《Lee Kuan Yew》–46条书摘

作者：Graham Allison

出版社：The MIT Press

出版时间： 2013-2-1

– 1 —

Shell had the best system of them all, and the government switched from 40 attributes to three, which they called “helicopter qualities”…. What are they? Powers of analysis; logical grasp of the facts; concentration on the basic points, extracting the principles. You score high marks in mathematics, you have got it. But that is not enough…. They must have a sense of reality of what is possible. But if you are just realistic, you become pedestrian, plebeian, you will fail. Therefore, you must be able to soar above the reality and say, “This is also possible” — a sense of imagination.

P146 / 2022-11-10 07:33

– 2 —

There are three basic essentials for [the] successful transformation of any society. First, a determined leadership …two, an administration which is efficient; and three, social discipline.

P139 / 2022-11-09 19:00

– 3 —

To understand the present and anticipate the future, one must know enough of the past, enough to have a sense of the history of a people. One must appreciate not merely what took place, but, more especially, why it took place and in that particular way. This is true ofindividuals, as it is for nations. The personal experience of a person determines whether he likes or hates certain things, welcomes them or fears them when they recur. So it is with nations

P137 / 2022-11-09 18:37

– 4 —

I do not believe that because a theory sounds good, looks logical on paper, or is presented logically, therefore that is the way it will work out. The final test is life. What happens in real life, what happens with people working in a society.

P136 / 2022-11-09 18:32

– 5 —

Presented with the difficulty or major problem or an assortment of conflicting facts, I review what alternatives I have if my proposed solution does not work. I choose a solution which offers a higher probability of success, but if it fails, I have some other way. Never a dead end.

P135 / 2022-11-09 18:28

– 6 —

The final corroboration of logic and reasoning comes when they become practical realities.

P134 / 2022-11-09 18:26

– 7 —

For at 60, more than at 50, comes the realization of the transient nature of all earthly glories and successes, and the ephemeral quality of sensory joys and pleasures, when compared to intellectual, moral, or spiritual satisfactions.

P134 / 2022-11-09 14:41

– 8 —

No single power, no single religion, no single ideology can conquer the world, or remake it in its own image. The world is too diverse. Different races, cultures, religions, languages, and histories require different paths to democracy and the free market. Societies in a globalized world — interconnected by satellite, television, Internet, and travel — will influence and affect each other. What social system best meets the needs of a people at a particular stage in their development will be settled by social Darwinism.

P130 / 2022-11-09 12:44

– 9 —

Human beings are not born equal. They are highly competitive. Systems like Soviet and Chinese communism have failed,because they tried to equalize benefits. Then nobody works hard enough, but everyone wants to get as much as, if not more than, the other person.

P129 / 2022-11-09 12:42

– 10 —

We may have conquered space, but we have not learned to conquer our own primeval instincts and emotions that were necessary for our survival in the Stone Age, not in the space age.

P128 / 2022-11-09 12:40

– 11 —

Human beings, regrettable though it may be, are inherently vicious and have to be restrained from their viciousness.

P128 / 2022-11-09 11:57

– 12 —

I understood Deng Xiaoping when he said: if 200,000 students have to be shot, shoot them, because the alternative is China in chaos for another 100 years….Deng understood,and he released it stage by stage. Without Deng, China would have imploded.

P121 / 2022-11-08 00:13

– 13 —

I am not intellectually convinced that one person, one vote is the best. We practice it because that is what the British bequeathed us, and we have not really found a need to challenge that. But I am convinced, personally, that we would have a better system if we gave every person over the age of 40 who has a family two votes, because he or she is likely to be more careful, voting also for his or her children. He or she is more likely to vote in a serious way than a capricious young person under 30…. At the same time, once a person gets beyond 65, then it is a problem. Between the ages of 40 and 60 is ideal, and at 60 they should go back to one vote, but that will be difficult to arrange.

P120 / 2022-11-07 22:20

– 14 —

So long as you run this one person, one vote, the easiest of ap-peals that can be made to the ground are the simple, emotional ones, not economic development and progress and all these other things they do not understand, but simple things: pride in race, in language, in religion, in culture.

