【英语生活】报销门与尿裤子

The Australian economist, Joshua Gans, recently described a problem central to the current financial turmoil. How could he persuade his young son not to wet his pants?

Believing in the power of incentives, Mr Gans offered a reward if his son could keep his pants dry for seven nights. The boy simply removed his pants. The prohibition was on wetting pants, not on wetting the bed. Young Gans was learning a skill that would equip him well to be a British MP, or a senior executive in a global bank.

Many MPs need second homes to perform their duties. Such rules were not intended to allow less honourable members to build a property portfolio by charging the taxpayer to refurbish a succession of second homes. These members argued that what they did was consistent with the rules.

The Basel banking principles attached varying capital requirements to different types of assets. But it was easy to rearrange how assets were categorised, even as the underlying risks remained the same.

The Gans household elaborated the rules to close the loophole, only to discover that their child was able to construct yet more ingenious methods of circumvention. Britain's Committee on Standards in Public Life, and the Basel Committee on banking supervision, have the same experience. The Gans problem solved itself eventually – the boy grew up. We are not usually so lucky. Revenue authorities have been in pursuit of tax avoidance ever since income tax was introduced. They have never quite caught up, and they never will.

Regulation by rules invites compliance with the rules rather than the objective of the rules, and the more extensive the rules the easier it is to lose sight of the objective. Many MPs plainly believed that since there were rules on what they could claim, any claim within these rules was legitimate. The Basel directives can be seen, in retrospect, probably to have done more harm than good. Banks took the view that capital sufficient to comply with the regulations was sufficient for their business needs. Surplus capital was for wimps.

Much of what the financial services industry today describes as compliance is no more than the system of internal control that any well-run institution would itself impose. But when control becomes compliance, business necessity becomes bureaucratic obligation. Everyone in the organisation can make common cause in minimising its practical effect.

Simpler rules may be less harmful than complex rules, but they can only work when the simplifications correctly exemplify underlying values. St Athanasius, fleeing the unrighteous, was asked if he had seen the traitor Athanasius. “He is not far away,” the prospective saint replied, accurately but misleadingly. His persecutors rushed off in the wrong direction.

The correct defence of Athanasius is surely not that he avoided a lie by ingenious circumlocution, but that the circumstances justified lying. Adam Smith mused whether it was right to break an agreement with a highwayman to whom one had promised one's money in exchange for one's life, and Kant wrestled with the problem of misleading a potential murderer. But only a philosopher would see a difficulty. Truthfulness is a state of mind rather than observance of prohibition of falsehood.

The problem of Kant's categorical imperative is how to behave well in a world in which others do not. It is hard, perhaps impossible, to remain honest when the culture is corrupt; hard, perhaps impossible, to live on an MP's salary when others exploit the allowance system and accept dubious consultancies; hard, perhaps impossible, to manage a bank prudently when your competitors inflate profits by operating differently.

That is why values of integrity, of public service, and of responsible stewardship of the money of others can never be replaced by rules or imposed by regulation. And why the test “would you feel comfortable if your activities were disclosed?” is a powerful guide to conduct. MPs tried hard but unsuccessfully to avoid that disclosure. Such a test would have killed plans to shift banking business to off-balance sheet vehicles at an early stage. And required young Gans to keep his pants on.

澳大利亚经济学家乔舒亚•甘斯(Joshua Gans)最近谈到了当前金融危机的一个核心问题。他如何才能说服自己年幼的儿子不尿裤子？

甘斯对激励的力量深信不疑，他告诉儿子，只要连续7个晚上不尿裤子，就能得到奖赏。于是孩子干脆脱了裤子睡觉。禁令说的是不尿裤子，而不是不尿床。小甘斯正在掌握的这种技巧，足以让他日后胜任英国议员、或全球性银行高管的职位。

许多议员需要第二居所来履行职责。这种规定的初衷，并不是让品格有欠高尚的议员花费纳税人的钱，来修葺一套又一套第二居所，从而给自己攒下一堆房产。但这些议员辩称，他们的所作所为符合规定。

巴塞尔(Basel)银行业准则为不同资产类别设定了多种资本金要求。但对资产进行重新分类并非难事，即便潜在风险并未改变。

为了填补漏洞，甘斯家细化了规定，却发现孩子能够想出更巧妙的办法来绕过规定。英国公职事宜标准委员会(Committee on Standards in Public Life)及巴塞尔银行监理委员会(Basel Committee on banking supervision)也有着相同的经历。甘斯家的问题最后自行得到了解决——孩子长大了。我们通常却没有那么幸运。自推出所得税以来，税务机构就一直在追踪避税行为。但他们从未彻底成功过，也永远不会成功。

通过各种规定来实施监管，结果只能是合规，而不是实现规定所瞄准的目标。规定越是面面俱到，人们就越容易忽略其目标。许多议员显然认为，既然规定了可以报销的项目，任何符合规定的报销就都是正当的。回过头来看巴塞尔协议的规定，可能也是弊大于利。银行觉得，资本金比率只要达到了合规的程度，就足以满足其业务需要。资本金过高是懦弱无能的表现。

金融服务业目前谈论的合规举措，很大程度上不过是一种内部控制体系，任何一家运营良好的机构都会自行建立这种体系。但当控制成为了合规，业务需要也就变成了官僚义务。机构中的所有人都会达成共识，试图将规定的实际影响最小化。

与复杂的规定相比，简单的规定或许危害更小，但要想做到行之有效，简单的规定必须准确体现规定的根本价值。圣亚大纳西(St Athanasius)在逃避异端分子的追赶时曾被问及，是否见到过叛徒亚大纳西。“他就在不远处，”这位日后的圣师答道，回答得既准确又具有欺骗性。迫害者们向着另一个方向奔去。

亚大纳西的回答之所以正确，显然不在于他以巧妙的迂回辞令避免了撒谎，而是特定环境下说谎并不为过。亚当•斯密(Adam Smith)曾思考过一个问题：如果与拦路劫匪达成了拿钱换性命的协议，毁约是否正当。康德(Kant)也曾冥思苦想过欺骗潜在杀人犯的对错问题。但只有哲人才看得出其中的难处。求真是一种思想状态，而不是奉行错误的禁令。

康德定然律令(categorical imperative)的问题在于，如何在一个其他人行止不端的世界里保持懿行。礼崩乐坏之时，人们很难——甚至不可能——保持诚实；当其他议员通过报销制度捞取好处、接受可疑的咨询费时，议员们很难——甚至不可能——靠薪水度日；同样，当竞争对手通过不同的做法获得高额利润时，银行也很难——甚至不可能——保持审慎经营的做法。

这就是诚信、公共服务以及负责任地管理他人资金等价值观永远无法被规定取代，或作为规定施加于人的原因。“如果你的行为被公开，你是否会感到不自在？”的测试是一种有效的行为指引，原因也在于此。议员们曾百般阻挠媒体披露他们的行为，但未能成功。这种测试原本可以把将银行业务转移至表外的计划扼杀在摇篮中，也可以督促小甘斯睡觉时不脱裤子。

译者/章晴