The Economics of Being Evil

I was reading Steve Levitt's Freakoconomics last night. In the end of one of the chapters, the author concluded that human being is 87% good. The evidence presented was from an economist turned bagel salesman Feldman. His bagel business uses a honor paying system, basically, he delivers the bagel during a company's break hour, then he leaves his bagels and his collection box in the room, only to collect the money later. Since he kept extensive record, he knows that the recovery rate of money in this system was on average 87%. Since there is no surveillance, people gave the money voluntarily, Levitt concluded on average human is 87% good.

He also mention an interesting concept from a movie. Some guy picked up an invisible cloak, hence excluding him from monitoring of the society, then this character goes on to rape the Queen and kill the King. Here comes the comparison of two different world views. Human is intrinsically bad, we behave only because we observe the consequence of our bad behavior. If we are not monitored by others, then our evil instinct will take over. While the bagel business seem to suggest we are at most time Good, Considerate, even without monitoring.

I think it not a matter of monitoring and the negative consequences that matters, but incentives overall matter. Imagine instead of bagels, Feldman put a basket of gold bars and a collection box. I really doubt that he still has 87% recovery rate. The invisible cloak story threw the incentive scheme off balance, the punishing side went away permanently, which magnified the incentive side.

It got me thinking about another movie - A Simple Plan. A good hearted, educated, and normal couple turned into cold hearted killers in the presence of 4 million dollars. In the end, it's hard to say whether they killed people because they are afraid of being caught, or they are afraid of losing the money. It's definitely not the lack of monitoring system made them evil, but evading the monitoring system may actually accelerated the speed of them becoming evil.

A catchy slogan from the Church of Satan, "EVIL is LIVE spelled backwards". Acting to incentives is human nature. Incentives are neither evil or good, it's the acts against others in achieving these incentives that are evil. Therefore none of us are immune to evil, therefore this is the source of our original sin. And I believe Economics is the study of incentives. Only after we understand how incentives work in the society, can we design incentive systems to be rid of evil.

Now it comes back to my spiritual views. 在中国，孔子， 在西方， 基督， 都在宣扬人的仁和善。 后人却往往把这种善形式化， 成为一种教条。 这种教条的存在，本身就在社会的文化意识形态上加上了一种无形的监控装置。如果一个人按教条做，那他受到尊重，从而获利；如果一个人不按教条做，那他就遭蔑视，从而被惩罚。在获利与惩罚之间，善和仁的教条得以存在下来。但孔子和基督本意的仁和善，却极少有人付诸实施。仁和善应该是在没有任何可获利的机会下，没有任何被惩罚的威胁下，不去做邪恶的事情。 至于什么是邪恶，那就要奉行老夫子的“己所不欲，勿施于人”的真理了。 我认为一个人修身的本质在于，在做任何事情之前，都想想自己在没有获利的机会和惩罚的威胁下会不会做同样的事。 这才是真与假本质的区别呀。做人能做到真，才是做到善的前提； 而做到了真和善，人才是美的。