Hayek: The gravedigger of utopia

Text | President of Kiyokazu Tomomoto

In 1974, the European and American worlds were erupting with great inflation. The reporter asked Hayek: "I am curious, how do you see the prospect of freedom in our time or in the future?" ”

Hayek replied: "I had predicted that inflation would lead to price control in all Western countries and thus evolve into a planned economy. No one dares to put an end to inflationary policy, because without inflation, it will inevitably lead to unemployment... They will control inflation by controlling prices, which, of course, means the end of the market system, the end of a liberal political order. 【1】”

Hayek's life lasted almost the entire twentieth century, and he witnessed or experienced all the great events of the century. Hayek's reputation also fluctuated with the twentieth-century wave of ideas. "Yesterday's outliers are tomorrow's godfathers," Hayek seems to have become a barometer of the intellectual market of every era.

Re-reading Hayek, revisiting the Great Era, this article reviews Hayek's life and his thoughts.

This article is logical

First, the Golden Age

Second, dystopia

3. Spontaneous order

【Text 9000 words, reading time 40', thanks for sharing】

01 The Golden Age

The late 19th and early 20th centuries were the golden age of Vienna.

For Vienna at this time, Zweig has this description in "Yesterday's World": European cultural trends are gathered here, and this music capital draws on its strengths, attracting talents of all types to its side, and integrating all the cultures with great differences. Every citizen of the city is unwittingly groomed to be a hyper-nationalist, cosmopolitan, and a citizen of the world. 【2】

Friedrich August von Hayekha was born in this era. He was born in 1899 into the Hayek family in Vienna.

In the Austro-Hungarian Empire, "von" was the second rank among the nobility. The Hayek family had a long tradition of nobility, and Hayek's father and mother were born into local aristocratic families. Hayek's father was a technical officer who studied botany, and his grandfather, Gustav Adler von Hayek, was also a biologist. His maternal grandfather, Franz von Yurasek, was the wealthiest of the local class, and he was also an Austrian economist who was good friends with Bombavik, the second generation of Austrian economists.

During his school days, Hayek did not do well. In addition to biology, Latin, Greek, and mathematics are often failed. But he loved to read and was often immersed in the golden age of book paradise.

However, when Hayek was 15 years old, the golden age came to an abrupt end and World War I broke out. The war changed everything on the European continent, and the original ideas of free circulation and prosperity were destroyed in the fire.

"Before the war I enjoyed the highest and most complete freedom, but after the war I tasted the greatest unfreedom in centuries." Zweig said so. Hayek, later said something similar.

At the time, however, Hayek did not know what war meant. He joined the army at the age of 18 and was sent to the Italian front. In 1918, the Austro-Hungarian Empire was defeated and the Habsburg dynasty, which had ruled the Austro-Hungarian Empire for 640 years, collapsed. The nascent Austrian Republic was fragile, with Vienna's economy in ruins, prices collapsing, and aristocratic titles outlawed.

Through political disillusionment and the rise and fall of their homeland, intellectuals in Germany, Austria, and continental Europe became suspicious of capitalism, and the classical doctrine of socialism had a great appeal to many young people. Budapest, a short distance from Vienna, even established a communist government for several months. Prior to this, in 1917, the Soviet Revolution broke out and the Soviet Union established its first socialist state.

Hayek also began to yearn for classical socialism, but it was also at this time that Hayek entered the University of Vienna. Here, Hayek met his mentors, Wesser and Mises. In his first year at the University of Vienna, Hayek felt that the economics department here was "dead." At this time, Pombavik had just died, and Wesser went to work in the government department, and there were few masters in the economics department.

Despite the fall of the dynasty, the University of Vienna maintained its academic prosperity and a liberal style of study. The University of Vienna encourages students to explore academic directions freely, and lectures are conducted in the form of lectures, with no quiz other than three examinations and few written assignments.

During the turbulent years of the war, many scholars poured into the University of Vienna. Hayek attends various lectures, audits various courses, and constantly learns new specialties. Law, political economy, and psychology were the focus of Hayek's studies at this time, laying the foundation for his future academic directions- early economics and later political philosophy.

What changed Hayek's academic thinking was Mises and the controversy between Mises and Lange on socialist economic accounting. This changed Hayek's conception of classical socialism and began a lifelong "battle".

