Rules and Goals

"Man is as much a rule-following animal as a purpose-seeking one" (Hayek, Law, Legislation, and Liberty, 11).

Does this imply that an Austrian economics approach to literary studies is necessarily structuralist in nature, focusing on rules followed?

Should we be trying to understand the purpose(s) of literature? Or of the author(s)?

In the case of the former, Aristotle points out that plot must have a foundation (arche) and goal/purpose (telos). Is this the only goal/purpose proper to literature? Should that be something those interested in Austrian economics and literature should be interested in? Or is that a goal of literary Darwinism?

Or should we be focused, rather, on the rules of literary production -- on what rules people follow and how they follow them (and change them) in achieving their literary purposes?