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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.
【F4】
选项
答案在该项研究中，几组志愿者玩一个涉及合作的简单经济游戏。在此游戏中，这些志愿者有可能通过在社交网络中自愿重新分配财富而增加或减少财富，而该社交网络始于三种不同级别的不平等。
解析 ①本句为复合句。主句为简单的主谓宾结构，句首的In the study为地点状语，the study回指前一段末提到的study，此处为再次出现，翻译时可处理为“在该项研究中”；主句宾语后的involving cooperation为现在分词作后置定语，修饰economic game，可理解为“与合作有关的”“涉及合作的”。②逗号后的in which引导非限制性定语从句修饰先行词game，具体说明这种游戏的游戏规则；through voluntary redistribution within social networks为该定语从句中的方式状语，阐明志愿者lose or gain wealth的方式。③that引导定语从句修饰先行词social networks，补充说明这种social networks的特点。
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