In 1921, Hayek got his Ph.D. and needed a job to support himself. At The recommendation of Wiesel, Hayek visited Mises and began a lifelong friendship with Mises.

Mises also received his Doctor of Laws degree from the University of Vienna in 1906 and attended Bombavik workshops. From 1913 to 1934, Mises worked as a non-staff lecturer at the University of Vienna, as well as an economist at the Austrian Chamber of Commerce and chief economic adviser to the Austrian government.

As Hayek's mentor, Wesser wrote letters of recommendation to Mises, describing Hayek as a "promising economist." By this time, Mises was already slightly famous, but was a stubborn and aggressive person in character. Mises's attitude toward the letter was: If so, why have I never seen him in my own classroom?

However, after meeting Hayek and after some conversation, Mises had some affirmation of Hayek's scholarship. At that time, a temporary institution, the "Bureau of Liquidation", was established in Vienna, where Mises worked as a representative of the Ministry of Commerce. Mises helped Hayek secure a position here.

During his time in Vienna, Mises also continued the habit of workshops. These private workshops, which brought together a large number of scholars, were important for Hayek's thought. Two major issues discussed by Mises had a profound impact on Hayek: one was socialist economic accounting, and the other was the methodological problem of the social sciences (Mises's The Ultimate Foundations of Economic Science: A Paper on Methods).

After World War I, the Austrian government passed the Nationalization Act. Traditional liberalism suffered shock, classical socialism became the beacon, and rhetoric demanding state intervention prevailed. The old order was challenged, and Mises was the one who stood firm in defense of classical liberalism.

In 1920, Mises published The Economic Plan of the Socialist State. From the perspective of price accounting, the article states that "a country without private property and without prices cannot make efficient economic decisions" [3]. Affected by this, Hayek completely transformed into a liberal. This article also inspired Hayek's later formulation of the theory of price information.

Another area in which Mises influenced Hayek was his emphasis on the "a priori" methodology in which ultimate knowledge derives from the heart. This is also the methodology advocated by the Austrians, who believe that knowledge is intrinsic and established, and that empirical discovery cannot refute the theory. Later, of course, in England, Hayek's methodology was influenced by Scottish empiricism and Popper's falsificationism.

In 1923, on mises' recommendation, Hayek went to New York University as an assistant. The study tour was so embarrassing that hayek arrived in New York with $25 left in his pocket. In desperation, he was even ready to go to the restaurant to brush the dishes. Fortunately, he eventually contacted New York University professor Jeremiah Jingqi. As an assistant in the United States, Hayek studied the direction of monetary policy and business fluctuations, helping him complete the theory of the business cycle.

Hayek's theory of the business cycle was based on Mises, and the actual observation came from the United States. Mises was very opposed to government intervention in the economy, arguing that increasing the money supply would lead to distortions in the structure of production. In the twenties, the United States entered the roaring era, and the economy grew rapidly. But Hayek observed that this economic growth, which comes from credit overextendation, is unsustainable.

On the basis of Mises, Hayek incorporated Viksell's "theory of cumulative processes" and Pombavik's theory of "roundabout production". He believes that once the central bank intervenes in the economy and increases the money supply, it will affect the bank interest rate and deviate from the natural interest rate. After the bank lowers the interest rate, the credit expansion will give the entrepreneur a misjudgment, and then expand production, increase investment in the future, from the production of consumer goods to strengthen capital investment, but after a period of time, the entrepreneur finds that the actual purchasing power is not enough to support, the economic prosperity is unsustainable, and then there is an economic crisis [4].

In 1924, Hayek returned to Vienna. Influenced by the American Institute, Hayek also planned to set up an institute after returning to Austria, and Mises looked for a funder for Hayek. In 1927, Hayek founded and director of the Austrian Business Cycle Research Center, with Mises as vice-chairman.

In 1929, Hayek's research on the business cycle was written as a treatise, Monetary Theory and the Business Cycle. In the same year, he was awarded the position of Lecturer in Economics at the University of Vienna. This is Hayek's first monograph, and with this result alone, Hayek can gain a place in the history of economics. Moreover, hayek's theory of the business cycle is becoming more and more important.

02 Dystopia

In 1928, Robbins invited Hayek to a conference in London. At the meeting, Hayek came prepared to "duel" with keynesian gentlemen.

