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李光耀先生是举世闻名的政治家，作为巴菲特搭档的查理·芒格曾经说，如果不考虑国家的大小，那李光耀则是古往今来最伟大的建国者。 也许会有人觉得，芒格对于李光耀的评价是不是过高了？芒格自己国家的创立者华盛顿功成身退，不是更加了不起么？ 但是我觉得芒格的看法是有些道理的。华盛顿固然也很了不起，但是华盛顿当时所面临的局面，从族群DNA到内外压力与上个世纪60年代时李光耀所面对的新加坡都迥然不同，作为一名老派的绅士，华盛顿展示出来的更多的是他的个人操守，而在风起云涌的大时代里，李光耀更多展示出来的却是实用主义政治家的灵活与果断。 作为从英伦留学回国的知识精英，李光耀对于英国人留给新加坡的一整套普通法体系充满敬意，应该说，相较于只是到邪马台镀过一层薄金的某某同学来讲，李是十足的学霸，对英美的那一套东西知道的更多，理解的更透，单从知识储备和认知水准上来讲可以甩某某同学好多条街，而且也从来没有听说李光耀捧着曾涤生和胡润芝的著作当成宝贝。 也就是说，从表面上来看，李光耀是洋派海归，某某同学差不多算一个土包子。但是在刚刚获得独立的新加坡风雨飘摇之时，从来不念叨胡润芝“唯有霹雳手段，方显菩萨心肠”那一套的李光耀，却是完完全全实践了胡的理论。相反，再看某某同学，从没真懂英美的那一套，心中真正服膺的一直是曾胡的那一套，却偏偏在最关键的时刻想拥抱英美那一套，一直到大势已去为止。 在《李光耀：这个人和他的思想》一书中，李光耀曾经用了相当的篇幅解释自己在当年为何临时放弃英美那一套而改用曾胡那一套，原文很长，放在备注里，这里仅仅摘录他最后说的非常出彩的一句话： Reality is relatively more fixed than form. So if we allow form to become fixed because reality cannot be so easily varied, then calamity must befall us. (现实相对地比形式更僵化，所以如果我们容许形式变得固化，而因为现实却并不会因之而改变，那最终灾难就会降临到我们身上。) 查理·芒格是大投资家，这种等级的投资家不可能只知道投资原则，不懂得变通，更不能在关键时刻犹犹豫豫，所以，从这个角度来看，也就不难理解查理·芒格为何对李光耀心有戚戚焉，大为推崇了。  备注一：书中完整文字为：A curious position that has arisen in Malaya is the temporary alliance of the pure academic who talks in terms of the absolute qualities of freedom, liberty and the rights of man and a strange fellow traveller … the communist revolutionary whose whole philosophy is a complete denial of these liberal concepts. The academic liberal may or may not believe in the practicability of his enunciations of absolute ideals. But the communist revolutionary certainly does not. He is utterly contemptuous of this philosophy of what he believes to be a decadent free society. But the communist is sufficiently cynical to calculate that if he joins forces with the liberal in the name of human rights and human liberty, he is more likely to be able to work up more hostility and dissatisfaction. For “liberty” and “freedom against the authority of state” are better rallying slogans than “communism” and “the dictatorship of the proletariat”. The realities of the sociological and political milieu of Malaya and of the world of 1962, are that if you allow these shibboleths of “law and order” to be uttered out of conttext and without regard to the actual social and political conditions we are in, you may unwittingly make these words be your own undoing. For in the last analysis if the state disintegrates then the rules of all laws must vanish. … If the state disintegrates then the rules of all laws must vanish. Justice and fair play according to predetermined rules of law can be achieved within our situation if there is integrity of purpose and an intelligent search for forms which will work and which will meet the needs of our society. Reality is relatively more fixed than form. So if we allow form to become fixed because reality cannot be so easily varied, then calamity must befall us. |
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