When injustice is done in the name of justice, can this "name" still maintain the original justice? ——Foreword
The drama "Hundreds of Millions" revolves around the game between officials and businessmen, and tells the story of a war without gunpowder between Axerold and Chuck - a fund boss and a Justice Department boss. The two of you came and went, carried out various investigations and counter-investigations, planted spies, moved tigers away from mountains, and wished they could use 36 military tactics to kill each other. And there are all kinds of magical operations in finance interspersed in the middle, which gave me a glimpse of the tip of the iceberg of the real capital world, which opened my eyes. It can be said that the market is like a battlefield, and the trader is like a solider.
Merchants and officials have been two forces in society since ancient times. One side is money, the other side is power. The collusion between officials and businessmen is infinite corruption and exploitation; the fight between officials and businessmen is just like what is presented in this play. Behind this lies a bigger question, what is good and what is evil? What is true justice and what is true evil? The last series of conversations in which the two male protagonists confront each other asks these two questions. The two of them represent two completely opposite sets of values.
Regarding good and evil, the play borrowed the role of Chuck's subordinate Bryan for several discussions. Once he was having dinner with the parents of a female colleague, and the father of the female colleague sent a soul torture, probably "Is it still justice when doing the bad for the good?" Is it still as righteous as before? In fact, I want to say that although the two male protagonists belong to different camps, there is really no one who is more noble than the other. Both are equally unscrupulous, wandering on the edge of good and evil in the same way. They will show incomparable kindness and gentleness in some aspects, and they will do everything they can in some aspects, and they will never give up until they reach their goals.
Who is the good guy here and who is the bad guy? This drama is not like the general plot (especially the Chinese TV series), and it has two opposing camps, one good and the other evil. In the end, the evil does not overwhelm the good. I defeat you, and everyone is happy. Instead, they put the glory and shame of the two people on the table. And that's precisely where it shines. Because in the real world, there is never 100% good and 100% evil. Everyone is a complex contradiction, and we often walk in those gray areas. One thing, if it is judged by secular values, it is in the black area, but if you weigh the pros and cons in combination with the situation at the time, maybe this thing is not so black, but gray. In the same way, to say whether a person is a good person or a bad person, we cannot judge how a person is by only one side, but need to look around him 360°. But even looking at it like this, it is difficult to draw an absolute, black-and-white conclusion in the end.
I'm not trying to whitewash some "black" behaviors, some behaviors are wrong or wrong, and those who break the law should be punished. I just think that in society, especially in the Vanity Fair, where interests are intertwined with complex interests such as shopping malls and officialdom, black and white may be more likely to become gray.
In addition to the opposition between good and evil, I think the show also contains the opposition of two sets of economic values: free market, or government intervention. Axerold opposes the government and some laws and regulations. He believes that the law is a tool used by the government to obtain benefits for itself. He did nothing wrong, but instead promoted employment and charity. At the extreme, he represents anarchism, advocating complete free market competition and opposing any government interference. And Chuck is the government, which is what we generally call the "justice" party. He represents the law, justice and fairness. He hates unfair competition caused by insider trading and bribery. He will use the yardstick of the law to punish these criminals and restore the ideal market order. To the extreme, he represents governmentism and advocates government intervention in the market, because the invisible hands sometimes only make the poor get richer and richer, and complete freedom must bring greater chaos.
Isn't that what economists have been arguing about for centuries? Adam Smith and Keynes were the representatives of the two major factions of free market and government intervention. This issue has been debated for hundreds of years, and there is still no answer. Even now, the West and my country still hold different opinions on this.
I think this debate will continue. It's like the showdown between Axerold and Chuck has just begun.
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