In fact, Hayek was never hostile to Keynes, as early as Keynes's publication of the Economic Consequences of the Peace Treaty, Hayek praised Keynes as the "great hero" of the Austrians. Moreover, at that time, Keynes was already famous all over the world, and Hayek was just a "fan brother".

However, Robbins had the heart to insert willows and preset the ring, and Hayek rose to the challenge. Robbins, the youngest professor at the London School of Economics and Political Science, was highly regarded by the leadership. He is keen to shift the public eye to London, where the young London School of Economics and Political Science will compete with the University of Cambridge, the academic center of European economics. The best opportunity at the time was undoubtedly to challenge the hot and controversial Cambridge Keynes.

After World War I, the British economy fell into a persistent depression. Keynes criticized government policy, broke with Marshall economics, and proposed interventions such as government investment and consumption pull. On the radio, he encouraged women to go out and consume, promoting economic recovery. Economists such as Robbins and Pigou opposed Keynes, and the two worked together and eventually broke up. By chance, Robbins discovered an essay written by Hayek, "Saving the 'Paradox'" of Saving. He believes that the point of view in this article is just enough to refute Keynes.

So Robbins invited Hayek to speak in England, and the first lecture was held at the base camp of Cambridge College. However, due to Hayek's poor English and unpopular Austrian theory, the response was relatively cold, there was no discussion, and no audience questions were asked. At that time, only Keynes's closest disciple, Richard Kahn, stood up and asked Hayek, "You mean that if I go out on the street tomorrow to buy a new coat, unemployment will increase as a result?" ”【1】

Hayek nodded and said, Yes. But he went on to say that this would take longer to make a mathematical argument. Hayek then gave four speeches in London on "Prices and Production", essentially stating his theory of the business cycle. He argues that expansion credits lower market interest rates below natural interest rates, causing entrepreneurs to invest capital in "higher-capitalized production" away from final consumption, increasing the risk of roundabout production and resource mismatch — overinvestment of investment goods and insufficient spot consumer goods. This man-made boom comes to an end when inflation hits, followed by improper investment that triggers corporate bankruptcies and economic crises. At this point, only a crisis and unemployment can be used to liquidate the previous improper investment and government intervention. Obviously, these views are at odds with Keynes.

In 1931, Price and Production was published, and this book is a collection of these four lectures. Subsequently, Hayek was also hired as a professor at the London School of Economics and Political Science.

Robbins published Hayek's savings paradox in the headlines of the Journal of Economics, and he was the director of the newspaper. In the August issue, Hayek spearheaded criticism of Money, which was also scheduled by Robbins to be on the headlines of the Journal of Economics. In the next month's issue, Keynes's response article made headlines in the Journal of Economics.

Taking advantage of the victory, Hayek consulted with Robbins and chose "Money Theory" as the point of debate. He wrote a 26-page book review, and Keynes published "Reply to Dr. Hayek," which refuted one by one and wrote a critique of Prices and Production.

The controversy between Hayek and Keynes is a clash of two different views that has made waves in The British economics community. Robbins's "Economic Journal" became the main arena of the two of them, and the status of this newly established journal also climbed with the trend, which was in line with Robbins's wishes. Moreover, Keynes's response brought Hayek to the attention of the British economic community.

The controversy between the two hits the subject directly, but the quality of the controversy is worrying. The two sides spent too much time on language and semantics, with Hayek questioning Keynes's newly coined terms, while Keynes did not know much about the German-speaking Opai. This fatigued both sides.

In early 1932, Keynes chose to extinguish the war, sending only his disciple Slava to fight hayek back, at which point he decided to sink his heart into writing a new work. In fact, in his controversy with Hayek, he did feel that he was unable to justify himself in microscopic theory.

Most importantly, at this time, the Great Depression broke out.

In fact, Hayek and Mises's theory of the business cycle predicted the coming of the Great Crisis. So far, this theory is also the theory that best explains the financial crisis. But, at the time, the times were rapidly abandoning Hayek.

In 1936, the Great Depression spread, the economy collapsed, businesses went bankrupt, workers lost their jobs, entrepreneurs despaired, and politicians and economists were confused. At this time, Keynes's General Theory was published, politicians held it to promise voters, and economists regarded it as an academic light.

