What can money buy today? Is there anything you can't buy to expand your mind?
Our present life is pragmatism. We are busy making money every day, that is, what can help us make money, what can make our families happier, what can make us healthier and what we pursue.
But there are many problems that many people have never thought about. When the world is controlled by economics, you will find that everything we do is considered from the perspective of economy and price leverage.
So is it possible that there is a lot of unfairness in this? So the theme I can talk about today is what money can't buy.
This "Professor Sandel" is a very famous professor of justice at Harvard University. He visited China for the purpose of speaking and selling.
First of all, we should know that money is limited. You must realize that money cannot solve all problems.
Although money has become very important in today's society.
First of all, let's see what privileges money has besides what we can buy normally. Let's give some foreign examples.
Everyone knows that going to jail is a miserable thing, but you can apply for a cell upgrade. You can stay in a room with a color TV, Simmons mattress and air conditioning for only $82 a night. That sounds good.
It doesn't matter if you want to put down carbon emissions, clean up some polluted things and drive around in a car with excessive emissions. You only need to pay $0.8 per ton/kloc to buy carbon emissions, and you can do whatever you want.
I want to rent a person's forehead for advertising. Is this ok? No problem, the cost is about $777 a year.
If you need to do manual experiments on your medicine, you have already done experiments on animals, and now you want to try this medicine on people. No problem, the price is about 7500 dollars.
You can even buy an old man's insurance and pray for his early death, because as long as he dies early, you can get a lot of compensation earlier, and if he dies later, your income will be lower.
These are not jokes, these are products that have been listed now, but they are not ordinary products that we usually put in supermarkets.
This is the money boundary that human beings are constantly exploring, trying to solve various problems with money.
But this will lead to a question, that is, is this reasonable? Is this really better for this society and the world?
In fact, the market expanded by this money has in turn brought us two core problems.
First, money will lead to inequality, that is, when everything is measured by money, the world will only become more unequal.
Second, money can have a serious corrosive effect. What is corrosiveness? It is money that makes many meaningful things gradually meaningless.
Next, let's look at it one by one. What aspects of inequality or corrosion will money lead to?
First of all, let's say that the first inequality is called the problem of jumping the queue.
The problem of jumping the queue is a typical economic way. Some people complain that Shenzhen has limited the number of cards, but now the number is out, and many people still can't shake the number. Why not do the brand auction like Shanghai? Just auction like Shanghai.
Ask them why they think auction is better. Answered that the auction can let the person who needs the license plate most buy the license plate. This proposal certainly sounds no problem, because the more people who need it, the more willing they are to spend money to bid for this license plate number.
But don't forget, the person who has the money to buy this license plate is not necessarily the person who needs it most. He probably just doesn't care about money. It doesn't matter if he spends 0.2 million/200 thousand on a license plate. There are several cars at home because he is rich and willful.
But people who really need a car to send their children to school may not be able to afford this license plate.
So it seems fair to use money to solve this problem, but it will only lead to a more unfair thing.
Now everyone's income level has been greatly improved. Many people earn more than 1000 a month, but you will find that those who earn more than 10000 a month will have a much worse life in Beijing than those who earned 2000 a decade ago. On the contrary, those who earn more than 1000 yuan are now poorer. Why?
Because more things in this world need money to buy, even the queue is the same.
The classic example of queuing is the airport. You can fly first class easily by flying first class or business class. You don't have to crowd with them, and you don't have to wait in line. There seems to be nothing wrong with this, because I pay more. I paid for this service.
But this will further widen the gap between the rich and the poor, because the poor need to pay more waiting costs, and the rich will be more likely to control their own lives. The richer they are, the easier it is to buy convenience, which seems irrelevant.
But what if it is a doctor? Is life equal? Similarly, both children need injections when they get pneumonia, but this family has money, so they can give their children a number of 1000, and then go directly for intravenous drip, so he can get the best care.
Then the children have no money and need to wait in line. It may take two or three days to get a bed.
It is very rare to wait for beds in Kyoto, and some people even have to wait for more than a year to see a doctor.
Therefore, the problem of queuing will lead to more people like to use money to solve problems, more opportunities and possibilities for the rich, and worse and worse for the poor and the middle class.
Even because of the queuing problem, some industries have been born, which people who have taken the train can understand. Especially in Spring Festival travel rush, there were many scalpers queuing up to grab a lot of tickets and then selling them to others at high prices. Even many people thank the dealers for their true value after buying tickets from them.
In the United States, there is a queuing company called a queuing station. com。 Their business is to give people all kinds of strange queues.
