Chapter 2 translator's words

This book is not Hayek's early work, but his last important work during his lifetime.But when "The Complete Works of Hayek" was published in 1988, the editor Bartley III (WW. Bartley, III,) listed it as the first volume.Therefore, when reading it for the first time, readers may be a little puzzled: a new work appears as the first volume of the complete works when it first comes out, which always makes people feel a little unconventional. But as long as we read the whole book, we will feel that he is not without reason.Hayek was already 80 years old when he wrote this book, and the origin was that in 1978 he planned to use the title "Is Socialism a Mistake" to set up a battle with his opponent in Paris, the stronghold of left-wing thought in Western Europe, to have a final battle? A big debate like a decisive battle.This kind of anomalous practice in academic discussions is of course not easy to implement. With the encouragement of his colleagues, Hayek expanded the short manifesto originally prepared for polemics into this easy-to-read book.Determined by the background of this book, it can be regarded as a summary of Hayek's lifelong dedication to exploring the operating principles of market civilization and opposing the choice of a planned economy.Therefore, it is quite appropriate to treat it as a long preface to "The Complete Works of Hayek".

Pursuit of both simple and complex ideas From writing "The Road to Serfdom" during World War II to this book, Hayek spent nearly half a century of academic career.During this long period of time, he has also changed from a very marginalized economist to a world-renowned thinker. The Road to Serfdom can be seen as the official beginning of Hayek's all-out crusade against command economy.Although it was very successful in the market for English readers at the time, the attitude towards it in the post-war academic circle made Hayek discouraged.This is reflected in his literary career, that is, from the postwar period until the publication of the "Charter of Freedom" in 1960, Hayek basically did not seriously participate in this kind of debate.In the 1970s, when the Keynesian program that Hayek had always opposed was riddled with holes, his ideas attracted more and more admiration. He won the Nobel Prize in Economics in 1974, and his reputation reached its peak - although many in the economics circle believe that this is not so much because of his professional economic contributions, but rather an acknowledgment of his tenacious defense of capitalist civilization the spirit of.Of course, during this time his thought also went through a constant process of development, which became quite complex and, on the other hand, remained quite simple.

It is complicated because his theoretical elements are becoming more and more complex and profound.From The Road to Serfdom, through such monumental works as The Order of the Senses, the Charter of Liberty, and Law, Legislation, and Liberty, to finishing this book, his intellectual base has changed dramatically.If it is said that his initial basis of argument was largely limited to the economics of the Austrian school and a little classical liberalism, then this basis has become extremely complicated in the end. In addition to the original economics, he also learned from philosophy, law , History, psychology, linguistics, cultural anthropology, biology and other disciplines draw evidence to form a complex but logically consistent argumentation system.

Therefore, in the eyes of many people, Hayek has become an "intellectual aristocrat" that is rare in this century, a person who believed in the "unity of knowledge" before the 19th century, and we can learn from Pascal, Spencer Great thinkers such as Nossa, Descartes and Kant have to get a glimpse of their demeanor.Because in their eyes, the strict division of labor that we are accustomed to today is a very absurd approach; for us, specialization is a prerequisite for success in learning, but for them, it is an obstacle to fully understanding the world. Therefore, they must try their best to break the clear boundaries of the knowledge system.This grand epistemological vision is reflected in Hayek's thinking, that is, he treats the modern world as a whole as a civilization—a legal civilization characterized by market order.

But looking at it from another angle, Hayek's thoughts are still very simple: he has written books for decades only for a very single goal.This singularity of purpose sometimes even makes his thoughts seem repetitive and dull.He constantly expanded his horizons and relentlessly mobilized knowledge in various fields. The only motivation was a strong concern that did not change throughout his life, that is, to demonstrate the relationship between the formation of market order and individual freedom and the reasons why this civilization was threatened.It can be said that no matter what field of knowledge his thought touches, it can only be because it is related to this goal.Hayek's consistency in this respect is a rare quality even among thinkers.

