Why is Hayek so popular in China

Gao Liankui

　　Hayek's life had many paradoxes, he opposed socialism all his life, but his economic ideas were derived from Marx; He was a lifelong reactionary of morality and social justice, and he was a professor of ethics at the University of Chicago; After more than thirty years of not studying economics, he won half a Nobel Prize in Economics; He was reactionary of the welfare society, but resigned because the pension given by the University of Chicago was too low; His growth was nourished by Germanic culture, and he has always worked hard to integrate into mainstream British and American society.

　　Hayek studied three main majors during his university years, namely psychology, economics and law, which also influenced his life, he studied economics in the early days and law in the second half of his life, but throughout his life was psychology, and each of his writings exuded the magic of psychology.

　　Hayek's life was also a process of immigrants trying to integrate into mainstream society in a foreign country. Born in the Austro-Hungarian Empire, Hayek is the second largest country in Europe after Russia in terms of area and the third largest country in terms of population after Russia and Germany. But he spent the longest time in The UK.

　　When he entered Britain, Keynes was already a high-ranking economist, while Hayek was just a hairy boy in his twenties.

　　After Hayek entered Britain, while using correspondence to exchange academic views with Keynes, hoping to get Keynes's support, on the other hand, he wrote articles attacking Keynes. In response to Hayek's attack on himself, Keynes argued that Hayek did not read my book with 'good intentions'. If he did have good intentions, he at least didn't understand what I meant, or whether I was right. Obviously, there was a passion that drove him to come and attack, but I couldn't figure out what that passion really was. Actually Hayek challenged Keynes? Part of the reason may have been that he recognized that by challenging Keynes, he could quickly establish himself in British economics, and later people thought that Hayek was instigated by Robbins. Later generations always like to call Hayek's interaction with Keynes a "polemic", in fact, this is just a well-known scholar's answer to the academic youth, although Hayek is full of malice, but Keynes showed the demeanor of an elder, and patiently replied to every letter from Hayek.

　　In fact, Keynes had a very low opinion of Hayek's economic works, and Keynes thought that "Hayek's masterpiece of economics, Price and Production," is the most chaotic thing he has ever read, and from page 45 onwards, there is hardly a sound proposition." His book proves how ruthless logicians end up in madhouses if they start from a false proposition." Keynes wrote in a printed version of an article written by Hayek in 1932: "It's still a mess of gibberish."

　　In fact, it is not only Keynes who has a low opinion of Hayek, but even his very good friend Friedman said of Hayek's performance as a professional economist: "I don't appreciate his economics." I think Price and Production is a book full of holes. I find his works on capital theory simply unreadable. Keynes and Friedman's view of Hayek also basically represents the professional economic community's evaluation of Hayek's economic thought.

　　Hayek's economic theory actually derived from the deduction of Marx's economic thought, after all, in the German-speaking world at that time, Marx was the most influential economist at that time. When he first arrived at the London School of Economics, Hayek taught Marx's Crisis Theory. This had a great influence on Hayek, who in his lecture notes praised Marx's second volume of Capital and highlighted it in his bibliography, arguing that Marx's "unusual logical coherence in this part of the theoretical system was sufficient to make the author one of the first thinkers." This part of his writings is indeed impeccable."

　　Through an analysis of the flow of ideas, we can see that Hayek's view of the influence of money on economic activity is closer to Marx than to that of the monetarists. Speaking of his theory of the business cycle in Price and Production, Hayek said: "The core ideas of the business cycle theory expounded in the previous lectures are not new. Industrial fluctuations are essentially made up of alternating expansion-contraction of capital equipment, and this is often emphasized... In the German literature, this view is mainly attributed to Karl von Schwarzenegger. Marx's writings propose".

　　According to the economic analyst Michael Perlman, Marx recognized that "credit is the central factor that leads to economic chaos ... Marx integrated his analysis of credit into his economic theory. The key to linking this analysis is the concept of virtual capital. "——— capital created by the monetary system without real savings as a basis. Perlman summed up Marx's theory: "The more virtual capital disrupts price signals, the more people cannot get important information about the economy." Decision-making on productive activities is increasingly out of touch with its basic structure. This puts pressure on the economy, which is invisible. This is also Hayek's basic view. Hayek also mentioned Marx's ideas in Price and Production, saying: "In the first half of the 19th century, such a theory was extremely popular, and 'virtual capital' was a word often used by financial journalists at that time, and he basically reflected what we are talking about here." Virtual capital ' is created to make corporate activities unsustainable, or to make new businesses unfinished, and eventually, these businesses go out of business. ”