For example, you have to attend a congressional hearing, but you have to queue up in advance. It is a very important responsibility of a citizen to attend a congressional hearing. If anyone really wants to take part in this kind of thing, no matter how rich or poor, you have to queue up carefully.
But the rich don't need to do this. The rich just need to stand in line. A little money, and then they line up for you, and when you arrive, you go in to attend the hearing, so these people who attend the hearing may not really care about politics as much as those poor people, but it doesn't matter, because they can use money to solve these problems.
The ethics of queuing is called first come, first served. The privilege of jumping the queue not only destroys this basic ethics, but also widens the gap between the rich and the poor.
Secondly, it is called the problem of incentive measures, which is also a particularly important ethical dilemma.
There are some drug-addicted mothers in Africa and Latin America. After giving birth, these drug-addicted mothers are likely to take their children to the road of drug abuse and even suffer from other serious diseases.
Some health organizations did something, and they gave these women a sum of money on condition that you were willing to have birth control surgery.
As long as you are willing to accept birth control and stop getting pregnant, then we will give you several hundred dollars. But these drug-addicted women can't refuse these hundreds of dollars at all, because they need money to buy drugs, so he quickly accepted the treaty, signed it, had sterilization, and then exchanged it with these hundreds of dollars.
Many people may think it is reasonable to do so, because these women will never give birth to disabled children again, nor will they bring pain to their children, and they will think it is a good thing to take money.
However, from the perspective of human morality, this is tantamount to depriving a person of his basic rights and dignity. The incident itself did not treat each other as human beings, but only regarded each other as fertility machines.
Then use money to induce them to give up the most basic human rights, and those who accept this invitation acquiesce in the view of belittling their personality, so this incident itself cannot bring justice, although it is extreme.
Then let's see what doesn't look so serious.
Many parents use money to encourage their children to study, saying that as long as you get good grades, I will give you how much money you will take in any university. When we constantly encourage children to learn with external things, is it different from paying those women not to have children? This is perfectly reasonable.
This is just a kind of money-induced incentive. When you think that money is enough to solve all the problems, you will find that the fun of the matter itself is gone.
There is another phenomenon, that is, managing society by means of fines, and achieving the purpose of management by means of fines.
For example, if you lose a can in the Grand Canyon, you will have to pay a fine of 100 USD.
But if I'm a rich man, I'm willing to spend hundreds of dollars throwing a few cans to distract myself, okay? I carved my name on the jar, threw it into the Grand Canyon and paid one hundred dollars.
Then it's not enough to throw it away. Give another hundred dollars and throw another one. Is it okay? Economically, you can, because you are willing to pay a fine of 100, so you can throw it if you want.
But from an ethical point of view, this is very inappropriate, so when we turn fines into expenses and fines into costs, a large number of punishment measures will become ineffective.
Everyone should have been to Paris. There is a particularly funny place in the subway in Paris. I have been there once before because of something, and then I went to take the subway.
I didn't know French at that time. It really took me a lot of effort to buy that ticket, and I can't read it everywhere. Then I translated it with my mobile phone, groped around and finally bought the ticket. I collapsed as soon as I entered the waiting room. Do you know why? Because no one checked in their subway station, I thought at that time, I wouldn't have bought it if I had known. I calculated that each subway ticket is about 2 dollars. Although it is not expensive, it is really troublesome.
There are many people there who skip tickets directly without buying tickets, but occasionally someone will check in there. If they are caught evading tickets, they will be fined 60 dollars. As long as you get caught once, this is enough for a month's ticket, so the risk of evasion is actually great.
Later, many Parisians also thought of a trick. They set up an insurance fund. As long as you join this insurance fund, you only need to pay $8.50 to this fund every month, and you can walk away.
If someone catches you, it doesn't matter. The foundation pays the money for you. They sell evasion tickets as insurance products. Is this a reasonable method? This is obviously unreasonable.
We naturally think that as long as the price rises, the demand will decrease, but sometimes it will only backfire.
For example, if it is difficult for us to find a parking space, we may be fined 200 yuan for parking on the roadside, but we won't deduct points. Suppose I am a rich man, is 200 yuan a trivial matter for me? If I have money, I can park anywhere. It's only 200 yuan anyway. When everyone regards fines as payment, then this method of solving problems with fines naturally fails.
Foreigners said that a company in China hired people to apologize. I have never heard of this. I wonder where they heard it. They said it was a company that hired people to apologize.
Professor Sandel raised a question: Will an expensive apology be more touching than a cheap one?
Suppose this apology was bought by the other party at a cost of 654.38+100000, and then this apology was paid by the other party regardless of the cost. Which is easier to impress you?
