Klein has suggested a combination of yearnings: (1) a yearning for coordinated sentiment (like Smithian sympathy) and (2) a yearning that the sentiment encompasses “the people,” that is, some focal and seemingly Corresponding author: Daniel B Klein, Department of Economics, George Mason University, 4400 University Drive, Fairfax, VA 22030, USA. Email: [email protected] Article 546315 RSS0010.1177/1043463114546315Rationality and SocietysKlein et al. research-article2015 by guest on October 16, 2015 rss.sagepub.com Downloaded from