noble and dangerous ego Hayek's stubborn opposition to the planned economy for a long time naturally has its historical background.In his own words, since his university days, almost all the intellectual fashions about social reforms he came into contact with have a socialist orientation, and all the "good people" among intellectuals seem to be socialists.Of course, the young Hayek was inevitably drawn into this ideological atmosphere.However, the knowledge he inherited from the Austrian school of economics made him suspicious of this enthusiasm for social reform very quickly: since people's needs and knowledge are highly subjective, individual and changeable, how to meet these needs and fully Is it possible to carry out "rational planning" of economic activities based on this knowledge?What would be the political consequences of pursuing such a plan?Many chapters in his early years reflect his thinking on this issue from an economic point of view.But perhaps he would not have turned from a professional economist into a "social philosopher" if the establishment of Hitler's regime had not provided him with a terrifying example of the ideals of a planned economy put into practice.Understanding Hayek from this perspective, we can draw a conclusion that many people are not willing to accept: Hayek's thought is his response to a series of great political disasters in this century—two world wars, the tyrannical rule established in Germany— In this regard, he and political theorists of this century who stand very differently from his position, such as Marcuse, the leading figure of the Frankfurt School, partly share the same problematic background, but they react differently. There are only differences: the salvation plan put forward by one side is to respect the market order under the rule of law, while the other side is the liberation of "love" in the sense of panpsychism.

Since the Age of Enlightenment, human beings have changed dramatically in the use of natural science and technology.However, Hayek (like Marcuse and others) saw in this progress a great potential danger, that is, the achievements of every scientific field are constantly forming a kind of threat to human freedom. threat because it reinforces an illusion of human rational control over judging ourselves, what he calls the socialists' "deadly conceit."In his view, all attempts to plan society as a whole, however noble their motives, rest on this dangerous intellectual pretension.Therefore, contrary to what many people think, Hayek has repeatedly stated that his differences with socialists are not due to ideological or value choice opposition, but due to differences in factual judgments - the problem is not the socialist plan Are the goals set by the economy morally desirable, but can they be achieved by the means it advocates?

In order to prove the error of this position, Hayek proposed the core concept of "extended order" in his article, which was born out of the idea of ​​"spontaneous order" that he began to elaborate systematically after the 1950s.Perhaps the easiest way to grasp Hayek's liberal political philosophy is to understand what he means by the concept. His argument starts with the following question: How did human beings develop from a small tribe in the early primitive society to a giant society with a large number of people living in harmony and forming huge and complex communication relationships?Hayek believes that a key factor in the formation of this kind of society is that a certain group of human beings has formed a set of rules to regulate interpersonal relationships in a process similar to natural selection, which is largely unintentional. It is not the result of a plan or pursuit, but a spontaneous evolution over a long period of time when no one can predict the consequences.The trade that appeared spontaneously in the early days of mankind before the existence of the state, and the traditional customs formed before the age of reason, all prove that the growth of civilization is not so much due to the perfection of reason and the establishment of a powerful political state, but rather the establishment of the state and the rational spirit. Generation is their result.

In order to explain the formation of such expansive rules of behavior, Hayek often compares society to an "organism". Theories, etc.) show that, for this kind of organism that contains an infinite number of elements and extremely complex interactions, the level of cognition that human reason can achieve on the formation mechanism of its order pattern is very limited.At best we have some "abstract knowledge" of the general structure of such complex phenomena, which is not at all sufficient to enable us to "build" or foresee the concrete forms they will take.He believes that the reason why many intellectuals are hostile to the market order is that they do not really understand or are unwilling to understand the role played by this abstract spontaneous model in all areas of life.It is precisely because of this lack of understanding that they can't help but tend to interpret complex structures as the result of a subject's conscious design from the perspective of "panpsychism".Since this kind of "constructivist rationalism" attributes all the advantages and opportunities of human society to rational design rather than compliance with traditional rules, they believe that as long as the goals are more properly planned and "rational coordination ", it will be able to eliminate all the undesirable phenomena that still exist.Including great minds like Einstein, many intellectuals tend to choose socialism because they cannot see any useful knowledge outside of reason, or they do not recognize human beings through reason. Various knowledge systems are also restricted by certain traditional behavioral practices.

