|
Insatiable longing 永无止境的欲望 Two new books probe the limits of capitalism 两本新书带领我们探索资本主义的底线 How Much Is Enough? Money and the Good Life. ByRobert Skidelsky and Edward Skidelsky. 《多少钱才算够?钱财与好生活》 罗伯特?斯基德尔斯基与爱德华斯基德尔斯基著。 And What Money Can t Buy: The Moral Limits of Markets. By Michael Sandel. 《钱财所不能买：市场的道德底线》 迈克尔桑德尔著。 Most policymakers, and the economists who advise them, believe that the rich Westerneconomies have suffered a mechanical malfunction. With the right monetary, fiscal andregulatory tools, the growth machine will eventually whirr into life. Others think the West strue malaise is not mechanical but moral: a love of money, markets and material things. 西方大国经济就像是一台机器。许多决策者，和作为顾问的经济学家认为这台机器运转出现问题。采用合适的货币，财政政策，配合上监管机制，问题才能得以解决，经济才会蒸蒸日上。其他人则认为西方国家并不是运转出现问题，而是道德出现问题：永无止境地追求财富，市场和物质，这才是问题。 How Much Is Enough? and What Money Can t Buy are well-argued versions of this secondview. In the former, Robert and Edward Skidelsky, a father-and-son pair of Britishacademics, take as their text an essay written in 1930 by John Maynard Keynes. Keynes mused that within acentury the economic problem would be solved: in rich countries people would be at leastfour times wealthier, on average, and have to work perhaps 15 hours a week. He looks rightabout living standards, but horribly wrong about working hours. | 