Hayek did not give a systematic response to Keynes's General Theory. In fact, at first he had this plan. In The General Theory, Keynes found three microscopic theories to support the inadequacy of effective demand and interventionism. Hayek had a hard time responding to this whole theoretical system with a single article. Most importantly, at that time, Kai's theory swept the political and academic circles, with a huge momentum and many supporters.

Hayek and classical liberalism were abandoned. In the late 1930s, liberals, even Hayek's assistant Caldo and student John Hicks switched to The Gate of Kaiser. Hayek's lectures became deserted, and Caldo often deliberately harassed Hayek in class, who was embarrassed and depressed.

After that, Hayek struggled a bit. He published the pamphlet Monetary Nationalism and International Stability in 1937 and Profit, Interest and Investment in 1939. In 1940, Hayek wrote the theory of money, prices, and production as The Pure Theory of Capital, but it did not attract the attention of scholars. This was Hayek's last purely economic study, after which he took another academic path— political philosophy (politics, jurisprudence, psychology, and sociology).

Was Hayek's change of academic path the result of his "failed" debate with Keynes? In fact, when the voice of reason is drowned out by the fanatical noise, you will naturally think in this regard: Is there something wrong with people's ideas? In his words: "Only ideas can overcome ideas".

The starting point of this path originated in Hayek's 1936 book Economics and Knowledge, "the most important paper in the transformation of the second half of Hayek's academic career." [1] Hayek focused his research on individual behavior, arguing that human behavior is essentially a matter of information transmission, and that private property rights, prices, profits, services, and so on are also a kind of information. He pushed the division of labor in the market into the field of division of knowledge (information decentralization). This made him doubt the possibility of a unified decision under Soviet socialism.

Then, with the outbreak of World War II, Austria and the European continent were destroyed by Nazi Germany, and Mises fled to the United States. In 1940, London entered a wartime state, and all the teachers and students of the London School of Economics and Political Science moved to Cambridge, becoming an oasis during the war. By this time, Hayek and Keynes had become more intimate. Keynes helped Hayek find a place to live at King's College, Cambridge. Keynes's active involvement in wartime policy was also praised by Hayek.

Of Keynes's book How to Raise Money for War, Hayek commented, "When war broke out, Keynes was almost the only one who understood, was willing, and could protect us from inflation. Throughout the war, I was on Keynes's side. With him there, I felt a great pleasure in my heart. ”

During World War II, Hayek and Keynes were in the same trenches, and their common enemy was Nazism. Keynes insisted on fighting politically, and Hayek struggled academically—to be precise, Hayek was turning to political philosophy and fighting totalitarianism.

In 1944, the defeat of Nazi Germany was decided, and Hayek's "The Road to Serfdom" came out and became a blockbuster and swept the world. This book gives totalitarianism a final blow in thought. But Hayek's real purpose in writing the book was that he feared wartime much-admired state regulation and the expansion of Soviet socialism in postwar Britain and Europe. Hayek was worried about the future of a free society.

"The road to hell is paved with good wishes", "What always makes the world hell, it is precisely what people try to make it a paradise" Hayek quoted a sentence by the German poet Hölderlin in his book to warn the people who had illusions about utopia. Hayek repeatedly argued that the protection of private property and free disposal led to prosperity; the Soviet planned economy and state control could only lead people to slavery.

At the time, Churchill also mentioned the book in the general election as a way to launch an attack on the Labour Party. This incident has made "The Road to Slavery" a hot topic of national discussion. "Is the world moving to the left," the New York Times reported on the book, which sparked widespread discussion.

On the way to the Bretton Woods Conference, Keynes wrote a response to the book, stating in no uncertain terms: Morally, philosophically, I agree with almost everything in the book. However, Keynes clearly cannot agree with the book's argument that government intervention leads to totalitarianism.

At this time, Hayek, incarnated as a gravedigger of "Utopia", wearing the honor of "Freedom Fighter", fought non-stop and became famous all over the world.

But the fame that the book brought to Hayek's economics world was something he did not expect. The popularity of the book made him completely lose his identity as a professional economist. Scholars consider this to be nothing more than a "popular book" and Hayek was a political propagandist and agitator. Hayek was angry about this, but he was quite helpless. To this day, this label cannot be erased.

What made Hayek even more unexpected was that post-World War II liberalism was only a flash in the pan.

