智慧人生篇章 第25期:別把財(cái)富妖魔化

The trouble about money is that it is often linked topower. Money well used can do great things whichbenefit many people, anything from funding thearts to bringing food and water to a starving nation.It has great pragmatic possibilities. But there isanother power which has to do with thepresumption that enough money should buyinfluence and assure control to the benefit ofthose who are wealthy.As a Christian I could neverdemonise money. Jesus mentions it in half hisparables. He relies on charitable giving especiallyfrom women, and he's clearly at ease in the company of affluent people. There is nothing inthe Jewish-Christian tradition or in any great world religion to my knowledge which says thatmoney is intrinsically bad. Nor can it be claimed that moral questions only rise when weconsider the unhealthy addiction some people have to accumulating wealth.The primarymoral issue is whether in dealing with wealth, we become less concerned about the goodthings our money can do, and more convinced of the presumed synonym that money equalspower.

金錢(qián)經(jīng)常與能力掛鉤。錢(qián)使好了，可使很多人受益，譬如資助藝術(shù)，給饑荒國(guó)家提供食水等等，總之很具實(shí)用性。但錢(qián)還有另外一種能力，錢(qián)能帶來(lái)影響力，可以保證富裕階層的既得利益。作為一個(gè)基督徒，我從不把錢(qián)妖魔化。耶穌在他泰半的寓言故事中都提到了錢(qián)。他依靠別人，尤其女人的慈善捐助度日，而且很明顯，他跟富人相處很自在。在猶太基督，或者世界上任何其他主流宗教傳統(tǒng)中都沒(méi)有說(shuō)過(guò)錢(qián)不好。而且我們也不能說(shuō)，聚富成癮的人就一定會(huì)產(chǎn)生什么道德上的問(wèn)題。其實(shí)關(guān)鍵問(wèn)題是，面對(duì)金錢(qián)時(shí)，我們是否變得不再想著錢(qián)能做的好事，卻越來(lái)越相信金錢(qián)就等于權(quán)力。