Accordingly, there is a website in America called Perfect Toast. A website that writes wedding greetings to others. Americans like to knock on cups at weddings, that is, knock a few times and then stand up and propose a toast. But many people are very entangled in this matter, thinking, what should I do if I can't say it well? Will it be particularly humiliating?
Then someone paid these people to write a congratulatory message. As long as they pay $65,438+049, someone will write a perfect congratulatory letter for you.
So suppose you are the bride or groom, and you know that your friend's wedding speech was bought by 140 yuan. I don't know what kind of mood you will have.
There is no problem with this service from the market point of view. This is just a business deal.
Economists also call on people not to give gifts at festivals or parties, because giving gifts is a ridiculous act, and it is possible that others don't need or use what you give.
Professor Man Kun, a famous psychologist, also said the same thing. He said it's best not to give gifts, but to send cash directly, because it's the most cost-effective. When giving gifts, if you want to think about what to buy, it will cost more to spend time on it than to send cash, and it is better to give back cash. Even if you don't want to send cash, at least give the other party something that can be realized.
Later, someone invented a set of amazing things, electronic transfer cake. Suppose I want to give you a cake, you can accept it online or not. If you don't accept it, then you can transfer it to others. If the person who transfers it doesn't accept it, then the cake will be transferred continuously. This cake has never been produced, but it has been transferred countless times!
But when someone accepts this cake, this cake will be made and given to this person. But when you receive this cake, will there be a small note with the name of the gift you don't want?
Assuming that there is no such note, will the recipient feel that this cake has been forwarded countless times? The ideas of these economists may completely ignore people's feelings.
The market created by this money often fails and has many negative effects. For example, Switzerland has a lot of nuclear power generation, but its territory is relatively small, which means that their nuclear waste will not be enough to store.
Then the only place suitable for storing nuclear waste is a small mountain village called Wolfensohn. 1993, a few months before their referendum, those economists went to the local area to do a survey. They asked the local residents whether they would accept the government building a nuclear waste storage site in this community. The survey result at that time was 5 1%.
This also shows that the quality of people in that village in Switzerland is still quite high. They also know that these things can't be put abroad, so they can only find places in China. It seems that only their village is the most suitable, so 565,438+0% people in this village can accept it.
Results Not long after the investigation, the government felt that the satisfaction was not enough, so it planned to introduce a compensation standard to compensate all local villagers in cash.
Then the economist went to discuss the compensation with the residents, saying that the government would give each of you cash compensation and then put the nuclear waste in your place.
At this time, the principle has not changed. Nuclear waste should still be in this village. The only change is that I didn't give money before, but now I not only give it back. This is a good thing in principle.
Results After investigation, it was found that only 25% people agreed to put nuclear waste in the village, which dropped from the original 5 1% to 25% instantly. Why?
Because money can't buy safety and health, our first sacrifice is because of our love for our motherland.
But the second time you used money to measure the starting point and significance of our doing this. I'm sorry, our dignity can't be bought with that money. This is the negative effect of the market.
Later, they raised the compensation amount to $8,700, but the support rate was still very low.
Because the previous choice comes from the sense of responsibility of citizens, and when you use the market to adjust, the sense of responsibility of citizens is gone.
Another similar example is that there is a kindergarten in Sweden, and their teachers often can't get off work on time at night, because many parents are late to pick up their children.
Later, the kindergarten collectively studied how to keep these parents from being late, and then worked out a plan, that is, each late parent paid a fine of 10 euros to keep these parents from being late.
This is equivalent to the relationship between price and demand in economics. Therefore, when the price rises, the demand will decrease. As a result, those parents confessed to being late after using this trick. Some parents even said that I paid all the fines this week, okay? Because my parents think that this matter finally has a price, and I don't need to worry about this matter after having the price. In the past, when we were late, we were particularly uneasy and felt sorry for the teacher. Now I feel normal. I am willing to pay 65,438+00 euros. You can't say anything about me as long as I pay the fine.
This is the market failure when an article or thing is measured by money, which will have many negative effects. These are all negative incentives brought by money. There are countless such cases.
Some economists have done such an experiment. They divided the students into three groups.
Let the first group of students make a positive speech about charity activities, with the theme of what benefits charity activities can bring, and then let the people after listening to the speech raise money together.
Let the second group of students make the same speech and promise to give them a commission of 1% according to the amount raised.
The third group of students also made the same speech, promising to give them 10% commission according to the fundraising amount.
Can you imagine which group will collect the most public donations?
As a result, the unpaid group did the best and got the most money. He charged 55% more than the group with 65,438+0% commission and 9% more than the group with 65,438+00% commission.
