单项选择题
The United States in the 1990s has had seven years
of economic boom with low unemployment, low inflation, and low government
deficit. Amid all of this good news, inequality has increased and wages have
barely risen. Common sense knowledge seems to be right in this instance, that
is, the rich get richer, the poor get poorer, and the middle class is shrinking.
Though President Clinton boasts that the number of people on welfare has
decreased significantly under his regime to 8 million, a 44% decline from 1994,
he forgets that there are still 36.5 million poor people in the United States,
which is only a 2% decline in the same amount of time. How is it possible that
we have increasing inequality during economic prosperity
This contradiction is not easily explained by the dominant neoclassical economic discourse of our time. Nor is it resolved by neoconservative social policy. More helpful is the one book under review: James K. Galbraith’s Created Unequal, a Keynesian analysis of increasing wage inequality.
James K. Galbraith provides a multicausal analysis that blames the current free market monetary policy for the increasing wage inequality. He calls for a rebellion in economic analysis and policy and for a reapplication of Keynesian macroeconomics to solve the problem. In Created Unequal, Galbraith successfully debunks the conservative contention that wage inequality is necessary because the new skill-based technological innovation requires educated workers who are in short supply. For Galbraith, this is a fantasy. He also critiques their two other assertions: first, that global competition requires an increase in inequality and that the maintenance of inequality is necessary to fight inflation. He points to transfer payments that are mediated by the state: payment to the poor in the form of welfare is minor relative to payment to the elderly in the form of social security or to the rich in the form of interest on public and private debt.
Galbraith minimizes the social indicators of race, gender, and class and tells us that these are not important in understanding wage inequality. What is important is Keynesian macroeconomics. To make this point, he introduces a sectoral analysis of the economy.. Here knowledge is dominant (the K-sector) and the producers of consumption goods (the C-sector) are in decline. The third sector is large and low paid (the S-sector). The K-sector controls the new technologies and wields monopoly power. Both wages and profit decline in the other two sectors. As a result of monopoly, power inequality increases.
This contradiction is not easily explained by the dominant neoclassical economic discourse of our time. Nor is it resolved by neoconservative social policy. More helpful is the one book under review: James K. Galbraith’s Created Unequal, a Keynesian analysis of increasing wage inequality.
James K. Galbraith provides a multicausal analysis that blames the current free market monetary policy for the increasing wage inequality. He calls for a rebellion in economic analysis and policy and for a reapplication of Keynesian macroeconomics to solve the problem. In Created Unequal, Galbraith successfully debunks the conservative contention that wage inequality is necessary because the new skill-based technological innovation requires educated workers who are in short supply. For Galbraith, this is a fantasy. He also critiques their two other assertions: first, that global competition requires an increase in inequality and that the maintenance of inequality is necessary to fight inflation. He points to transfer payments that are mediated by the state: payment to the poor in the form of welfare is minor relative to payment to the elderly in the form of social security or to the rich in the form of interest on public and private debt.
Galbraith minimizes the social indicators of race, gender, and class and tells us that these are not important in understanding wage inequality. What is important is Keynesian macroeconomics. To make this point, he introduces a sectoral analysis of the economy.. Here knowledge is dominant (the K-sector) and the producers of consumption goods (the C-sector) are in decline. The third sector is large and low paid (the S-sector). The K-sector controls the new technologies and wields monopoly power. Both wages and profit decline in the other two sectors. As a result of monopoly, power inequality increases.
According to the passage, Galbraith’s book ______.
- A. is devoted to analyzing why economic boom usually goes with wage
inequality
B. reviews the dominant neoclassical economic discourse of our time
C. recommend resolving the present problem by neoconservative social policy
D. attributes the present increasing wage inequality to several factors
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问答题
I hear many parents complaining that their teenage children are rebelling, I wish it were so. At your age you ought to be growing away from your parents. You should be learning to stand on your own feet. But take a look at the present rebellion. It seems that teenagers are taking the same way of show that they disagree with their parents. Instead of striking out boldly on their own, most of them are clutching at (attempting to seize) one another’s hands for reassurance.They claim they want to dress as they please. But they all wear the same clothes. They set off in new directions in music. But somehow they all end up crowded round listening to the same music. Their reason for thinking or acting in this-and-such a way is that the crowd is doing it. They have come out of their cocoon (蚕茧) -- into a larger cocoon.It has become harder and harder for a teenager to stand up against the popularity wave and to go his or her own way. Industry has firmly carved out a teenage market. These days every teenager can learn from the advertisement what a teenager should have and be. And many of today’s parents have come to award high marks for the popularity of their children. All this adds up to a great barrier for the teenager who wants to find his or her own path.But the barrier is worth climbing over. The path is worth following. You may want to listen to classical music instead of going to a party. You may want to collect rocks when everyone else is collecting records. You may have some thoughts that you don’t care to share at once with your classmates. Well, go to it. Find yourself. Be yourself. Popularity will come -- with the people who respect you for who you are. That’s the only kind of popularity that really counts.