　　Very objectively speaking, although Marx recognized the interference of virtual capital on price signals, Marx did not use this problem to develop, nor did he use it as the main source of the economic crisis, of course, because Marx paid more attention to the fundamental contradictions of capitalist society, and did not care so much about these trivial things, and more realistically, Hayek's economic cycle theory was more accurate than Friedman's (300289, stock bar) theory. Hayek emphasizes the impact of money prices on the economy, and Friedman emphasizes the number of money, the two contrast, obviously the impact of money prices on the economy is far greater than the impact of money on the economy, but the Chinese Hayekists rarely mention Hayek, in fact, no one in China really understands Hayek, and their interpretation of Hayekism is full of errors.

　　In addition to attacking the academic authority keynes of the time, Hayek also began to start from other sources in order to better integrate into mainstream society, and in an article in the spring of 1933, Hayek equated Nazis with socialism, and he actually wanted to help the British government's war propaganda against Germany, but was rejected. But the soon-to-come World War II gave him a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to help Hayek fully integrate into Britain. In his autobiographical notes, he wrote that "that period of life in Cambridge during the war years was 'particularly beneficial' to him," "completed a thorough integration into the life of England," and that "although I was Austrian, in a state of war I was completely on the side of England."

　　The publication of The Road to Slavery in 1944 was a turning point in Hayek's life. It was a book that flattered capitalism by demonizing Nazism and socialism, and before that he was a lesser-known professor of economics. A year after the book was published, he began to gain some fame. After the road to serfdom was published in England and then in the United States, three publishers were rejected, and the publisher refused to publish the book because it was full of political prejudices, and this prejudice was so serious that they considered the book 'not suitable for a reputable publishing house', although they were fully aware of the book's sales prospects. In fact, this book is not suitable for upright gentlemen to read.

　　Of course, such a book that contradicted the mainstream opinion of the time would not have any newspapers and periodicals publishing book reviews, and the New York Times, the Chicago Tribune, and so on could not have been... This experience also fully illustrated the ideological atmosphere at that time. ”

　　In the United States, the book has received widespread criticism, the most intense of which comes from Hermann Fenner's The Road to Reaction. Finner said Hayek was "under-educated, and his reading range was not comprehensive; His understanding of economic progress is biased, and his account of history is wrong; His political theories are almost non-existent, his language is cloudy, his understanding of the political process and state of mind in Britain and the United States is grossly skewed, and his attitude towards the common people is arbitrary and authoritarian." He described Hayek and his book this way: "The worshippers of the reactionary ... Logically deranged and self-righteous... Unbridled distortion... Shameless, malicious views... Exposed the most pitiful ignorance ... Malicious slander, unscientific... Conscious unbridled... Outright Hitler-esque contempt for democrats. At the time, it was also believed that Hayek "ceased to be a scientist and degenerated into a propagandist."

　　But Hayek was conceited, and Hayek once mentioned to his wife that he was probably the most famous living economist after Keynes's death. However, this is clearly not the case. Keynes remained a big man after his death, and went from a controversial figure to a saint, and gradually no one remembered Hayek as an economist. Kurt Loybe, who had been Hayek's assistants, and Albert, an economist. Zlabinger writes that Hayek's research was only "dipped in the light of Keynes's new ideas for a short period of time, and thus became something of academic concern."

　　Hayek decided to go to the United States, initially intending to seek a position at the Princeton Institute for Advanced Study, where Einstein stayed, but the university did not accept scholars funded by other institutions, and in 1962 Hayek also said that he gave up economic theory because he felt that after the publication of "The Road to Slavery", he had become infamous in economics. After that, Hayek studied sociological issues more.

　　The Road to Serfdom did not sell well and did not bring Hayek the desired fame and income, from the late 1940s until he won the Nobel Prize in 1974, during which time Hayek received no more than $5,000 in royalties from book publishing, and one journalist wrote in 1975, "If there is a year when it reaches $5,000, it is a lot." In the two or three years since the first two or three years of publication, 100,000 copies of Road to Slavery had sold, Hayek had received $30,000, and by the early 1960s, Hayek had received very little royalties from the book each year.

　　In 1950, after arriving at the University of Chicago, Hayek's title became Professor of Social and Moral Sciences, a bit of a follow-up to Adam Strauss. Smith's legacy, because Smith was once a "professor of moral philosophy." Hayek taught at the University of Chicago until 1962. There, he wrote the Freedom Charter, which, after its publication, Hayek's worldview seemed to have changed significantly. He had conceited that his photographs could be published in Time magazine, but the magazine was reluctant to even publish a book review of his book. Hayek eventually left the University of Chicago for financial reasons. Because the retirement age required by the University of Chicago is very early and the pension is very low", according to this rule, he had two more years, that is, by 1964 he should retire.