So, given the insurmountable limitations of human reason and knowledge, how does it contribute to the progress of civilization?In other words, what attitudes do humans need to adopt toward social development and institutional formation in order to best utilize limited personal knowledge?Within Hayek's theoretical framework, this issue actually contains two main points of his theory of knowledge, and we can easily see that in the "knowledge economy era" that is widely talked about today, his thoughts in this aspect have great significance for us. has the most outstanding value.

between instinct and reason Including this book, Hayek has repeatedly borrowed the two concepts of "know that" and "know how" from the philosopher Gilbert Ryle to illustrate the fundamentals of human knowledge. nature.The so-called "knowledge" knowledge is a kind of "knowledge" of obeying behavioral patterns acquired through learning and imitation. From the perspective that we may be ignorant of the causes and general effects of these patterns themselves, they are not common. sense, but we are aware of them using our senses and adapt our behavior to them.As such, it is indeed part of the intellectual fabric of our understanding of our surroundings.This ability to adapt or adopt a pattern is very different from our knowledge of the consequences of our actions, which we largely take for granted (i.e. habit).Most of our moral codes and laws (the most important being the "divided property system") are products of this habit of behaviour.In Hayek's view, this rule-abiding behavior pattern formed through learning and imitation is the product of an evolutionary and selection process, which lies between human animal instinct and rationality-it transcends and constrains us Instinct, but not from reason.Therefore, it is unreasonable for rationalists, or utilitarians who follow the "greatest principle of happiness", to think that only rationally justified or moral rules that can weigh gains and losses are correct. Hayek emphasizes the existence of this ability "between instinct and reason" because he believes that the "extended order" that is crucial to the development of civilization is the product of this ability and the process of evolutionary selection. .In constant intercourse men develop certain commonly observed patterns of behavior which, in turn, have an ever-widening beneficent influence on a group, which enables complete strangers to form mutually for their own ends. cooperate.A characteristic of the cooperation that emerges in this extended order is that people benefit from each other, not because they understand the order in the modern scientific sense, but because they can use these rules to compensate themselves in their interactions with each other. ignorance.In contrast, a planned economy that tries to set a standard of happiness for each member, like the order of solidarity and mutual understanding in early societies, is a closed system that can only benefit a relatively small number of people.Hayek admitted that there may be a harmonious state in primitive society, which seems to be closer to Rousseau, which he strongly opposed. However, in his view, this kind of harmony in primitive society is based on the fact that individuals have neither property nor special knowledge can be used. premise, so it also comes at the price of stagnation. From this, it is not difficult to imagine that the greatest benefit of the extended order is that it provides a beneficial institutional space for everyone to use their own knowledge (mostly knowledge of "knowing why").With the development of the division of labor and trade and the establishment of the property rights system, individuals have acquired more and more private knowledge and the ability to use this knowledge. This is also an important reason why those who support the goal of collectivism are very disturbed by the market system. Ha Jerke describes this very vividly when he discusses the "magical world of trade and money."This kind of personal knowledge is worrying because of its unknown use, so there are always people who try to make use of it in a planned way, but they face an insurmountable difficulty, that is, what Hayek said "what does not know cannot Planned": the dispersion, variety, and variability of this knowledge determine that no one institution or mind can grasp it all at any time.In order to make this kind of personal knowledge serve the society, we can only rely on the market, a system of collecting information that transcends individuals.Under this system, not only can “separate individual knowledge” (Deng Zhenglai’s words) be effectively utilized, but more importantly, it will continuously expand the differences in talents, skills, and tastes among social members participating in the collaboration. Thus greatly promoting the formation of a diverse world.This further enhances the power of the cooperating group beyond the sum of individual efforts.It can be seen that, as one of the most important contents of the development of human society, the diversity of human life characterized by the division of labor and the order that enables it to exist have a mutually reinforcing and interactive relationship: "the importance of order and the Value will increase with the development of diversity of constituent factors, and greater order will increase the value of diversity, so that the expansion of human cooperation order becomes infinitely broad." Another very peculiar function of this system is , people living in it no longer have to pursue a unified goal as in a small group, they can completely ignore each other, and arrange their life goals only according to their personal abilities and