"I just got back from the United States. ”

In an office of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, Professor Gao Lei said to the two foreign reporters in front of him with a reserved attitude.

Gao Lei, who is 60 years old, is in good spirits, well-dressed, and his shiny hair is mixed with some silver threads, but he is showing the style of an academic elite.

In the mid-80s, Gao Lei became famous for putting forward the theory of international cooperation, and later this theory was unanimously questioned by the academic and business circles, believing that the economy of a country with a population of more than one billion people is completely grafted on the world economic chain, which is not only not conducive to the country's economic security, but also cannot be carried by the world economy. Later, some leaders of the central government criticized this theory in internal conversations, and Gao Lei fell into a period of silence for nearly ten years.

During this time, Gao Lei's position in the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences was not affected, and his academic research and international exchanges were still able to proceed smoothly. In view of the difficulty of finding opportunities to speak out in China, Gao Lei began to seek to express his views in international journals and international conferences, and gradually attracted attention, achieving the effect of "flowers blooming in the wall and fragrance outside the wall".

By the late 90s, Gao Lei had made a great name in the international academic community, and many foreign institutions awarded him a series of titles, such as "the most influential developing country economist in the 20th century", "100 nominees for development economics", "Top 10 Thinkers of the Year at the University of Chicago", "Claydon University Tenured Honorary Professor" and so on.

With the title comes the research funding. Several academic foundations in Europe and the United States have vied to provide him with research grants to help him conduct academic research in China. At a time when other scholars were struggling to spend tens of thousands of dollars for the social science fund in China, Gao Lei had so many dollars in his account that he couldn't spend it.

In China's academic institutions, titles and funding are hard currency, especially if the title you get is still awarded abroad, which is much more valuable than any domestic honor. Many research institutions want Gao Lei to come to them and put a name on them, so that they can claim what kind of scholars they have. Dozens of domestic universities have issued letters of appointment to Gao Lei, hiring him as a visiting professor, and he only needs to give a lecture once a year to receive tens of thousands of yuan in visiting professor allowances.

Gao Lei's doctoral quota has also become a sweet spot, because Gao Lei's doctoral students can get a high allowance from his project funds, and they can have the opportunity to go abroad to participate in academic conferences, and the air tickets are all sponsored by foreign foundations. The more you attend academic conferences, the more you will be able to meet foreign academic leaders, and it will be easier to apply to be a visiting scholar or postdoctoral fellow abroad.

All in all, today's Gao Lei is far from being comparable to yesterday. Although Gao Lei was a man of the year in China 20 years ago, he couldn't get rid of the smell of a turtle, and he had to be careful in what he said and did to avoid violating national policies. Today, Gao Lei has been reborn and evolved into an international scholar, opening and closing his mouth is the universal values of neoliberalism, and everything in China is dirt and scum for him, and he needs to be whipped fiercely......

"I attended the annual meeting of the University of California on New Institutional Economics in the United States, where I presented my latest research. In my opinion, the main reason for China's economic backwardness lies in the system, although China has put forward the slogan of building a market economy more than 10 years ago, but to this day, our country's system is still a regulated economic system, and the government has played too important a role in the economy, which has constrained economic development. Many government officials, including some in high positions, mistakenly believe that technology can determine everything, ignoring that institutions are the basic conditions for technological development and innovation. ”

Gao Lei spoke fluent English and spoke eloquently to two European journalists.

"Professor Gao, you said that China's system is still a regulated economic system, can you give us some recent examples?" asked a reporter named Koontz.

"There are many such examples. Gao Lei said, "Take the first set of major equipment promotion policies recently launched by the Chinese National Development and Reform Commission, which is the product of a thoroughly planned economy." ”

"We have also heard about this policy, but we don't know the details of the policy. Professor Gao, have you personally participated in the formulation of this policy?" asked another reporter named Bernstein.

Gao Lei said: "I was not directly involved in the formulation of this policy, because I had a negative attitude towards such a policy from the beginning. In order to demonstrate democracy in decision-making, the State Property Insurance Company specially sent people to solicit my opinions, and I raised 10 points of questioning, holding that this policy is completely contrary to the principles of market economy and also violates the commitments made when China joined the WTO, and that once such a policy is introduced, it will set back China's reform and opening up by more than 10 years and make the results of China's accession to the WTO come to naught. ”

Belch...... The two reporters couldn't stand it anymore, and the alarmism was obviously our reporter's housekeeping skills.