　　Hayek came to Germany and accepted a teaching position at the University of Freiburg. Here, his attention gradually shifts to exploring and elaborating on the "spontaneous" order in economic and social behavior. Hayek began to reconstruct liberal social theory, providing an insight into social cooperation among free individuals.

　　In Law, Legislation, and Freedom, Hayek argues that what he believes is a possible utopian ——— "transforming local governments into quasi-commercial corporations that allow them to compete for the support of citizens." They have to offer a benefit-cost balance that makes life in their jurisdiction at least as attractive as elsewhere... Returning the management of the vast majority of government service activities to smaller governance units is likely to lead to a revival of some kind of community spirit. In an interview, he added: "I tend to give more power to local authorities rather than let the central government have these powers, because citizens can vote with their feet and force local governments to do what citizens want."

　　The concept of autobiological order is one of Hayek's greatest theoretical contributions. The term autogenous order was not invented by Hayek, and this concept is derived from Lao Tzu's Tao Te Ching, in which Hayek argues that in the Chinese Lao Tzu Tao Te Ching, "I do nothing, but the people become self-reliant; I am so quiet, and the people are self-righteous" two sentences, is the most classic description of the theory of spontaneous order. In September 1966, hayek gave a speech in Tokyo entitled "The Principles of Liberal Social Order", and when he talked about the theory of spontaneous order, he asked excitedly: "Isn't all this exactly the sentence in chapter 57 of Lao Tzu: I do nothing, and the people are self-reliant, I am quiet, and the people are self-righteous'"? From here, it can be seen that Lao Tzu's "thought of doing nothing" had a deep influence on Hayek, and Hayek was familiar with LaoZi's thought to the point of being at his fingertips.

　　Hayek began to really start making a name for himself in the media in 1972, the year that the London Institute of Economic Affairs published a publication by Suda Bergeron. The paperback edition of "The Odds Are Harder Than Expected: Keynes's Inflationary Legacy," edited by Shenoy, contains Hayek's ideas, and Hayek reappears on the stage of popular thought. Many popular media and academic journals have published book reviews of the book. The widespread impact of the book "Situations Harder Than Expected" helped Hayek win the 1974 Nobel Prize in Economics

　　In fact, the Nobel Prize awarded to heretical thinkers such as Hayek and Friedman also played a role in guiding economic research in new directions. Neither the left nor the right expected that the Nobel Prize would be awarded to Hayek. In the minds of Americans, Hayek was almost completely forgotten. His last important and complete book was the Freedom Charter, published as far back as 1960. At this time, Hayek lived outside the English-speaking world for more than a decade. And for about thirty years he hadn't written anything about economics. In a way, the Nobel Prize is a joke, but the essence is not like this.

　　Capitalism and socialism were in the midst of the most dangerous contrast, when the Soviet Union was at its peak and its nuclear power had risen from one-sixth of that of the United States to surpass that of the United States, becoming a superpower on an equal footing with the United States. At that time, the capitalist world was caught in a "stagflation". Under the influence of China, there is not only a "cultural revolution" led by young people in Europe, but also a political revolution is brewing, and most countries in Europe and the Third World are taking the path of the Soviet Union, or "Finnish" that is, non-communist countries but adopting Soviet policies. The whole capitalist world was crumbling, and the intellectuals of the time began to waver, no longer believing in capitalism, but beginning to devote themselves to socialism. At this time, the Nobel Prize had to be invited out of the dustbin of history by Hayek, who had been hiding for more than 30 years. Hayek may not be able to save capitalism, but his demonization of socialism is enough to make capitalism fend off for a while, and if you add to that the credibility accumulated by the Nobel Prize over the years, it is not difficult to achieve this. Hayek, an intellectual from the Nazi state, spent his life in the glory of capitalism. The Nobel Prize was also voted on politically after awarding its literary prize to Solzhenitsyn in 1970.

　　In 1974, when Solzhenitsyn and Hayek appeared at the Nobel Prize ceremony at the same time, Hayek gave Solzhenitsyn a Russian translation of The Road to Servité. Solzhenitsyn wrote a letter to Hayek after reading The Road to Serfdom, saying that "it is almost impossible to believe that a man who has not lived in Russia can see the consequences of socialism as clearly as he does."

