哈耶克：從理性經濟人到仨自組織人

Hayek: From the Rational Economic Man to the Triple Self-Organizing Human

——從斯密“和平經濟學”原點到共生經濟學的思想橋梁

— The Intellectual Bridge from Adam Smith’s “Peaceconomics” to Symbionomics

錢 宏Archer Hong Qian

 2025.10.28 · Singapore

一、戰爭、學習與覺悟 

1914年，年僅十五歲的弗里德里希·馮·哈耶克（Friedrich A. von Hayek），因第一次世界大戰的爆發，加入了奧匈帝國的野戰炮兵團。他在意大利前線服役時，親眼目睹了文明與秩序在戰爭中的崩解，也由此萌生了一個念頭：理解人類社會如何在混亂之中仍能自發地形成秩序。

這成為他一生探求經濟學與社會哲學的最初火種。1918年戰後回國，他進入維也納大學（University of Vienna）就讀。起初，他對科學與哲學都懷有興趣，曾深入研究恩斯特·馬赫（Ernst Mach）的感知哲學，1919–1920年間專門研究人腦結構。隨後，他轉向法律（1920–1921），但司法考試一通過 ，他就投身經濟學研究，成為奧地利學派代表人物弗里德里希·馮·維塞爾（Friedrich von Wieser）的學生。維塞爾推薦他進入路德維希·馮·米塞斯（Ludwig von Mises）主持的維也納商會會計辦公室工作，隨即受命主持新成立的奧地利商業周期研究所（Austrian Institute for Business Cycle Research）。

1923–1924年間，他赴美進修經濟學課程，學習當時最前沿的時間序列經濟統計方法。這次美國之行，為他後來對經濟波動與知識分散問題的研究埋下伏筆。1930年代，哈耶克等奧地利經濟學派因對大蕭條（The Great Depression）的分析——尤其是商業周期理論的闡釋——在歐洲學界嶄露頭角。

時任倫敦經濟學院經濟系主任萊昂內爾·羅賓斯（Lionel Robbins）注意到他，邀請他於1931年赴倫敦講學。那四場講座經整理後出版為《價格與生產》（Prices and Production），一舉奠定了他在英國經濟學界的地位，並讓他獲聘為倫敦經濟學院的圖克經濟科學與研究教授。

多年後，他回憶道：“從1931年到1937年，是經濟學理論史上最令人興奮的幾年。那既是一個高峰，也是一段時代的尾聲——一個嶄新且完全不同的時期正在開始。”

這正是他思想轉向的分水嶺——他開始對經濟學自身的學科邊界產生深刻的懷疑。

二、從奧地利學派到蘇格蘭原點

1940年代，哈耶克在反思計劃經濟與自由市場爭論的同時，開始了思想的“追溯之旅”：他從聖西門主義者（Saint-Simonians）與奧古斯特·孔德（Auguste Comte）一路追至約翰·斯圖亞特·穆勒（John Stuart Mill）。甚至在1950年代，他重走了穆勒1854–1855年與妻子從意大利到希臘的旅行路線，並在途中完成了《自由秩序原理》（The Principles of a Liberal Order）的初稿。

但真正讓哈耶克找回思想歸宿的，是他在1960年代初重返英國教堂和生活的經歷，使他徹底轉向了蘇格蘭傳統——那一脈源自大衛·休謨（David Hume）與亞當·斯密（Adam Smith）的思想血脈。

哈耶克從休謨那裡繼承了“社會演化”（Social Evolution）的非設計論思想，從斯密那裡重新發現了“經濟繁榮的原點”——早在1755年亞當·斯密在格拉斯哥發表的《論法律與政府的性質與原因》演講中，他就提出了經濟繁榮的三要素：

和平（Peace）、適當的稅收（Moderate Taxation）、過得去的法律（Tolerable Justice）。

這比1759年的《道德情操論》（The Theory of Moral Sentiments）還早，是斯密思想的真正“源點”，他將“國富”（1776）建立在個人自由交換與信任的和平、社會分工與制度的和平、國際貿易與友誼的和平，以及法度的倫理基礎上，而非功利性的簡單生產與交易之上。

哈耶克深知這一點。他晚年的思想不再拘泥於市場理論，而是要回到斯密的“和平經濟學”（Peaceconomics）原點，去探索：社會如何在自由的前提下實現秩序，在秩序的框架中保持自由——重新理解了經濟學的本義——它不是財富分配的學問，而是和平、自由和信任的秩序學，是基於生命自組織連接動態平衡之交互主體共生的關係過程。