values; it can make people (Haye Borrowing the words of his most respected David Hume) "It is not necessary for him to have sincere goodwill to render service to others", and "even if he is a bad man, it is in his interest to serve the common good". A New Perspective on Limiting Power The point ignored by many theorists is that from Hayek's standpoint, we can not only logically deduce the conclusion that government power should be limited, but also demonstrate his argument on this issue from the perspective of knowledge utilization. Viewed as an important contribution to traditional political theory that allows us to avoid mainstream metaphysical views since Hobbes on the problem of the evil of human nature (that is, "everyone is the enemy of the original state"), Base the necessity of limiting power on the principle of the diffusion of knowledge on a sound economic basis. From this standpoint, we no longer need to explain the necessity of restricting power simply by using traditional judgments such as sexual evil or "power corrupts".We might as well presume that human beings are inherently good, thereby disabling the necessity of limiting power.But in Hayek's words, "the altruism of solidarity can only work in some small groups in a limited way", if the behavior of the whole group is limited to this goal by means of coercion, would undermine the efforts of each member to cooperate with each other, because "most productive activities of the members of a cooperating group will be practically hinder the formation of a larger order".That is to say, even if the motivation of the person exercising power is very noble, because he cannot grasp the decisions made by many individuals based on changing information, he cannot formulate a recognized and unified scale for the importance level of the goal.Therefore, even if it is a power that is dedicated to the benefit of the people, its scope should be strictly limited. This conclusion seems to go against all moral systems that exhort people to do good, so it may be difficult for many people to accept.From Hayek's theory of knowledge, however, we do not draw his objections to public welfare, but only raise further questions about his approach: "All systems of morality teach doing good to others, ... But the question is how to do it. Good intentions alone are not enough.” For in the extended order, everyone, including the government, “if strictly limited to doing only what is clearly beneficial to specific others Things are not enough to form an extended order, or even contrary to this order. The moral rules of the market make us benefit others, not because we want to do so, but because it makes us act in exactly the way that will bring about this result. The extended order compensates for individual ignorance in a way that good intentions alone cannot, and thus does make our efforts produce altruistic results." Obviously, under this order, the scope of human cooperation continues to expand, so that 'universal, goalless abstract rules of behavior replace common specific goals'. Therefore, the coercive power of the state is the most incompatible with the past tribal rule. The difference is that it no longer needs to formulate a unified goal for the entire community and concentrate wealth to achieve this goal, but only needs to limit its function to providing public safety and ensuring the implementation of property rights and fair rules. The " The aimlessness of the state", Hayek did not focus much in this book, but it is closely related to the order in which individuals use their knowledge to pursue different goals that Hayek repeatedly emphasized in this book, so I think it is necessary to say a little more here. In "Language Confusion in Political Thought", written in 1967 (see F. Hayek, New Studies in Philosophy, Politics, Economics and the History of Ideas, Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1978, pp.71-97. This article can be regarded as the preparatory notes for writing part of the second volume of "Law, Legislation and Liberty", the translation of which is only available in the first volume), Hayek uses "nomocracy" and "teleocracy" are two somewhat outlandish concepts to distinguish the difference between the two orders, which we can translate as "rule of rules" and "rule of goals". In the extended order, the common welfare of all members or public Interest cannot be defined as the sum of the known specific results to be achieved, it can only be expressed as an abstract order, as a whole, it does not point to any specific goal, but only provides a way to make no matter which Members can use their knowledge for the construction of personal goals. In this sense, "Nomocracy" is a concept similar to the laws of nature, which belongs to a self-organizing system (just like the universe, organisms, crystallization processes, etc.) , which cannot be controlled by human beings, nor is it subject to the goals given to it by human beings. "Teleocracy" corresponds to taxis (arrangements or organizations) with different specific "teloi" (targets). In the former system , the general premise of its existence (specifically to human society, that is, "public interest" or "universal interest") is only that it can provide an abstract, aimless order within which human beings must obey Some abstract rules of just behavior, the basic duty of the state is to provide guarantees for this order. And in the order governed by the goal (that is, the sequence of actions of each individual, association, enterprise, etc.), the common interest is the special interest The sum, that is, the specific and predictable results that affect specific individuals or groups. Hayek believes that the biggest