The Research On The Thought Of Hayek's Spontaneous Order

Early in 16 C' in Spain, since the scholars of Salamanca School had had spontaneous order's thought, the history tradition of the thought was formed after the development of Enlightenment in Scotland and Austria School, especially Carl Menger. Just on these great men's thoughts, Hayek finished the theory on spontaneous order his own.The philosophy base of Hayek's spontaneous order thought includes his epistemology and methodology. The theory of division of knowledge and limited rationalism are the main content of his epistemology. Hayek considered knowledge was dispersed in the whole society and everyone mastered the knowledge to various degrees, however, one person or one organization just could obtain a little part of it and no one or no organization could get the all knowledge. Knowledge was dispersed therefore the reason of human beings must be limited and the reason of human beings was limited therefore Hayek objected all the thoughts which wanted to construct the social institutions, i.e. constructivistic rationalism. As for methodology, Hayek inherited the tradition of Austria School and formed the research method of individualism,Hayek divided order into organization and spontaneous order and the formationof spontaneous order relied on two factors: " action structure " and " rule system " .In"rule system" , the "inner rule" was the main factor that could promote theformation of spontaneous order ,which was abstract, edn-independent and negativeand was formed gradually during the long culture evolution in society.Undoubtedly, spontaneous order is the key concept in Hayek' s thought and passes through his whole social theory. Just as GC.Roche said: " spontaneous order is the greatest discovery by Hayek. It was he that made us be aware of the close relationship between liberty and organization. Nevertheless, the thought of Hayek's spontaneous order also had the inner dilemma and limitation. His explanation for market system was successful but it covered the social non-justice in reality. On the other hand, it wasn't persuasive enough that the formation of social institution wasmainly the spontaneous process according to Hayek's theory and it leaded to relativism and scepticism easily.Hayek's social theory based on the thought of spontaneous order gave great enlightenment to Chinese political reality , especially his thought of law and limited democracy.