三、從經濟預測到複雜秩序

當哈耶克意識到狹義的經濟學理論，在30年代經歷一個高峰和一段時期的尾聲，也是一個嶄新且完全不同的時期的開始時，他轉向了政治哲學、法律、思想史和認知科學等多學科探索，為此，他甚至無意再與凱恩斯繼續那場著名的辯論，即使是他最喜歡的熊彼得（Joseph Schumpeter），哈耶克也認為他沒有自己連貫的哲學。正是這種特立獨行的努力和對經濟學的拓展，讓哈耶克與主流經濟學界顯得格格不入，他甚至在他起家的倫敦經濟學和迎接他的芝加哥大學，遭受經濟學教授們的集體排斥！

哈耶克的核心突破，在於認識到經濟學的真正任務不是預測，而是理解複雜性的現實生活——知識的局限、管理的邊界、制度的約束。

這一轉向，使他成為複雜性經濟學、知識經濟學與行為經濟學的思想先驅。30年代中期後幾十年，哈耶克主要研究政治哲學、法律、思想史、認知科學與經濟學之間的關係，陸續發表了《通往奴役之路》、《經濟學與知識》、《自由憲章》、《個人主義與經濟秩序》、《致命的自負》、《知識在社會中的運用》、《競爭的含義》和《感覺的秩序》等影響深遠的著作。

哈耶克認為，這些看似經濟學之外的著作，是他對經濟學理論做出的最有原創性的貢獻，為什麼？

四、仨自組織人：錢宏的解釋

錢宏認為，因為哈耶克已經感到或發現：沒有單純的“理性經濟人”，無論是市場經濟還是計劃經濟，其主體都必然同時是經濟自組織人、政治自組織人、文化自組織人三位一體的“仨自組織人”，即組織共生人，及其生命生命自組織連接動態平衡的交互主體共生關係。

所以，經濟學並不是對經濟做出預測，而必須涉及現實中的複雜現象（比如實際資產的具體運用過程及資源分配方式等自然秩序），如何處理知識、管理、制度的局限性而非做出具體的預測才是最關鍵的難題，亦即了解處於交互主體關係中的仨組織人（個體和共同體）綜合政治、經濟、文化行為，並給出準確的判斷。

也就是說，哈耶克之所以偉大，在於他天才般發現了“理性經濟人”假設的終結。現實世界的個體與共同體，從來不是單維的經濟算計機器（無論是市場經濟，還是政府經濟），而是同時作為：三位一體的“仨自組織人”（Triple Self-Organizing Humans），即“組織共生人”： 

經濟自組織人（生產、交易、創新）

政治自組織人（選擇、分配、治理）

文化自組織人（認同、信念、價值） 

這正是共生經濟學的思想起點：經濟活動本質上是交互主體共生（Intersubjective Symbiosis）過程，而非純理性優化過程。

五、哈耶克原創性體現在五個方面

一是超越理性經濟人 —— 看到人的政治與文化維度，哈耶克不再將人視為只追求經濟利益的理性個體，而是認識到人同時是經濟、政治和文化活動的參與者，是一個多層面的“仨自組織人”；

二是聚焦複雜性而非預測 —— 預見了複雜系統科學，他認為經濟學真正的難題不在於做出具體的預測，而在於如何理解和處理現實世界的複雜性，特別是知識、管理和制度的局限性。往前可以追溯到亞當斯密，往後可以聯繫到後世興起的“複雜經濟學”，以及2024年三位諾貝爾經濟學獎得主的探索；

三是研究知識與秩序生成 —— 形成“知識的自發秩序”理論，他通過跨學科研究，探索了知識文化是如何在社會中傳播、組織和應用的，以及市場經濟如何通過非預設的自發秩序來運作；

四是強調自由的核心地位 —— 反對中央計劃，維護社會多樣性。他認為，只有在個人自由和社會規則得到保障的和平環境下，經濟和社會才能持續發展，這使得他的研究與凱恩斯主義“干預經濟”的觀點產生了根本性分歧；

五是奠定新的研究範式 —— 連接經濟學、政治學、法學與心理學，他對知識、制度、自由和自發秩序的深入研究，為經濟學與其他社會科學（如政治學、法律、心理學等）的交叉研究奠定了基礎，創造了一個新的研究範式。