　　However, for ideas to exert influence, it is not necessary for a large number of readers to have read books that record these ideas, but to obtain the highest level of influence, it is necessary for some group of people with real power to read books that support these ideas. Hayek's ideas were formed in Austria as a young man, spent his youth and middle age in England, spent more than a decade at the University of Chicago, and finally, after Thatcher came to power, he became famous in England.

　　In 1975, When Margaret Thatcher became president of the Conservative Party, Hayek's popularity in Britain began to rise. People did not dare to criticize Thatcher directly, but pointed the finger at Hayek. The mass media saw Hayek as the big man behind Margaret Thatcher. People accuse "Hayek of being the instigator behind the policies of this administration that would bring the unemployed to two million, bankrupt many businesses, and a class war that would strike again." ”

　　In fact, it is true that Hayek was often involved in public policy debates in Britain after winning the Nobel Prize, and he often wrote letters to the London "Times", published various pamphlets, and published commentaries. Hayek argued that britain would have to break up trade union privileges, control inflation, and reject social justice to become a rich, powerful, and important country.

　　In particular, in 1978 he praised Margaret Thatcher's call not to accept immigrants, writing: "No one, if he had experienced the rise of the violent anti-Semitic movement that led to Hitler's rise to power, would have objected to our courageous and blunt warnings of praise for Thatcher." In the years when I lived in Vienna, the powerful Jewish family was a respected group, and all decent people would scoff at the anti-Semitic riots instigated by a small number of populist politicians. But the sudden influx of large numbers of Galician and Polish Jews during World War I ... But in a very short period of time, it has changed people's mentality. They look so different that it is impossible to be gradually assimilated. Hayek blamed the rise of the anti-Semitic movement in Austria on Polish Jewish immigrants who 'looked too different', and the letter drew no less than five critical responses from people who criticized Hayek for "racism is actually entirely the fault of the victims, who must make themselves look less conspicuous, make themselves look less successful, or they should be eliminated."

　　In 1978, Hayek commented with a self-concluding remark: "I am interested in politics; In fact, I was also involved in politics in some way. Now, I put my energy into helping Margaret Thatcher go to war against the unions. I've written quite a few articles; There was even one article that had the pleasure of appearing on the front page of a feature story in The Times in London. In Britain, people saw me as Thatcher's mentor, but I had only met her twice. I like this look. Thatcher later introduced Hayek to U.S. President Ronald Reagan, and since Hayek became a world-class celebrity.

　　Leaving aside the economics major, in fact, Hayek's understanding of the law is quite desirable, he believes that freedom is not the absence of law, but the supremacy of law, which is the correct understanding of freedom. The most important institutional barrier to individualism is the rule of law. For, in a complex society, anything analogous to a free market can exist only after it has been protected by law, i.e., the state. Therefore, the word 'free market' must also always be put in quotation marks, because it is always subject to the constraints or restrictions of the legal framework through which it can function properly. "A political order based on the rule of law has the highest productivity. His friend Pope claimed that Hayek's main contribution in the last 50 years of his academic career was to articulate the central role of law in establishing or creating a classically liberal or libertarian order. In fact, comparing Hayek's original ideas, we can see that the Chinese Hayekists only preach Hayek's emphasis on freedom, while deliberately ignoring the role of the government in legislating or formulating the rules of the game.

　　Hayek also believes that it is logically impossible to go to extremes. A line must be drawn between the government and the market, but he has been trying to convince people that if you move an inch in the direction of the planned instructions, you will be on an untenable road and will inevitably slide to the cliffs. As for where the line should be drawn, he is not clear, and he has never been unable to draw this line.

　　Hayek's philosophical methodology emphasizes that ultimate knowledge comes from within. In this respect, Hayek was influenced by Wiesel. Wiesel expresses this view very clearly: "We can only observe natural phenomena from the outside, but we can observe ourselves from the inside. Hayek has always believed in this epistemology, and we must also recognize this if we want to understand Hayek's academic thought and writing style.

　　Hayekism often gives people a sense of witchcraft, in fact, most people who have seen Hayek's works are not convinced of Hayek, but are frightened by Hayek. His books are often not theoretical, but through some strange description to achieve people's horror. Hayek may not have been a successful scholar, but Hayek was a master of psychology. But after all, things like witchcraft can only be popular among people with low scientific literacy, and the current situation of China's overall low quality in the field of social sciences provides suitable soil for the popularity of Hayekism. This is why Hayekism has always been marginalized in the world, but in China it has become a fragrant feast.

　　But hayek's ups and downs of life also illustrate a truth, that is, "yesterday's heresy will be tomorrow's dogma."