mistake of collectivists is to often confuse these two different orders. They are motivated by "justice" or " In line with rational considerations, I also want to endow this "ruled by rules" order with a certain degree ofpurposiveness, equating it with an order "governed by goals". Yet such an order governed by goals is clearly incompatible with an open society of millions of people who share no specific goals.As Hayek said in this book, if we want to guarantee as much freedom as possible for all members of society to use personal knowledge, the best way is to "replace common specific goals with abstract rules" and put the role of government Restricted to "enforcing these abstract rules, thereby protecting the individual's sphere of liberty from coercion or encroachment by others".Conversely, every attempt to impose some kind of unifying goal on a growing order or rule-governed institution leads to a regression of the open society into a tribal society of small groups. a staunch libertarian Like many thinkers who insist on following through on their beliefs or logic, Hayek's social theory of extended order has mixed feelings.Although he was deeply influenced by British empiricism and skepticism, we feel from time to time that his later theoretical style still has obvious traces of German culture. To paraphrase Churchill's words, his thought retains the charm of skepticism in the 18th century , but it is armed with the sharp weapon of modern strict logic.Therefore, we can see that he expresses his firm "British position" in a very radical way that is not like Hume. In a certain sense, he is even a very paranoid thinker-of course, this may It is the character that must be possessed by the ideological fighter who is determined to fight all kinds of fallacies and evils.We also feel that although he has an attitude of understanding the thought and practice of modern socialism from a moral point of view, when he criticizes the planned economy, he inexplicably ignores a deeper issue: the rationality of construction theory. Although socialism or socialism excludes the knowledge of wisdom "between instinct and reason", is this also a result of cultural evolution in the deep consciousness of its members?From time to time we feel that one aspect of his argument seems to be an unspoken presupposition that the evolution of the mental structure of all human beings "should" be the same regardless of culture or geography (hence the "globalization" of social and economic interaction " is also inevitable), while Cartesian rationalism is a deviation from it; on the other hand, he regards the modern institutional practice of a few countries in Western Europe as a factor caused by accidental selection in the evolution process.This makes the legal market system he strongly advocated become a cultural concept with inherent tension.One of the most prominent problems that we can easily think of is that if the formation of the "extended order" is only explained by voluntary and spontaneous exchange behavior like Hayek, then China, a giant civilization that has formed in the early stage, will become difficult. phenomenon of understanding.Therefore, I tend to think that his explanation of the causes of civilization is not as universal as he imagined, but is only more suitable for explaining modern capitalism.As far as ancient society and its cohesive processes are concerned, Hayek's theory is far less explanatory than (say) Weber's analysis of cultural formations and "physiochemical processes." It cannot be denied that Hayek was in many ways perceptive and outspoken about how modern market civilization works.Aiming at the threats to freedom by extremism and bureaucracy in the 20th century, he regards how to develop and utilize knowledge that is beneficial to mankind as an important or even the only important criterion for judging whether social order is beneficial or not. most important contribution to science.But regardless of the suffering caused by material inequality in the early development of capitalism, even in the modern "abundant society" (Galbraith's word) facing innocent frustration (especially spiritual) is not A well-defined minority.The market keeps inflicting this pain of frustrated hopes, but it doesn't care about the pain.Moreover, this "goalless" spontaneous order not only cannot guarantee that the skills and talents of specific individuals can be fully utilized instead of being wasted, but also the future of the entire human race is unpredictable.Hayek himself frankly acknowledged these facts, but he seemed to show a helpless attitude towards them (many people were very disgusted with him, which is probably one of the most important reasons). His "individualism" as a methodology is certainly one of the reasons for this: it is not a philosophy of redemption, but is highly formal in character, leaving the task of filling that form up to everyone. individual moral responsibility.From the general premise that he has always shown a concern for the welfare of mankind, we can guess that he would probably not object to efforts to promote "substantial individualistic" happiness.But we cannot learn much from Hayek about what public power can do for human well-being other than to maintain "rules of just conduct." I translated the introduction to Chapter 6 and the "Supplementary Discussion" at the end of the book. Ms. Hu Jinhua undertook the translation of Chapters 7 to 9 and I went through the proofreading.During the translation process, we referred to the earlier translations of Liu Jifeng and Zhang Laiju ("Unfortunate Concept", Beijing Oriental Publishing House, 1991); A lot of work, thanks to them all. Feng Keli sincerely August 13, 2000