P119 / 2022-11-07 21:19

– 15 —

One person,one vote is a most difficult form of government. From time to time,the results can be erratic. People are sometimes fickle. They get bored with stable, steady improvements in life, and in a reckless moment, they vote for a change for change’s sake.

P119 / 2022-11-07 20:11

– 16 —

A number of foolish things will be said about you. If you take them all seriously, you will get quite demented.

P116 / 2022-11-07 19:00

– 17 —

I learned to ignore criticism and advice from experts and quasi-experts,especially academics in the social and political sciences. They have pet theories on how a society should develop to approximate their ideal, especially how poverty should be reduced and welfare extended. I always try to be correct, not politically correct.

P116 / 2022-11-07 07:27

– 18 —

It is the duty of leaders to instill confidence in the people so that they will stand up to be counted….No army, however brave, can win when its generals are weak. Leaders must have the ability to plan and chart the way ahead, and the fortitude to stay the course….When they fight together against all odds and win, a bond will be forged between people and leaders, like the deep unshakeable feeling of trust between an army and its generals who have been in battle together.

P113 / 2022-11-07 00:08

– 19 —

Westerners have abandoned an ethical basis for society,believing that all problems are solvable by a good government….In the West,especially afer World War II, the government came to be seen as so successful that it could fulfill all the obligations that in less modern societies are fulfilled by the family….In the East, we start with self-reliance. In the West today, it is the opposite. The government says give me a popular mandate and I will solve all society’s problems.

P113 / 2022-11-07 00:07

– 20 —

The business of a government is to … make firm decisions so that there can be certainty and stability in the affairs of the people.

The art of government is utilizing to the maximum the limited resources at the country’s disposal.

Our immediate task is to build upa society in which people will be rewarded not according to the amount of property they own, but according to their active contribution to society in physical or mental labor. From each according to his or her ability. To each according to his or her worth and contribution to society.

P112 / 2022-11-06 22:49

– 21 —

Again, we were fortunate we had this cultural backdrop, the belief in thrift, hard work, filial piety, and loyalty in the extended family, and, most of all, the respect for scholarship and learning.

P91 / 2022-11-06 10:14

– 22 —

Prior to the current economic crisis the world did not challenge the Washington consensus that the Anglo-Saxon economic model is the most efficient for the allocation of financial resources to produce the highest return. However, the U.S. market model is no longer considered ideal. China is confident that it is better for the government to maintain control of and manage its economy. China will now also be slower to open its closed capital markets to avoid large inflows and outflows of speculative foreign currencies.

Only large continental countries with huge populations like China’s and India’s can ramp up their domestic consumption to avoid being much affected by the current economic turmoil.

P100 / 2022-11-06 09:26

– 23 —

The global financial crisis was caused by excesses of the liberal system of regulations and the belief that a completely free market will allow enormous innovation and allocate capital to the most profitable enterprises with the highest returns. Once the Federal Reserve Chairman decided it was not necessary to regulate derivatives and supervise them, the fuse was lit. Once you find that you can mash up a lot of good and bad assets in one bundle and pass on your risk all around Europe and other parts of the world, you have started something like a Ponzi scheme which must come to an end sometime…. The business of a person in a financial institution is to make the biggest profit for himself, so just condemning the bankers and the profit takers does not make sense. You have allowed these rules, and they work within these rules.

P99 / 2022-11-06 09:23

– 24 —

Muslims want to assimilate us. It is one-way traffic. … They have no confidence in allowing choice.

P71 / 2022-11-05 17:01

– 25 —

Militant Islam feeds upon the insecurities and alienation that globalization generates among the less successful. And because globalization is largely U.S.-led and driven, militant Islam identifies America and Americans as the threat to Islam. That America steadfastly supports Israel aggravates their sense of threat. But terrorism would continue even if the Middle East problem were solved.

P69 / 2022-11-05 16:54

– 26 —

Political systems that yield inferior economic performance will ultimately be discarded for those that are more productive.