In 1945, World War II ended. Taking advantage of the victory, Hayek published a very important article, "The Application of Knowledge in Society", which became one of his most cited papers. This article extends the "division of knowledge" and for the first time clearly raises the importance of the "price system" to the market. Hayek argues that "fundamentally, in a system in which knowledge of relevant facts is in the hands of a dispersed multitude, prices can coordinate the individual actions of different individuals" [5]. This article is a big step forward in building on Mises's socialist economic accounting. Hayek believed that only price could bring together information scattered across all, and plans could not be achieved.

The following year, Keynes died. Confident, Hayek thought he was the other "most famous economist" in the world—and Hayek later felt guilty about that idea. In 1947, Hayek invited Friedman, Eugen, Popper, and others to Switzerland and founded the Pilgrim Mountain Society, trying to revive classical liberalism.

Hayek's description of the Pilgrim Mountain Society was that it "believed in the value of individual liberty in unison, affirmed democracy, but was not superstitious about its dogma." Finally, there is a unanimous rejection of totalitarianism in all its forms, whether from the right or the left. ”

However, the times once again abandoned Hayek. After World War II, the brief liberal boom was shelved, and the European and American worlds did not follow hayek's worst, or envisioned, path to the worst or perfect path hayek feared, but toward the so-called "middle way": the Transition of the United States to the Keynesian era of Roosevelt's New Deal. Attlee of the British Labour Party defeated Churchill, embraced Fabianism, and opened the way to a welfare state. Some people joked that "The Road to Serfdom" made Churchill lose his vote. Ahad of the Federal Republic of Germany pursued Eugen economic thought, implemented economic reforms, and embarked on the path of "social market economy". Of course, the Soviet Union's planned economy is in full swing, and the "Cold War" is about to begin.

After Keynes's death, Hayek's name was quickly forgotten.

03 Spontaneous order

In the environment of Keynesian domination of academia, there is another corner of the world that is under protection that has risen liberally, that is, the University of Chicago.

In 1948, Hayek was appointed professor of moral philosophy on the University of Chicago's Committee of Thought. This is an experiment in an interdisciplinary research approach advocated by the president of the University of Chicago. The chairman of hayek's thought committee, John Neff, who told Hayek, "You can teach any question in the social sciences if you want." If there is a time when you don't want to lecture, you can stop lecturing. ”

Why didn't Hayek get into economics at the University of Chicago? This question was later explained by Friedman. He had not yet been in the Economics Department and was not yet qualified to participate in the discussion of the issue. However, his understanding was that chicago's tradition was that professors should run schools, and that anyone appointed by the president and sponsored by the outside world would be opposed by the economics department. Moreover, the department of economics did not know much about Hayek's scholarship. In fact, Hayek himself did not want to enter the field of economics again, and he believed that political philosophy included the former, and the theory of ideas was more important.

There was another reason why Hayek left Britain and went to the United States. In 1949, Hayek decided to divorce his first wife, Hera, and reunite with his cousin in Austria. He was under tremendous pressure from public opinion, which also led to a deepening gap between him and his British friend Robbins, and the two even broke off relations for this reason. It wasn't until Hera's death that the two reconciled.

In 1950, Hayek resigned from his teaching position at the London School of Economics and Political Science and went to the University of Chicago. During his time at Chiba, Hayek continued the liberal zeal. He gave discussion classes, mostly centered on liberalism. There were many scholars involved, such as Friedman, Hughel Wright, Enrico Fermi, etc.

Friedman had frequent exchanges with Hayek at this time, and at the dinner party at Whicheke left The University of Chicago, he said of Hayek: "Few people in history have tried to influence public opinion, but few people have been able to put forward as thorough, profound and profound academic ideas that can affect the course of science. Few have had as far-reaching an impact on the idea of the Entire Western world, not just the United States, as Hayek did. ”

However, Hayek had little influence on the Economics Department of the University of Chicago and Friedman's theories. Hayek has said that there are many consensuses between him and Friedman, in addition to monetary theory and methodology. Friedman was Hayek's staunch supporter of the Pilgrimage Society, and to avoid splitting the two, they rarely touched the areas of disagreement.

