後撒切爾時代: 鐵娘子爲何不相信社會

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”.

既然瑪格麗特•撒切爾(Margaret Thatcher)的葬禮已經結束，對她照例的譴責也已平息，現在是時候更加深入地評析她的遺產了。我大概是開這個頭的合適人選，因爲一方面我不是積極的反撒切爾分子，另一方面撒切爾的小圈子也不把我當成“自己人”。

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.

近日諸多長篇大論都忽視了一點：撒切爾的思想有多少要歸功於基斯•約瑟夫(Keith Joseph)？作爲一名保守黨員，約瑟夫曾幫助推動真正的自由市場思想重新登上政治議程。

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.

我這麼說並非要貶低撒切爾的遺產。恰恰相反，她常說：“有一天人們將認識到他們有多感激基斯•約瑟夫。”1996年，她在政策研究中心(Centre for Policy Studies)紀念約瑟夫的演講中發表了上述言論。演講上半部分講述自由經濟和自由社會的聯繫，下半部分討論歐元計劃的危險性。這些內容歷久彌新，至今仍具有重要意義。

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.

我要用她的一句話開始論述，這句話定義了她這個人，甚至還在她的葬禮上被提起。有人認爲這是她所說過最差的一句話；我卻認爲這是最好的一句。

“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.”

“我想我們經歷了這樣一個時期，太多人理所當然地認爲，如果遇到問題，政府有責任解決這個問題。‘我遇到問題了，我需要政府的資助。我無家可歸，政府必須爲我提供房屋。’他們把問題都扔給社會去解決。可是，你們明白，根本就沒有‘社會’這種東西。世上有個體的男人和女人、有家庭。政府只有通過人民纔能有所作爲，而人民首先必須指望自己。我們有責任照顧自己，然後是照顧鄰里。人們過於重視自己的權利，卻忽視義務。若不履行義務，則無權利可言。”

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).

我想，撒切爾的意思是，人們首先應當試圖解決自己的問題和親友的問題，走投無路時才能依賴政府。政府只是一種機制，通過它，人們可以互相幫助，並強迫不勞而獲的人做出貢獻。在我的理解中，她的話是“方法論的個人主義”(methodological individualism)的表達（但願她不是在演講稿撰寫者的勸說下說出這番話的）。

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.

我在我的著作《有人性的資本主義》(Capitalism With a Human Face)中嘗試過解釋這一切。簡而言之，方法論的個人主義是指，複雜整體的運作機理一定能夠以個體成員的形式表達出來——化學元素用原子表達，原子用亞原子粒子表達，國家用公民表達。方法論的個人主義得到一大批經驗主義思想家的支持，其中有些人的政治觀點與撒切爾大相徑庭。

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.”

例如，古典自由主義哲學家卡爾•波普(Karl Popper)探討了戰爭的抽象概念。“戰死的許多人——或者說是身着軍裝的男人和女人——纔是確定的。”18世紀的蘇格蘭哲學家大衛•休謨(David Hume)提出，國家是個人的集合。很多所謂傑出的哲學家否認這一理論，如被高估的黑格爾(l)。黑格爾說：“人類具有的一切價值——一切精神的現實性，都是由國家而有的。”

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.

撒切爾被指責沒有爲英國北方的衰落工業提供支持。她清楚地認識到，這種支持不會來自一種稱爲“國家”的神祕實體，而應來自公民同胞。她可能是對的，也可能是錯的。但這與她個人的慷慨與否無關。有吹毛求疵的政治哲學家認爲，如果撒切爾想成爲真正的方法論個人主義者，她本不會在那場著名的講話中加上“家庭”。這好比說“世上沒有森林，只有喬木和灌木”。她不會愚蠢到沒有發現這一點，但她並不是在給別人上政治哲學課。她要說的是，爲窮人和困難地區提供的援助必須來自別處——即所在國家的居民。

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.

遺憾的是，她未能將這種簡化主義(reductionist)的思想應用於外交事務。世上不存在德國、英國和阿根廷，只有由個人組成的複雜實體。一位英國公民對英國人性命的重視有理由超過對阿根廷人性命的重視，但認爲後者毫無價值則是不合理的。必須承認，即便人們習慣性地從這些角度思考，他們或許仍然會認同死亡是避免領土丟失等等的“必要之惡”。但假如總是進行這樣的解讀，有時或許會催生出民族主義色彩較弱的政策。即便是她想必也直覺地意識到了這一點——當一艘戰艦在福克蘭羣島(Falklands)附近沉沒時，撒切爾爲喪生的將士哭泣了40分鐘。