Text II. CREATING ECONOMIC SYSTEMS IN THE GLOBAL MARKETPLACE
Democratic societies are not perpetual motion machines. They require a continual investment of care and responsibility on the part of their citizen. The experience of both emerging democracies and long-established democracies confirms this. The most fundamental goods of democracy, such as the security of individual rights, can exist only as long as most citizens share a sense of solidarity and common destiny.
Contemporary life, however, is marked by increasing volatility in all areas of social relationship. In particular, the dynamism of technology and the market economy poses a mounting challenge. While democracies must find ways to cultivate a sense of moral equality and shared destiny among citizens, the rapid spread of market values to all aspects of life is teaching, and even enforcing, very different lessons.
Increasingly, national societies are split into a minority class of economic winners who inhabit a cosmopolitan world of affluence, and a growing underclass with little hope of economic ascent. Moreover, as economic competition grows more intense, the ties of social solidarity are placed under increasing strain. Systems of social provision are likewise threatened, further undermining the sense of common destiny among citizens.
However, the chief threat posed by the spread of market behavior into every sphere of life is that social relationships become stripped of their moral meaning. Thus, business ceases to acknowledge any responsibility to either its employees, the communities where it operates, or to the nation which protects it through law. In the same way, the individual is encouraged to think first of self-interest, not only in business affairs but in the civic sphere, with respect to the natural environment, and finally in community and family life.
The danger to democracy of the spread of market behavior is that society will become increasingly atomized. With this, public responsibility, like social solidarity, will wither away, leaving society incapable of dealing with large-scale and long-term threats to its well-being. The chief question in the face of these threats is: How can modern nations develop their economic and technological capacities without damaging the moral and social underpinnings needed to fulfill the promise of democracy?
Vocabulary notes
perpetual motion machines – вечные двигатели
emerging democracies – новые, появляющиеся демократии
destiny – судьба, shared destiny – общая судьба
|
|
|
volatility – изменчивость, непостоянность
areas of social relationship – сферы общественных отношений
to pose a mounting challenge – ставить всё новые задачи
to enforce – навязывать
to split –разделять, расчинять
affluence– изобилие, богатство
ascent –подъём, рост
strain– напряжение
to strip -лишать
to cease – прекращать, перестать
to encourage -поощрять
to acknowledge – признавать
to atomize – распылять
to wither away – отмирать, исчезать
well-being – благосостояние
underpinnings – основы
Comprehension and Discussion Questions
1. How would you characterize the development of democratic societies?
2. What does social volatility depend on in the world of market economy?
3. Does economic competition place national societies under increasing strain?
4. Can the spread of market economy and business lead to any social irresponsibility?
5. The spread of market behavior can be the danger to democracy, can’t it?
6. Why cannot modern nations fulfill the promise of democracy?
Practical Task:
Read through text II and find in each paragraph a topical sentence that renders the main information.
Text III. THE FALL OF BIG BUSINESS
“Big” no longer means, as it once did, “successful”; before long it is likely to mean “failing”. If this prediction seems too bleak, recall how rosy the outlook seemed for big firms ten years ago. When globalization became a cliché, businessmen assumed that big firms would gain the most from lower trade barriers and converging tastes. Global markets, it seemed, would call for global brands from global companies managed globally. Firms big enough to spend lavishly on automated factories and computerized offices would be able to exploit glittering new technologies faster than smaller, and poorer rivals. … Many pundits confidently forecast that a handful of giant firms would dominate car making, electronics, banking, entertainment, advertising and publishing, to name only a few.
|
|
|
At the time, such predictions seemed plausible. For decades firms in almost every business had sought “economies of scale”, the idea that manufacturing or distributing goods in ever larger volumes lowers costs per unit, so that a firm becomes more efficient as it grows. Most managers also recognized that expanding a business also involves new costs. As they grow, firms may become more bureaucratic, inflexible and wasteful. Employees, believing themselves to be mere cogs, are less accountable and harder to motivate. But such diseconomies were usually a footnote. They seemed more than outweighed by the benefits of bigness. The triumphs of mass production early in the century had given birth to most of the giant firms which came to tower over their industries. That bigger was better was rarely disputed. Until recently it was even true. The great surprise of the last decade has been that the changes which were supposed to make bigger even better have had the opposite effect.
A blow to big firms is that the use of computers, confounding most forecasts, is narrowing economies of scale in manufacturing and distribution, not expanding them. Factory automation is making it possible to produce goods cheaply in smaller volumes. The plummeting price of computers is enabling smaller firms to employ the same logistical techniques, sophisticated financial models, and automated payrolls and other administrative tasks that were available only to big firms in the past.
Vocabulary notes
prediction –предсказание
bleak –печальный
to recall –вспоминать
to assume –предполагать, допускать
lavishly –щедро
glittering –заманчивый
pundits –учёные мужи
confidently –убедительно
plausible –правдивый
entertainment –развлечение
inflexible –негибкий
wasteful –расточительный
|
|
|
mere cogs –всего лишь мелкие сосиски
footnote –второстепенный
to outweigh –превосходить
confounding –сбивающий с толку
plummeting –снижающийся
enabling -позволяющий
Дата добавления: 2018-02-28; просмотров: 321; Мы поможем в написании вашей работы! |
Мы поможем в написании ваших работ!