總之，哈耶克之所以認為其“跨學科研究”極具經濟學理論原創性，是因為他超越了單純的“理性經濟人”假設，認為經濟活動的主體是同時兼具經濟、政治和文化屬性的“仨自組織人”（即組織共生人）。他發現，經濟學無法僅憑預測來解決現實世界的複雜問題，更關鍵的是要研究知識、管理和制度的局限性，以及在個體和集體層面，如何處理個體和共同體作為“仨自組織人”的綜合行為。

這一視角使他從主流經濟學中脫穎而出，在政治哲學、法律、思想史和認知科學等領域轉向中，最終創作出一系列影響深遠的作品，成為繼亞當·斯密之後經濟學領域的另一座豐碑。

六、從哈耶克到共生經濟學（Symbionomics）

哈耶克的理論在今天顯得愈發重要。因為他揭示的不只是20世紀的經濟學困境（當時在戰爭陰霾之下，“干預經濟”成為包括法西斯德國、共產主義蘇聯和資本主義的美國在內的專家學者們，戰前乃至戰後的主導性共識，最終導致整個七十年代的世界性“經濟滯脹”），也正是21世紀AI時代的核心悖論——如何在知識過剩、制度失孞、靈魂迷失之間，重建“自由、秩序與生命自組織連接”的動態平衡。

錢宏指出，哈耶克與亞當·斯密之間的思想通道，正是通往Symbionomics的橋梁：

“經濟學的未來，不在預測，而在生命的自組織連接。”

共生經濟學（Symbinomics）以“生產回歸生活，生活呈現生態，生態激勵生命”為核心邏輯，將斯密的“和平經濟學”原點與哈耶克的“自發秩序”理論，置於“LIFE（生命形態）-AI（智能形態）-TRUST（組織形態）”三重交互關係之中，進而融入互聯網、物聯網、孞態網（MindsNetwork）三網疊加的基礎生活實踐，成為21世紀“和平經濟學”的延續與重生。

七、堂吉訶德的隱喻

有人指出，哈耶克對於美國左翼知識分子有關“自由”概念之濫用的批評，如今不僅沒有任何糾偏的跡象，反而越來越激進。所有這一切，事實上都和哈耶克當年的樂觀想法背道而馳。

在這個意義上，把哈耶克比作“最後一個堂吉訶德”也未嘗不可。但錢宏認為，哈耶克這位經濟學領域最後的“堂吉訶德”，其豐功偉績，正是我們當代人理解斯密“和平經濟學”原點，和從這個原點再出發的Symbionomics之間的思想橋梁。

八、現實的回聲

今天，當我們以這樣的尺度去觀察當下，與“政治正確”主流思想（包括多位諾貝爾經濟學獎得主）顯得格格不入的四個國家的人民選舉出來的領導人——阿根廷總統米萊（Javier Milei）、美國總統川普（Donald Trump）、意大利總理梅洛尼（Giorgia Meloni），以及剛剛上任的日本首相高市早苗（Sanae Takaichi）——他們已經或正在推行的經濟政策與外交努力，也許正能幫助我們超越左右、東西、官民的兩極視野。

唯有如此，我們才可能以一種更平和、真實、接近常識的態度去善待之；以智慧、勇氣與創造力，面對那被特權與失序所玩壞的全球化結構，重新定義並規範“LIFE（生命形態）—AI（智能形態）—TRUST（組織形態）”的三重關係——開啟人類生活方式創新與再組織的臻美共生未來。

Hayek: From the Rational Economic Man to the Triple Self-Organizing Human

— The Intellectual Bridge from Adam Smith’s “Peaceconomics” to Symbionomics

Archer Hong Qian
October 28, 2025 · Singapore

I. War, Learning, and Awakening

In 1914, the fifteen-year-old Friedrich A. von Hayek joined the Austro-Hungarian field artillery as the First World War broke out. On the Italian front he personally witnessed the collapse of civilization and order amid war. Out of that shock arose a lifelong question: how does human society spontaneously generate order amid chaos?

That question became the first spark of his lifelong inquiry into economics and social philosophy. After returning home in 1918, Hayek entered the University of Vienna. At first, he was drawn equally to science and philosophy, studying Ernst Mach’s philosophy of perception and, between 1919 and 1920, researching brain structure. He then turned to law (1920–1921), but upon passing the judicial exam he immediately devoted himself to economics. He became a student of Friedrich von Wieser, a leading figure of the Austrian School, who soon recommended him to work under Ludwig von Mises at the Vienna Chamber of Commerce. There, Hayek was appointed to direct the newly established Austrian Institute for Business Cycle Research.