During this time, Hayek immersed himself in political philosophy, writing Individualism and the Economic Order (1948) and Counter-Revolution in Science (1952). Hayek dabbled heavily with the theories of classical British liberalism, mainly David Hume, Smith, and Mill Jr. In this work, Hayek has advanced from the division of knowledge and the price system to subjectivism and anti-constructivism on the academic path of political philosophy. In Counter-Revolution in Science, Hayek opposed comte, Saint-Simon, and others bringing scientism into the field of economics. He opposed the abuse of reason and criticized the terrible consequences of Cartesian rationalism leading to the artificial construction of order[6].

Hayek also devoted a great deal of effort to the Freedom Charter, trying to explain freedom from a legal point of view, to explain the relationship between freedom, democracy, and the rule of law. He repeatedly discussed the views that democracy is a guarantee of freedom rather than an end, and economic freedom promotes political freedom. He searched through the academic literature and made amazing citations and notes in the book, which can be called the academic and upgraded version of "The Road to Slavery". Hayek had thought the book would get the same response as "The Road to Slavery," but the market response was flat. However, among politicians and intellectuals in the United States and Britain, the influence of the book has actually spread.

In 1960, at the age of 61, Hayek considered leaving the University of Chicago. This is purely for financial reasons, at this time he has almost no savings, and the increase in the cost of living after the divorce has put him in a dilemma.

In 1962, by chance, the University of Freiburg in the Federal Republic of Germany sent an invitation to Hayek to teach political economy. The University of Freiburg was the home base of Eugen, and in the early years Hayek often drove from England to the University of Freiburg to chat with Eugen, but by this time, Eugen had died.

Hayek had a relatively comfortable stay at the University of Freiburg, where the academic atmosphere was very similar to that of the University of Vienna, and economics was placed in the teaching curriculum of the law department, and his political philosophy could be brought into play. In addition to his academic research, he and his wife also traveled frequently.

During this period, Hayek wrote Law, Legislation and Freedom. The book is more like a sequel to the Freedom Charter, but written at a more professional level. Hayek tried to answer the question left over from the previous book, namely the relationship between the birth of law and freedom. Hayek mentions natural law in his book, but rejects constructivism and proposes spontaneous order.

Spontaneous order, derived from English empiricism, has elements of Hume and Smith's ideas, as well as characteristics of conservatism. But Hayek denied being a conservative. The so-called spontaneous order emphasizes the human social order formed under the evolution of the completely natural state, and is not interfered with by any artificiality. Just as living things in nature evolve on their own, the internal evolution of human society should not be disturbed by one person or a few people. Hayek sought to use spontaneous order against all man-made rationally constructed institutions. At this point, he proposes, the state and society evolve around the spontaneous order of the market. He argues that government should exist, but that such government is not a "minimal government" but a "competitively maximized" government. He even proposed to use spontaneous order to deconstruct all rules and ethical orders. Except for a few relatives, neighborhood relations and national relations should be "spontaneous" relations. Hayek saw this as a "universal order of peace".[7] At this time, he had only one motherland in his heart, and that was freedom.

Spontaneous order is at the heart of Hayek's thought and the pinnacle of his intellectual journey. However, the book Law, Legislation and Freedom has not attracted much attention. One is because it is obscure, the other is because it is published in installments, and by the time hayek reaches the last part, hayek is physically difficult to finish. By the end of the 1960s, Hayek was suffering from depression and heart disease for a long time.

In 1969, he was transferred to the University of Salzburg, also for financial reasons. But life here is not satisfactory, the university's economics department is very small, and Hayek has few people who can communicate academically. Just when Hayek seemed to be at the trough of his life, the tide of history was about to be rewritten.

In the 1970s, the European and American worlds erupted in a stagflation crisis, high inflation and high unemployment went hand in hand, Keynesianism gradually declined, and liberalism was lost and regained. In the United States, Friedman carried the banner, and in Europe, Hayek was pushed to the forefront.

In 1972, a bestseller titled "A Tougher Situation Than Expected: Keynes's Inflationary Legacy" featured several of Hayek's early essays. In the face of the messy economic situation in front of them, people silently admit in their hearts that Hayek's criticism of Keynes was correct. Hayek is back in front of the European public.

At this time, Hayek received the news that he had won the 1974 Nobel Prize in Economics. No one expected Hayek to win the prize, after all, he had been snubbed by the economics community for more than three decades. Hayek himself was astonished, but there was no doubt that this glory made him immensely proud.

