金融時報:撒切爾是對的

撒切爾是對的

“世上有個體的男人和女人、有家庭。人們應當自立并照顧家庭和鄰里。但從來就沒有什么抽象的、可以幫我們解決一切難題的‘社會’”。——FT專欄作家塞繆爾·布里坦說，這是體現(xiàn)鐵娘子哲學的最棒的演說。經(jīng)驗主義思想家都贊同她，而黑格爾的國家主義哲學則針鋒相對。

測試中可能遇到的詞匯和知識：

Samuel Brittan 本文作者，F(xiàn)T專欄作家塞繆爾·布里坦。其兄里昂·布里坦(Leon Brittan)曾是撒切爾政府的內政大臣和貿易與工業(yè)大臣。

obsequies ['?bs?kw?z] n.葬禮

verbiage['v??b??d?] n.冗詞；廢話

Keith Joseph 基思·約瑟夫，撒切爾夫人的高參和好友，“撒切爾主義”的重要人物，最重要的作用之一就是說服鐵娘子采用米爾頓·弗里德曼的貨幣主義。他曾在麥克米蘭、希斯、和撒切爾三位首相的內閣中擔任多個部長職務。

methodological individualism 方法論的個人主義，認為“集體是個體的總和”，反對以社會階級、性別、以及族群作為研究實體。經(jīng)濟學中的“理性經(jīng)濟人假設”就是來自方法論的個人主義。

empiricist [em'pirisist] n./adj.經(jīng)驗主義者。經(jīng)驗主義重視觀察和研究實驗，其代表人物有弗蘭西斯·培根，大衛(wèi)·休謨和約翰·洛克等。它與“理性主義”重視抽象的思考和推理針鋒相對。英美法和大陸法的不同特點可見兩者的區(qū)別。

G.W.F. Hegel 德國哲學家黑格爾。文中引用了他的一句名言：“人具有的全部精神現(xiàn)實性，都是通過國家才具有的”。其強調國家至上、民族至上，貶斥個人自由和權利的國家主義哲學對法西斯主義影響巨大。

reductionist [ri'd?k??nist] n./adj.還原論、化約論的，Reductionism是一種哲學思想，認為復雜的系統(tǒng)和事物可以簡化為各部分之組合的方法來理解。與整體論相對。

copse [k?ps] n.雜樹林；小灌木叢

Thatcher was right – there is no ‘society’ (871 words)

By Samuel Brittan

Now that both the obsequies and the ritual condemnations of Margaret Thatcher are over, the time has begun for a more analytical look at her legacy. I am not a bad person to start this off as I was neither a passionate anti-Thatcherite nor regarded by her inner circle as “really one of us”.

A point that has been missed in all the verbiage of recent days is how much her thinking owed to Keith Joseph, the Conservative who helped to put the idea of a genuine free market back on the political agenda.

In saying this I am far from trying to detract from her legacy. On the contrary, she often said: “One day people will realise what they owe to Keith Joseph.” Anyone can confirm this by looking at her Joseph Memorial Lecture of 1996 given to the Centre for Policy Studies. The first part of the lecture, on the connection between a free economy and a free society, and the last part, on the perils of the euro currency project, are still fresh and relevant.

I should like to start with a comment she made that has defined her – it was even raised at her funeral. Some see it as one of the worst things that she said; I regard it as one of the best.

“I think we have been through a period when too many people have been given to understand that when they have a problem it is government’s job to cope with it. ‘I have a problem, I’ll get a grant. I’m homeless, the government must house me.’ They are casting their problems on society. And, you know, there is no such thing as society. There are individual men and women and there are families. And no governments can do anything except through people, and people must look to themselves first. It is our duty to look after ourselves and then, also, to look after our neighbours. People have got their entitlements too much in mind, without the obligations. There is no such thing as an entitlement, unless someone has first met an obligation.”

Thatcher meant, I believe, that people should first try to solve their own problems and those of their families and friends, and only as a last resort rely on government. The government is simply a mechanism with which people can help each other and force would-be free riders to make a contribution. I interpreted her remarks as an expression of methodological individualism (although I pity any speech writer who sought to persuade her to say those words).

I have tried to explain all this in my book Capitalism With a Human Face. Very briefly it means that the workings of complex wholes must be capable of being expressed in terms of individual components – chemical elements in terms of atoms, atoms in terms of subatomic particles and nations in terms of their citizens. Methodological individualism has been espoused by a long line of empiricist thinkers, some of very different politics to Thatcher.

