金錢至上的國度

????你前額的方寸之地價值幾何？如果你手頭緊，而廣告商對你的這塊私有地盤感興趣，你會考慮出售嗎？你的生育能力，或者你的器官能出售嗎？你會出價多少？畢竟，正如俗話所說的，任何人都可待價而沽。

????哈佛大學政府系教授邁克爾?桑德爾在《金錢無法買到的東西》一書中表示，事情可能沒那么簡單。他在書中詳盡探討了市場和市場思維通過很多種途徑滲透進我們的生活，而有些情況對我們是不利的。

????桑德爾表示，傳統觀點認為，人類行為的某些方面被認為是神圣不可侵犯，或是金錢無法購買的。但現在，它們卻遭受到強大的市場力量的侵蝕，比如在個人身體上購買廣告空間，提供獎金來刺激學生好好念書，以及利誘吸毒者同意接受絕育手術。他寫道，“在這二十年中，商業化四處彌漫，無所不在，象征著一個一切事物均可明碼標價用來出售的世界?！?/p>

????雖然將我們自己和其他人擁有的最私密的東西作為商品出售，并不算什么新鮮事（見下：奴隸和賣淫），但桑德爾認為，市場思維在過去的這幾十年里變得尤為重要。他說得很有道理。在過去的二三十年里，我們越來越信仰私有化以及金錢激勵手段的效力。我們聘用私人安保公司來管理監獄，派遣雇傭兵去為國家打仗，出錢讓盈利性學校來教育我們的孩子，這些都獲得了不同程度的成功。

????桑德爾表示，我們為這種行為付出的代價有幾種表現方式。首先，窮人會在更大程度上受到個人空間商業化的影響。想想看，能有多少富人排隊要求把自己的房屋或者身體當做廣告牌呢？在這種情況下，出售決策并不一定像表面看起來那樣，是在獨立和自由的基礎上做出的。而且，在這個變得越來越利欲熏心的社會里，富人比窮人更有優勢。打個比方，如果你承諾一大筆捐贈，就能為孩子進哈佛或耶魯等名校鋪好路，那何須逼著孩子辛苦念書呢？

????有些交易行為和激勵措施的意圖可能是善意的，比如捐助貧苦的人群，或者鼓勵學生用功學習。但我們對這些行為的看法發生了改變。突然之間，刻苦學習不再是為了學習本身，而是意味著能賺點零花錢。賣血也能賺錢，但同時也讓你喪失了做善事帶來的道德滿足感。這些行為本身沒有變，但行為動機發生了變化，因此它們的意義也隨之改變，這些變化并不一定都是好的。

????How much is the space on your forehead worth? Would you sell that especially personal piece of real estate to an interested advertiser if you were strapped for cash? How about your ability to give birth? Or maybe your organs? What's your price? After all, as the proverb goes, every man has one.

????In What Money Can't Buy, Harvard government professor Michael J. Sandel argues that it might not be that simple. He takes readers on an exhaustive tour of the many ways in which markets and market thinking have infiltrated our lives, sometimes to our detriment.

????Whether it's buying ad space on human bodies, paying schoolchildren to read more books, or giving drug addicts money in exchange for accepting sterilization treatment, Sandel argues that we've suffered from the penetration of market forces into aspects of the human experience that were traditionally thought to be either sacred or beyond monetary value. "The commercialism of the last two decades has displayed a distinctive kind of boundlessness, emblematic of a world in which everything is for sale," he writes.

????While commercializing our most intimate possessions and those that belong to others is nothing new (see under: slavery and prostitution), Sandel suggests that the past few decades have been an especially victorious time for market thinking. He has a point. Over the past 20 to 30 years, we have increasingly placed our faith in privatization and the power of financial incentives. We hire private security companies to run our prisons, send mercenaries to fight our wars, and pay for-profit schools to educate our children, all with varying degrees of success.

????The price we pay for this behavior plays out in several ways, Sandel argues. First off, poorer people are impacted disproportionately by the commercialization of personal space. How many affluent people are lining up to turn their houses or bodies into billboards? In this way, the decision to sell isn't necessarily as independent and free as it may look. In a society increasingly driven by financial power, moreover, the wealthy hold even better hands than they would otherwise. Why bother encouraging your kid to study hard if you can simply grease his path into Harvard or Yale with the promise of a massive donation?

????Some of these tradeoffs and incentives may have noble intentions, such as putting more money in the hands of the needy, or encouraging students to hit the books. Yet they also change how we value these activities. Suddenly, doing well in school becomes about pocketing extra change rather than learning for its own sake. Selling your blood puts money in your wallet, but it also deprives you of the moral reward of altruism. The behaviors may be the same, but the motivations have changed. As a result their meaning also changes, not always for the better.