Democracy should not be made an alibi for inertia. There are many examples of authoritarian governments whose economies have failed. There are as many examples of democratic governments who have achieved superior economic performance. The real issueis whether any country’s political system, irrespective of whether it is democratic or authoritarian, can forge a consensus on the policies needed for the economy to grow and create jobs for all, and can ensure that these basic policies are implemented consistently without large leakage.

P62 / 2022-11-05 16:47

– 27 —

The lack of an economically educated electorate has made it easy for India’s leaders to engage in economic populism, which has unsettled the course of liberalization. National interest is often subservient to special interests. Many needed reforms have been stalled due to opposition from special interest groups. Special interests thrive in an atmosphere of populism.

P59 / 2022-11-05 16:35

– 28 —

To redistribute all the gains in the early stages of growth will slow down the capital accumulation necessary to generate further growth. Wealth springs from entrepreneurship, which means risk taking. … The only way to raise the living conditions of the poor is to increase the size of the pie. Equality of incomes gives no incentive to the resourceful and the industrious to outperform and be competitive.

P59 / 2022-11-05 16:29

– 29 —

Look at the construction industries in India and China, and you will know the difference between one that gets things done and another that does not get things done, but talks about things. …It is partly because India is such a diverse country— it is not one nation, but 32 different nations speaking 330 different dialects…. In China, it is 90% Han Chinese all speaking the same language, with different accents, but reading the same script.

P54 / 2022-11-05 15:31

– 30 —

Furthermore, populist democracy makes Indian policies less consistent, with regular changes in ruling parties….

P53 / 2022-11-05 15:24

– 31 —

Do not treat China as an enemy from the outset. Otherwise, it will develop a counterstrategy to demolish the U.S. in the Asia-Pacific;

The baiting of China by American human rights groups, and the threatening of loss of most-favored-nation status and other sanctions by the U.S. Congress and administration for violations of human rights and missile technology transfers …ignore differences of culture, values, and history, and subordinate the strategic considerations of China-U.S. relations to an American domestic agenda. Such a haphazard approach risks turning China into a long-term adversary of the U.S.

P43 / 2022-11-02 22:40

– 32 —

For America to be displaced, not in the world,but only in the western Pacific, by an Asian people long despised and dismissed with contempt as decadent, feeble, corrupt, and inept is emotionally very difficult to accept. The sense of cultural supremacy of the Americans will make this adjustment most difficult. Americans be lieve their ideas are universal — the supremacy of the individual and free, unfettered expression. But they are not — never were. In fact, American society was so successful for so long not because of these ideas and principles, but because of a certain geopolitical good fortune, an abundance of resources and immigrant energy, a generous flow of capital and technology from Europe, and two wide oceans that kept conflicts of the world away from American shores.

Americans have to eventually share their preeminent position with China.

P42 / 2022-11-02 22:37

– 33 —

To hold ground in the Pacific, the U.S.must not let its fiscal deficits come to grief. If they come to grief and there is a run on the dollar for whatever reason…and the bankers and all the hedge funds and everybody come to a conclusion that the U.S. is not going to tackle these deficits, and they begin to move their assets out, that would spell real trouble. …

P35 / 2022-11-02 22:33

– 34 —

People in the mass can only govern themselves, and obtain their needs, either through traditional or through representative leaders. A well-ordered society with a long unbroken history, like Britain or Japan, has its national solidarity and its establishment based on the king and the royal family, a religion and the elders of the church, the elite in the ruling parties who alternate in power, the elite in the public service and the armed forces, the elite in commerce, industry, and in the professions.

P33 / 2022-11-02 22:31

– 35 —

America’s sense of cultural supremacy is again evident when the American media praises Taiwan, Korea, the Philippines, or Thailand for becoming democratic and having a free press. It is praise with condescension, compliments from a superior culture patting an inferior one on the head. Their ideas are theories, theories not proven, not proven in East Asia, not even in the Philippines after they had governed the Philippines for 50 years. Nor are they proven as yet in Taiwan, or Thailand, or Korea.

P30 / 2022-11-02 22:25

– 36 —

Multiculturalism will destroy America.