The classical liberal philosopher Karl Popper, for instance, looked at the abstract concept of war. “What is concrete is the many who are killed, or the men and women in uniform.” The 18th-century Scottish philosopher David Hume remarked that a nation was a collection of individuals. This doctrine has also been denied by many supposedly eminent philosophers, such as the overrated G.W.F. Hegel, who said: “All the worth which the human being possesses in all spiritual reality, he possesses only through the state.”

Thatcher was well aware that the support she has been accused of withholding from declining industries in the north of the UK would have come not from a mysterious entity known as the state. It would have come from fellow citizens. She may have been right or wrong. But it was not a matter of her personal generosity. Nit-picking political philosophers have said that if she wanted to be a true methodological individualist she would not have added “and there are families” in her famous statement. It was like saying: “There are no forests, only trees and copses.” She was not so stupid as to fail to see this. But she was not teaching a political philosophy class. She was pointing out that aid for the poor, or distressed regions, had to come from somewhere – namely the inhabitants of the country concerned.

It was a pity that she was incapable of applying this reductionist thinking to foreign affairs. There are no beings such as Germany, Britain or Argentina – only complex entities composed of individuals. It is reasonable for a British citizen to value a British life more than an Argentine life, but it is unreasonable to put a zero value on the latter. It must be admitted that even if people habitually thought in these terms they might still support death as a necessary evil to avoid territorial losses and the like. But if this translation were always made it might sometimes lead to less nationalist policies. Even Thatcher must have been intuitively aware of this when she wept for 40 minutes at the loss of life when a battleship went down near the Falklands.

請根據(jù)你所讀到的文章內容，完成以下自測題目：

1.What part of Thatcher's speech is "still fresh and relevant"?

A. That one day people will realise what they owe to Keith Joseph.

B. That the euro currency project was dangerous.

C. A strong connection between a free economy and a free society.

D. That there is no such thing as society.

答案(1)

2.Thatcher would deny that...

A. families are very important.

B. the government should not help homeless people.

C. low-rent housing provided by the government is a good project.

D. the people should earn his own living and help his families and friends.

答案(2)

3.The writer agrees to which of the following saying?

A. “There are no forests, only trees and copses.”

B. “What is concrete is the many who are killed, or the men and women in uniform”

C. “I have a problem, I’ll get a grant. I’m homeless, the government must house me.”

D. “All the worth which the human being possesses in all spiritual reality, he possesses only through the state.”

答案(3)

4.Why does the writer mention "she wept for 40 minutes at the loss of life when a battleship went down near the Falklands"?

A. To provide a vivid historical anecdote.

B. To show Iron Lady's humane face.

C. To express her belief that casualties are a necessary evil to avoid territorial losses.

D. To illustrate That she was neither strongly nationalistic nor extremely individualist.

答案(4)

* * *

(1) 答案：B.That the euro currency project was dangerous.

解釋：第三段中說，在關于基思·約瑟夫的紀念講話上，她講的第一部分是關于C，第二部分是關于B。值得一提的是，導致鐵娘子被迫辭職的主要原因，就是其黨內同僚對歐盟一體化和英國加入歐元區(qū)的熱情，與她的歐洲懷疑主義發(fā)生沖突。

(2) 答案：B.the government should not help homeless people.

解釋：ACD是正確的。撒切爾不是反對所有的社會福利，而是認為人們應當自立和幫助家人與朋友，當走投無路時才依賴政府(as a last resort)。 在撒切爾著名的一段話中，她批評了一種心態(tài)：‘I have a problem, I’ll get a grant. I’m homeless, the government must house me.’ 事實上，她在執(zhí)政時將廉租房低價出售給窮人，此舉與國企民營化一樣，甩掉了政府虧損的包袱，籌集了大量的資金，并提升了經(jīng)濟效益。

(3) 答案：B.“What is concrete is the many who are killed, or the men and women in uniform”

解釋：A的意思是說，撒切爾夫人不會蠢到說這種頗為極端個人主義的話，因為她是一個非常注重家庭價值的人。 B是哲學家卡爾·波普爾的名言，這與之前引用的撒切爾夫人的講話觀點一致，作者本人顯然贊同之。 C是撒切爾批判的一種福利社會下早就的“懶漢心態(tài)”。D作者認為黑格爾是被overrated，顯然更不贊同這句國家主義色彩濃厚的話。

(4) 答案：D.To illustrate That she was neither strongly nationalistic nor extremely individualist.

解釋：最后一段結合全文可知：撒切爾夫人既認同戰(zhàn)爭的傷亡是避免領土丟失等等的“必要之惡”，也從個人主義的角度憐憫他們，而不是高舉民族主義大旗忽略個體。 最后一段看似復雜，每句話的主語，每個觀點的持有者看似都不一樣，但其實思路還是很清晰的。推演到極端的觀點都不是撒切爾持有的。

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