That is to say, the share of 10% is a little stronger than that of 1%, which means you'd better stimulate him and make him feel, otherwise, you might as well tell him what it means and people will be willing to do it.
Just like our social volunteers, they organize themselves to clean the environment. They are free, even eating is aa, but they can do every activity well.
But if you say that everyone should be paid according to the scope of work or time, then you will find that this will lead to some disputes, or perfunctory problems.
So the scholars who presided over the research came to a conclusion, that is, if you intend to use money to motivate people, then you should give enough money, otherwise, don't give a penny.
If in an organization, employees and bosses always talk about money, saying how much one thing costs and how much that thing costs, then the efficiency of the organization will drop, and no particularly excellent products can be produced, because everyone chooses to do this job just to get money.
Finally, there is a particularly thought-provoking market, called the life and death market.
Some people can even benefit from the death of others. The word policy discount may not be familiar to many people. What is policy discount?
Suppose I have a policy in my hand, but I am short of money now. This policy hasn't expired yet, so I can't get the money. What should I do?
This kind of insurance policy can't get money when it's alive, but it can only be realized when it's dead, but I need money urgently now. What should I do?
I have an insurance policy worth $654.38 million, but I need money badly now, but I can't get it until I die. What should I do at this time? I have to sell you this insurance policy. Once this policy makes money in the future, it will be yours, but now you have to give me the equivalent money. This behavior is called policy discount.
So you can give a discount to a patient with terminal cancer, because patients with terminal cancer will die, but not necessarily when. Some die within a week, and may not die in 3-5 years, or even live for more than ten years, so there are certain risks in this market.
For example, this person's insurance policy is100000 USD, and you can buy it for him with 50000 USD. As long as he dies, you can get 654.38+ 10000 USD.
If this person dies within one year, your profit is 100%. After one year, your 50,000 will become 65,438+10,000.
If this person dies next week, the profit for one cycle will be 100%.
But if he is not dead after 10 years, then the $50,000 may be gone.
From an economic point of view, this is called a win-win situation. A cancer patient has no money. I need this $50,000 now. You are willing to do such a thing, and you can get benefits from it in the future. Therefore, from a rational economic point of view, there is no problem at all.
But from the ethical point of view, from the perspective of fairness, this is immoral. You will think that the discount person is always expecting others to die, and only when others die can he bring some benefits.
And there is a very terrible problem. Larry King, a famous host, is a chronic patient, and even her insurance policy has been discounted.
After she sold the insurance policy, the old man began to complain, that is, she especially regretted it at that time, so what did she regret?
After she said I sold the insurance policy, I thought, how do I know if the person who got my insurance policy will be black hand D. Suppose the person who gets this policy is black hand D, my God! What if he finds a chance to kill me?
This is what we call the limitations of money and a lot of risks.
At that time, the Pentagon proposed that in order to prevent terrorist attacks and determine where terrorist attacks would occur, from the perspective of big data, the more people there are, the greater the possibility of terrorist attacks in that place.
Therefore, they proposed to establish a horror futures market. The idea is to let investors buy and sell futures contracts on various terrorist activities, that is, to bet on where terrorist activities will take place.
If a trader wants to make money, he must make a big bet, so the person who makes a big bet may have the most accurate information and can also find many clues about terrorist activities.
The Pentagon put forward this idea, which was later firmly rejected. Why does it cause everyone's anger?
Because it is not excluded that terrorists will sit in the village, assuming that terrorists sit in the village themselves, they can manipulate the market to carry out terrorist activities.
From this perspective, it can really attract people to discover many terrorist activities, and it is also possible to grasp more clues, but the places where terrorist activities occur will also become more.
A large number of problems are solved through the market, and we all feel that there is no problem, but there will be many moral paradoxes.
Finally, the issue of naming rights, so what is the issue of naming rights? We can see advertisements everywhere in our lives, such as broadcasting softball games. When they broadcast that base runner reached base safely, the announcer had to say that it was safe to reach home plate safely. New york Life Insurance Company.
Even every piece of turf, every trophy, even an athlete's elbow, athlete's hair and so on can become advertising spots.
And does this sport still have the essence of sports? When these pervasive advertisements turn our life into a completely commercialized society, is it possible that the essence of our life will be corroded?
The essence of Professor Sandel's example is to inspire us to think and let everyone know that except these things that can be bought, your money can't buy, life, health, happiness and happiness. Money can't solve any problems, but what should we do when there are so many negative problems brought by the money market in our reality?
This is where we should broaden our thinking, because we can't live all day just for money.
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