It is worth mentioning that there are two winners of this economics, the other is Murdal, a Swedish economist who holds high the banner of the left. There is a view that the economics prize is worried that Murdal's award will cause controversy, so Hayek is added to neutralize the controversy.

However, these things do not matter, and the trend of the times is turning to the position he has struggled to hold on to all his life. Hayek was the first liberal to win the Nobel Prize in Economics. The Nobel Prize once again brought Hayek world-class fame. After Margaret Thatcher became president of britain's Conservative Party in 1975, the crowd became more curious about the "philosophical master" standing behind the leader. During an argument with internal officials, Margaret Thatcher suddenly pulled out a book from her handbag, which was Hayek's Freedom Charter. She said aloud to the officials: This is what we should believe.

Under the public media in Britain, Hayek even became a military master behind Thatcher's scenes, and even said "godfather". In fact, Hayek and Margaret Thatcher had only met twice.

Curiously, Hayek's health also began to improve, when a colleague commented: "Hayek almost sentenced two people before and after the award." In 1978, Hayek's polemic became more and more enthusiastic, and he wanted to organize a large-scale debate on classical socialism. However, in the end, the ring match was not completed. Hayek wrote his thoughts on the debate tournament into a book, which eventually became Fatal Conceit.

In the final years of his academic career, Hayek devoted his energies to Fatal Conceit. However, this work has not surpassed the previous academically. The harvest of this book should be a return to methodology, Hayek is still formally aimed at classical socialism, in essence, from the methodology, mainly against Cartesian rationalism, constructivism, advocating spontaneous order (subjectivism, division of knowledge, individual property rights and price mechanisms), interpreting the birth and evolution of human civilization [8]. Here, of course, Hayek also rejects Friedman's "positivism."

In 1989, Forbes magazine came to Hayek's house for an interview, and he was very happy with the interview. Hayek's amusement may have been another reason: Eastern Europe was undergoing drastic changes and the Soviet Union was disintegrating.

Hayek was lucky enough in his life, from Nazism to Keynesianism to the collapse of the Soviet Union, and he saw with his own eyes the fall apart of everything he opposed.

In 1991, Hayek received the U.S. Presidential Medal of Freedom in recognition of his contributions to liberalism. Hayek died in Freiburg im Breisgau on 23 March of the following year at the age of nearly 93. He was buried in a woodside cemetery in his native Vienna. At the funeral, Father Johannes Shaschen preached in German:

"He also once sought to solve the big problems facing mankind, and he tried to find answers. He himself was convinced that the answer he had found was only a small piece of a mosaic tile. ”

The 20th century was the rise of professional economists, but it was the century of the decline of thinkers. In this era, Hayek's name was gradually forgotten. Perhaps Hayek's return to blandness is exactly what Hayek wants to see. After the 70s, humanity gradually completed the liberal redemption, hayek's lifelong dogma has become a greasy common sense, and those "mosaic tiles" have filled the walls of the toilet. However, when the wise man walked everywhere, the pure qualities of justice and bravery became a scarce commodity of the times.

Note: Hayek's biography is primarily a reference to Alan Ebstein's Biography of Hayek and Bruce Caldwell's Biography of Hayek, thanks to the authors and translators of these two books and Chinese.

Tribute to Friedrich August von Hayek!

bibliography

[1] Yesterday's World, translated by Stephen Zweig, Shu Changshan, etc., Guangxi Normal University Press;

[2] Hayek biography, Alan Ebstein, Translated by Autumn Wind, CITIC Publishing House;

[3] Socialism: An Analysis of Economics and Sociology, translated by Ludwig von Mises, translated by Wang Jianmin, Feng Keli, and Cui Shuyi, The Commercial Press;

[4] Price and Production, F. A. Hayek, translated by Hsu Dachuan, Economic Research Office of the Bank of Taiwan; [5] American Review Centennial Classic Papers, American Economic Association, Yang Chunxue, Yu Fei Translation, Social Sciences Academic Press;

[6] Hayek's Commentary, Bruce Caldwell, Translated by Von Klee, The Commercial Press;

[7] Law, Legislation and Freedom, translated by Hayek, Deng Zhenglai, Zhang Shoudong, Li Jingbing, etc., China Encyclopedia Publishing House;

[8] Fatal Conceit, translated by Hayek, Feng Keli and Hu Jinhua, China Social Sciences Press.

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