P30 / 2022-11-02 22:23

– 37 —

The ideas of individual supremacy… when carried to excess, have not worked. They have made it difficult to keep American society cohesive. Asia can see it is not working. Those who want a wholesome society where young girls and old ladies can walk in the streets at night, where the young are not preyed upon by drug peddlers, will not follow the American model….

P29 / 2022-11-02 22:06

– 38 —

The expansion of the right of the individual to behave or misbehave as he or she pleases has come at the expense of orderly society…. It has a lot to do with the erosion of the moral underpinnings of a society and the diminution of personal responsibility.

P28 / 2022-11-02 22:04

– 39 —

Contrary to what American political commentators say, I do not believe that democracy necessarily leads to development. I believe that what a country needs to develop is disciplinemore than democracy. The exuberance of democracy leads to undisciplined and disorderly conditions which are inimical to development. The ultimate test of the value of a political system is whether it helps that society to establish conditions which improve the standard of living for the majority of its people, plus enabling the maximum of personal freedoms compatible with the freedoms of others in society.

P27 / 2022-11-02 22:01

– 40 —

The presidential system is less likely to produce good government than a parliamentary system. In the presidential system, your personal appearance on TV is decisive, whereas in a parliamentary system, the prime minister, before he becomes the prime minister, has been a member of parliament, and probably a minister, and in Britain the people have sized you up over a period of time…and they have come to certain conclusions as to what kind of a person you are, what kind of depth you have, what kind of sincerity you have in what you say

P26 / 2022-11-02 22:00

– 41 —

When you have popular democracy, to win votes you have to give more and more. And to beat your opponent in the next election, you have to promise to give more away: So it is a never-ending process of auctions — and the cost, the debt being paid for by the next generation.

Presidents do not get reelected if they give a hard dose of medicine to their people. So, there is a tendeney to procrastinate, to postpone unpopular policies in order to win elections.

P25 / 2022-11-02 20:37

– 42 —

The Americans will always have the advantage because of their all-embracive society, and the English language that makes it easyto attract foreign talent. America has a clear advantage over China, because its use of the English language enables America to attract millions of English-speaking foreign talent from Asia and Europe. Talent will not go to China. Talent will go to America because Americans speak English and everybody fits in. It is a country that embraces immigrants. To go and settle in China, you have to master the Chinese language. And you must get used to the Chinese culture. And that is a very difficult hurdle to clear.

P24 / 2022-10-30 16:19

– 43 —

I would put (Xi) in Nelson Mandela’s class of persons. A person with enormous emotional stability who does not allow his personal misfortunes or sufferings to affect his judgment. In other words, he is impressive.

P17 / 2022-10-30 16:06

– 44 —

To achieve the modernization of China, her Communist leaders are prepared to try all and every method, except for democracy with one person and one vote in a multi-party system. Their two main reasons are their belief that the Communist Party of China must have a monopoly on power to ensure stability; and their deep fear of instability in a multiparty free-for-all, which would lead to a loss of control by the center over the provinces,with horrendous consequences, like the warlord years of the 1920s and’30.

P14 / 2022-10-30 16:00

– 45 —

My first reaction to the phrase “peaceful rise” was to tell one of their think tanks, “It is a contradiction in terms; any rise is something that is startling.”And they said,“What would you say?” I replied:“Peaceful renaissance, or evolution, or development.” A recovery of ancient glory, an updating of a once great civilization. But it is already done. You know there are many pitfalls, that for China to go up the escalator without mishaps, internally you need stability, externally you need peace. However, you are inculcating enormous pride and patriotism in your young in a restored China….It is volatile.” The Chinese leader said they would ensure that the young understood. Well, I hope they do. Somewhere down this road, a generation may believe they have come of age, before they have.

P6 / 2022-10-30 01:04

– 46 —

What is China’s strategy for becoming number 1?

The Chinese have concluded that their best strategy is to build a strong and prosperous future, and use their huge and increasingly highly skilled and educated workers to out-sell and out-build all others. They will avoid any action that will sour up relations with the U.S. To challenge a stronger and technologically superior power like the U.S. will abort their “peaceful rise.”

P4 / 2022-10-30 01:01

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