Between 1923 and 1924, he went to the United States to study the latest techniques of time-series economic statistics — an experience that planted the seed for his later reflections on business cycles and the dispersion of knowledge. In the 1930s, Hayek and his Austrian School colleagues rose to prominence through their analysis of the Great Depression, especially their theory of business cycles.

At that time, Lionel Robbins, head of economics at the London School of Economics (LSE), invited Hayek to deliver a series of lectures in 1931. Those four lectures, later published as Prices and Production, instantly established his reputation in the British academic world and earned him the Tooke Professorship of Economic Science and Statistics at LSE.

Years later, he recalled:

“From 1931 to 1937 were the most exciting years in the history of economic theory. It was both a peak and an ending — the close of an era and the beginning of something entirely new.”

That moment marked a turning point. Hayek began to doubt the boundaries of economics as a discipline itself.

II. From the Austrian School to the Scottish Origin

In the 1940s, while reflecting on the debate between planned economy and free market, Hayek began an “intellectual return journey.” He traced ideas from the Saint-Simonians and Auguste Comte to John Stuart Mill. In the 1950s he even retraced Mill’s 1854–1855 journey with his wife from Italy to Greece, completing along the way a draft of The Principles of a Liberal Order.

But what truly restored his intellectual home was his renewed engagement with church and community life in early-1960s Britain. That experience turned him decisively toward the Scottish tradition — the intellectual lineage of David Hume and Adam Smith.

From Hume, Hayek inherited the non-design theory of social evolution; from Smith, he rediscovered the true origin of economic prosperity. As early as 1755, in his Lecture on the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations, delivered in Glasgow, Adam Smith had already identified three foundations of prosperity:

Peace, Moderate Taxation, and Tolerable Justice.

This was four years before The Theory of Moral Sentiments (1759). It was Smith’s true point of departure: the “wealth of nations” (1776) was grounded not in utilitarian production or trade, but in a moral and institutional order of peace — peace in personal exchange and trust, peace in social division of labor and institutions, peace in international trade and friendship, all rooted in ethical law.

Hayek grasped this profoundly. In his later years he no longer confined himself to market theory. Instead, he sought to return to Smith’s original “Peaceconomics” — to explore how society can achieve order under freedom, and preserve freedom within order. He came to see that economics, in its true sense, is not a science of wealth distribution, but a study of peace, freedom, and trust — a relational order grounded in the dynamic balance of life’s self-organizing symbiosis.

III. From Economic Prediction to Complex Order

When Hayek realized that the theoretical economics of the 1930s had reached both its height and its exhaustion — marking the dawn of an entirely new age — he turned toward political philosophy, law, intellectual history, and cognitive science. He even lost interest in continuing his famous debate with John Maynard Keynes. Even of his admired friend Joseph Schumpeter, he said that Schumpeter lacked a coherent philosophy.

This independence and his expansion of economics beyond its traditional domain made him increasingly alienated from the mainstream. He faced open exclusion not only at the LSE where he had first risen to fame, but later at the University of Chicago, where many economists collectively resisted his appointment.

Hayek’s crucial breakthrough lay in realizing that the true task of economics is not prediction but comprehension — to understand the complexity of real life: the limits of knowledge, the boundaries of management, the constraints of institutions.

This intellectual shift made him a precursor of complexity economics, knowledge economics, and behavioral economics. From the mid-1930s onward, he explored the deep relations among political philosophy, law, thought, cognition, and economics, producing a body of influential works including The Road to Serfdom, Economics and Knowledge, The Constitution of Liberty, Individualism and Economic Order, The Fatal Conceit, The Use of Knowledge in Society, The Meaning of Competition, and The Sensory Order.

Hayek believed these works, though appearing to transcend economics, constituted his most original contributions to the discipline itself — and indeed, they were.

IV. The Triple Self-Organizing Human: Qian Hong’s Interpretation

According to Archer Hong Qian, Hayek had sensed — or discovered — that there is no such thing as a purely “rational economic man.” Whether in a market or a planned economy, every actor is simultaneously an economic, political, and cultural self-organizing being — a “Triple Self-Organizing Human,” or what Qian calls the Symbiotic Human.

Thus, economics is not about making predictions; it must address the real complexity of life — the concrete processes of asset use and resource allocation, the natural order of interaction, and above all, the limits of knowledge, management, and institutions. The essential task is to understand how individuals and communities, as inter-subjective symbiotic entities, integrate political, economic, and cultural behavior to sustain equilibrium.

