The Deconstruction And Reconstruction Of Social Order--The Analysis Of Hayek's Social Theory

Hayek, who was influenced deeply by evolutionary rationalism of Hume, resolutely opposed the constructive rationalism of omniscient of Descartes. He thought reason of human was limited, and ability of human was not limitless either, therefore those ideals that made a futile attempt to construct limitless reason were only fatal conceit to result in destroying at last. Under the non-rationalism of evolutionary rationalism, Hayek divided the social order into two kinds: spontaneous order and made order, the reflection of the former is the free society and the latter is the organization. Hayek considered in that reason of human was non-rational so the formation and development of society was inevitable spontaneous but artificial. Therefore, the theory of spontaneous order is the key in the spontaneous order depended on three conditions: freedom, the general order and competition. The role of the general order was to provide the action of people to abstract and denying standard and through it decided on "private sphere" for individual action. In this space, everyone could have this freedom to utilize independent knowledge to pursue individual maximal benefit, and to attempt mistakes for whole human who faced the future that could not be forecast, and through it provide possibility for man got reliable plans. In this space, through competition civilization could be decided and through imitation civilization could be handed down and accumulated so the spontaneous order could be comforted and developed. The general rules as the condition and base of freedom and competition was the key in the three. Hayek thought the traditional theory of the social order, which believed one kind made order was better than the spontaneous order, was the result of the dualism of the ancient Greek. The construction of excluding another of "natural" and "artificial" contradict itself. The definition to "artificial" was ambiguous and it did not definite "artificial but non-designedly", so it must be to tend the construction of only one value in the social theory that believed the social order was the result of designed only therefore people could depend on the result of judgment of reason to plan and design the direction of socialism. Yet Hayek considered there was one special condition, "artificial but non-designedly", besides the traditional dualism, and put forward the dualism of social order, which was there was there was one spontaneous order outside one kind made order. Therefore Hayek believed the human society was a huge spontaneous order and a made order only existed in the spontaneous order. The nomos as the general rules of spontaneous order had three characteristics when it compared with the thesis as the exoenous rules: the abstract that the nomos had because it applied to unknown conditions in number; the end-indepence that the non-construction itself had; the nagation that the nomos had were for limited in prohibiting into harming another. It was the right three characteristics to make freedom and competition construct and maintain. Hayek considered the nomos not only included those articulated rules but also included those unarticulated rules, however because people were influenced by intellectualism so they only agreed the former and objected the latter. The meaning that Hayek criticized it, as soon as he was concerned, was that the social theory was not only to criticize the planned economy but the condition that the west country replaced the articulated rules—law with the articulated rules—legislation today. In recent years, the recommendation of thought of Hayek brought many new points of view for China scholars, however we cannot deny the though of Hayek has some mistakes. So it has a higher demand for Chinese scholars that always want to apply it to native conditions.