Kontz and Bernstein contacted Gao Lei through a European foundation, nominally an ordinary interview, but in reality they wanted Gao Lei to criticize the first set of policies, so that the European media could use Chinese's own views to question the Chinese government's policies, so as to achieve the effect of putting pressure on the Chinese government. Regarding the purpose of this interview, the Foundation has already made it clear when it contacted Gao Lei, and now Gao Lei's Q&A with the reporter is, to a certain extent, acting according to the script.

Gao Lei has claimed on countless academic occasions that he is a "public intellectual" and a so-called "independent scholar", and his academic views will not be influenced by the government. The hashtag has earned him widespread acclaim in the burgeoning world of the Internet, with countless netizens with the word "citizen" as their profile picture becoming his fans, and he can earn hundreds of thousands of clicks and thousands of retweets for a random blog.

But his family knows his own affairs, Gao Lei knows very well that his "independence" is only relative to the Chinese government, and he will never dare to be independent of foreign financiers, but must speak and do things according to the instructions of the financiers, otherwise people can give him everything and take back everything from him.

The International Foundation swayed the minds of scholars, of course, not by executive order, but by subtly giving certain hints when applying for the fund. For example, if your academic view is that the sun is round, the Foundation will turn you away, and conversely, if you think the sun is square, you can easily win the Foundation's favor. With money, you will be able to make disciples, attend academic seminars, and repeat the idea that the sun is square.

When more and more people in an academic circle say that the sun is square, then the "yen faction" will be ridiculed as outdated, and the best students will not defect to him. The "Japanese School" will flourish until the scholars themselves believe that the sun is indeed square, and what they see with their eyes is nothing more than an illusion.

Gao Lei's undergraduate and graduate education was completed in China, and it was in the early 80s, he studied very orthodox Soviet-style political economy, so he initially believed in the theory of planned economy. He put forward the theory of international cooperation, and did not deviate from the thinking mode of planned economy, emphasizing that the state should guide the industry to integrate with international standards and form an international cooperation chain, in this process, the role of the government is very important, which Gao Lei did not deny.

After his theory was criticized, Gao Lei tried to turn to Western doctrine. At this time, the Western economic community put forward the slogan of "return to Smith", that is, to return to the completely free market economy model advocated by Adam Smith, and reject all government intervention. Gao Lei wrote some articles on this subject, and sure enough, it was well received by Western scholars. In this situation, he was out of control and devoted himself to the study of neoliberal theory. Of course, when it comes to research, it is mainly to pick up the wisdom of Western scholars, and then combine it with some Chinese things to give full play.

Western scholars do not know much about developing countries, so articles on developing countries tend to attract attention. You said in the article that only 300,000 people in China can afford to drink Coke, and Westerners feel that they have finally discovered a scholar with a conscience who has actually exposed such a truth, and if it were not for his disclosure, everyone would still think that Chinese can really eat enough.

Gao Lei became famous and profited by writing such articles, and slowly regarded the articles he wrote as real and sold them on various occasions. Some of his speeches have been recorded and disseminated on the Internet, and they are often labeled with titles such as "Someone Finally Tells the Truth", "You Must Know China's Secrets", "If You Are Chinese", and his status as a professor always makes some people believe the truth.

Some scholars have carefully studied the secret of Gao Lei's success and found that as long as they dare to talk nonsense, they will be able to make a name for themselves in today's world, so they have followed suit, and each one is more evil than the other. Gao Lei sometimes looks at the articles published by these scholars, and when he finds that the views of other scholars are also in line with his, he is even more convinced that what he says is true......

This is called Zhuang Zhou's dream butterfly, dreams come and go, he can't figure out whether he is Zhuang Zhou or a butterfly.

Just now, Gao Lei told two Western reporters that the launch of the first set of policies was a huge regression of reform, and he really didn't mean to exaggerate, but he thought this in his heart. Over the years, he has become accustomed to "finding" signs of regression in reform at every hint, and each time it is bound to be a huge regression, and a complete collapse if he is not careful. He wrote many articles predicting the impending crisis, and although each time it did not come true, this did not prevent countless people from calling him "the most sober economist".

It's a wonderful time, there are too many fools, there are not enough liars.