In this sense, Hayek’s genius lay in intuitively declaring the end of the “rational economic man.”
Human beings and communities are not one-dimensional machines of calculation, but living entities that act simultaneously as:

• Economic Self-Organizing Humans – production, exchange, and innovation

• Political Self-Organizing Humans – choice, distribution, and governance

• Cultural Self-Organizing Humans – identity, belief, and value

This triadic integration marks the conceptual origin of Symbionomics: economic activity is, in essence, an intersubjective symbiotic process, not a purely rational optimization.

V. The Five Dimensions of Hayek’s Originality

1. Beyond the Rational Economic Man — Hayek recognized the political and cultural dimensions of human beings, redefining humans as multifaceted “triple self-organizing” participants in economic, political, and cultural life.

2. Focusing on Complexity, Not Prediction — He foresaw the emergence of complexity science, arguing that economics must confront the limitations of knowledge, management, and institutions rather than pursue illusory forecasts — a lineage traceable back to Adam Smith and forward to 21st-century Nobel explorations.

3. Studying Knowledge and Order Formation — He articulated the “spontaneous order of knowledge,” investigating how cultural information propagates, organizes, and operates in society, and how markets function through self-generated, non-designed orders.

4. Upholding the Centrality of Freedom — Hayek opposed central planning and defended social diversity, maintaining that sustainable development requires a peaceful environment in which personal liberty and social rules coexist.

5. Establishing a Cross-Disciplinary Paradigm — By linking economics with politics, law, and psychology, he founded a new interdisciplinary framework that integrated knowledge, institutions, liberty, and spontaneous order.

Ultimately, Hayek’s originality lies in transcending the narrow hypothesis of the “rational economic man.” He saw economic activity as inherently tri-dimensional, involving the interplay of economy, politics, and culture. Through this, he redefined economics as a study of knowledge, limitation, and interaction, producing a corpus that stands as the second great milestone of economics after Adam Smith.

VI. From Hayek to Symbionomics

Hayek’s theory is even more relevant today. He revealed not only the intellectual dilemma of 20th-century economics — when “economic interventionism” became the near-universal consensus across fascist Germany, communist Russia, and capitalist America, ultimately leading to the stagflation of the 1970s — but also the core paradox of the 21st-century AI age: how to restore the dynamic balance between freedom, order, and life’s self-organizing connectivity amid knowledge overload, institutional decay, and spiritual disorientation.

Qian observes that the intellectual passage between Hayek and Smith forms the bridge to Symbionomics:

“The future of economics lies not in prediction, but in life’s self-organizing connection.”

Symbionomics rests on the triadic logic that production returns to life, life reveals ecology, and ecology inspires vitality.
It fuses Smith’s Peaceconomics and Hayek’s Spontaneous Order within the tri-axis of LIFE (biological form), AI (intelligent form), and TRUST (organizational form) — further integrated through the convergence of the Internet, Internet of Things, and MindsNetwork. In this way, it extends and revives the “Peaceconomics” of the 21st century.

VII. The Don Quixote Metaphor

Some have remarked that Hayek’s critique of the American Left’s abuse of “freedom” has gone not only unheeded but inverted — the ideological distortions he warned against have deepened. In that sense, he may rightly be called the last Don Quixote of economics.

Yet Qian contends that Hayek’s noble solitude — his unyielding defense of freedom and self-organizing order — makes him precisely the bridge through which our age can rediscover Smith’s Peaceconomics and move toward Symbionomics, the economics of symbiotic life.

VIII. The Echo of Reality

Today, when viewed through this lens, the four elected leaders who appear out of step with “politically correct” orthodoxy — Javier Milei of Argentina, Donald Trump of the United States, Giorgia Meloni of Italy, and Sanae Takaichi of Japan — may in fact be carrying forward Hayek’s unfinished intellectual legacy.

Their evolving policies and diplomatic efforts invite us to transcend the dualisms of left and right, East and West, government and citizen. Only then can we respond to the wreckage of globalization — once distorted by privilege and disorder — with calm, honesty, and common sense.

With wisdom, courage, and creativity, humanity may yet redefine and harmonize the triadic relationship of LIFE (bios), AI (intellectus), and TRUST (institutio) — thus opening the way toward a beautifully symbiotic future of renewed human life and re-organized civilization.