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  3. It would be so convenient if fundamental laws of nature told us how best to run a society. Governance would be a simple optimiza

It would be so convenient if fundamental laws of nature told us how best to run a society. Governance would be a simple optimiza

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问题    It would be so convenient if fundamental laws of nature told us how best to run a society. Governance would be a simple optimization problem, like finding the shortest route through a network; we could do without left—right political confrontation, and just solve the equations. Unfortunately, governance is not a well-posed problem. There must inevitably be balance and compromise. This is what makes politics and economics not just controversial, but interesting.
   Inequality is one of the biggest items on the agendas of both of these disciplines. 【F1】Few people are likely to speak in favour of inequality as such, but in stereotypical terms the political right defends wealth as a reward for hard work, whereas the left strongly disapproves of a society in which "1 percent of the people take nearly a quarter of the nation’s income". 【F2】It seems an unavoidable truth that a free-market capitalist system will create wealth inequality; to a free-market fundamentalist who sees markets as optimizers of efficiency and resource utilization, that is not only necessary but moral. Under that philosophy, by intervening in the market in the hope of making the outcome "fairer", we only throw a spanner in the works.
   Yet even if one accepts some inequality as a necessary evil, there are options beyond non-intervention. 【F3】How, and how strenuously, governments and legislators should attempt to limit the extent of wealth inequality is currently a hotly disputed matter. The strongest argument is not that it makes things more "fair". Rather, it is that gross wealth inequality polarizes attitudes, stirs up unrest and degrades trust and cooperation. At face value, a study supports that view—but with an added twist.
   【F4】In the study, groups of volunteers played a simple economic game involving cooperation, in which they could lose or gain wealth through voluntary redistribution within social networks that started with three different levels of inequality. Crucially, in some games the wealth of participants was made visible to others, whereas in others it was kept hidden. As the result turns out, simply hiding wealth decreased the wealth disparity in otherwise identical games and networks.
   Still more importantly, visible wealth reduced the overall cooperation and interconnectedness of the social network, and in fact led to lower total wealth. As the authors say: "it is not inequality in itself that is so problematic, but rather visibility of that inequality". 【F5】This fits with the established idea that it is relative, not absolute, differences in wealth that compromise happiness and promote friction: we resent what our neighbours have and we don’t. What irritates us is not knowing that others have more than us, but seeing that difference showily displayed.
【F1】
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答案几乎没有人会说自己支持不平等，但是就陈规而言，右派政党支持将财富作为辛苦工作的报偿，而左派政党则强烈反对社会存在以下情况：“1％的人手握将近四分之一的全国收入”。
解析 ①本句由but连接两个分句，提示前后分句存在转折关系。②分句1的主语Few people表示“几乎没有人”，谓语be likely to do sth．表示“有可能做某事”，speak in favour of．．．表示“发言赞成／支持……”；本分句为采用肯定形式表达否定意义，相当于people are not likely to…as such，not．．．as such用于表示某物名不副实，即本分句可理解为“几乎没有人会说自己支持不平等”。③but后的分句也为并列句，由whereas连接，提示前后分句为转折关系；in…terms为状语，表示“就……而言”，in stereotypical terms可理解为“就陈规而言”，相当于从老一套／旧条框来看；the political right在此不是“政治权利”的意思，结合本句句意及whereas所在分句中的the left，前者应理解为“右派政党”，后者应理解为“左派政党”。④in which引导定语从句，修饰先行词society。
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