1. The American economic system is, organized around a basically private-enterprise, market-oriented economy in which consumers largely determine what shall be produced by spending their money in the marketplace for those goods and services that they want most.

　　[參考譯文] 美國的經濟是以基本的私有企業和市場導向經濟為架構的，在這種經濟中，消費者很大程度上通過在市場上為那些他們最想要的貨品和服務付費來決定什么應該被制造出來。

　　2. Thus, in the American economic system it is the demand of individual consumers, coupled with the desire of businessmen to maximize profits and the desire of individuals to maximize their incomes, that together determine what shall be produced and how resources are used to produce it.

　　[參考譯文] 因此，在美國的經濟體系中，個體消費者的需求與商人試圖最大化其利潤的欲望和個人想最大化其收入效用的欲望相結合，一起決定了什么應該被制造，以及資源如何被用來制造它們。

　　3. If, on the other hand, producing more of a commodity results in reducing its cost, this will tend to increase the supply offered by seller-producers, which in turn will lower the price and permit more consumers to buy the product.

　　[參考譯文] 另一方面，如果大量制造某種商品導致其成本下降，那么這就有可能增加賣方和制造商能提供的供給，而這也就會反過來降低價格并允許更多的消 費者購買產品。

　　4. In the American economy, the concept of private property embraces not only the ownership of productive resources but also certain rights, including the right to determine the price of a product or to make a free contract with another private individual.

　　[參考譯文] 在美國經濟中，私有財產的概念不僅包含對生產資源的所有權，也指其他一些特定的權利，如確定一個產品價格和與另一個私人個體 自由簽定合同的權利。

　　5. At the same time these computers record which hours are busiest and which employers are the most efficient, allowing personnel and staffing assignments to be made accordingly. And they also identify preferred customers for promotional campaigns.

　　[參考譯文] 同時這些計算機記錄下哪些時間是最忙的，哪些員工工作效率最高，這樣就能相應地做出人員人事安排。而且它們也能為促銷活動找到那些擁有優先權的顧客。

　　6. Numerous other commercial enterprises, from theaters to magazine publishers, from gas and electric utilities to milk processors, bring better and more efficient services to consumers through the use of computers.

　　[參考譯文] 不計其數的其他商業企業，從劇院到雜志出版商，從公用燃氣電力設施到牛奶處理廠，都通過計算機的使用給消費者帶來更好、更有效率的服務。

　　7. Exceptional children are different in some significant way from others of the same age For these children to develop to their full adult potential, their education must be adapted to those differences.

　　[參考譯文] 殘疾兒童在許多關鍵方面都與其同齡人不同。為了讓這些孩子發展其全部的成人后的潛能，他們的教育必須適應這些不同。

　　8. The great interest in exceptional children shown in public education over the past three decades indicates the strong feeling in our society that all citizens, whatever their special conditions, deserve the opportunity to fully develop their capabilities.

　　[參考譯文] 在過去的30年中，公共教育中顯示的對殘疾兒童的巨大關注表明了我們社會中的一種中強烈的情緒，那就是所有的公民，不管其情況有多特殊，都應享有充分發展其能力的機會。

　　9. It serves directly to assist a rapid distribution of goods at reasonable price, thereby establishing a firm home market and so making it possible to provide for export at competitive prices.

　　[參考譯文] 它能夠直接幫助貨物以比較合理的價格被迅速分銷出去，因此可以建立一個堅固的國內市場，同時也使以具有競爭力的價格提供出口變得可能。

　　10. Apart from the fact that twenty-seven acts of Parliament govern the terms of advertising, no regular advertiser dare promote a product that fails to live up to the promise of his advertisements.

　　[參考譯文] 除去議會有27件法案來規范廣告的條件，沒有任何一個正式的廣告商敢于推銷一種商品卻不能兌現其在廣告中的承諾。

　　11. If its message were confined merely to information and that in itself would be difficult if not impossible to achieve, for even a detail such as the choice of the color of a shirt is subtly persuasive-advertising wound be so boring that no one wound pay any attention.

　　[參考譯文] 如果其信息只被局限于告知一一就廣告而言，如果這不是完全不可能達到的，也是非常難做的，因為即便是一個諸如襯衫的顏色的選擇這樣的細節都會具有微妙的說服意味，那么廣告就會如此地乏味以至于沒有人會關注它。

　　12. The workers who gets a promotion, the student whose grades improve, the foreigner who learns a new language-all these are examples of people who have measurable results to show for there efforts.

　　[參考譯文] 得到了升遷的工人們，成績進步的學生，學會了一門新語言的外國人一 一這些都是那些有可衡量的結果宋顯示其努力的人們的例證。

　　13. As families move away from their stable community, their friends of many years, their extended family relationships, the informal flow of information is cut off, and with it the confidence that information will be available when needed and will be trustworthy and reliable.

　　[參考譯文] 隨著家庭離開他們原來穩定的社區，離開他們多年的朋友和擴展的家庭關系，非正式的信息流動被切斷了，隨之而去的是對在需要時能獲得可靠和值得信賴的信息的信心。

　　14. The individual now has more information available than any generation, and the task of finding that one piece of information relevant to his or her specific problem is complicated, time--consuming, and sometimes even overwhelming.

　　[參考譯文] 現在每個人能夠得到的信息比任何時代的人都多，而找到與他/她的特定問題相關的那一點信息的任務不僅復雜、耗時，有時甚至令人難以招。

　　15. Expertise can be shared world wide through teleconferencing, and problems in dispute can be settled without the participants leaving their homes and/or jobs to travel to a distant conference site.

　　[參考譯文] 通過遠程會議，專家知識可以在全世界范圍內被分享，而爭論的問題能夠得到解決，同時相關人員也不必離開他們的家庭或工作跑到一個遙遠的開會地點。

　　16. The current passion for making children compete against their classmates or against the clock produces a two-layer system, in which competitive A-types seem in some way better than their B type fellows.

　　[參考譯文] 現在這種讓孩子們和其同學或時間競爭的熱情導致了一個雙層結構，在這個結構里面善于競爭的A類好像在某個方面要比他們B類的同輩更勝一籌。

　　17. While talking to you, your could-be employer is deciding whether your education, your experience, and other qualifications will pay him to employ you and your wares and abilities must be displayed in an orderly and reasonably connected manner.

　　[參考譯文] 在跟你談話的時候，可能成為你的雇主的人就一直在衡量你的教育、經 驗和其他資格是不是值得他雇用你，而你的商品和能力一定要以一種有條不紊而且合情合理的相互關聯的方式被展示出來。

　　18. The Corporation will survive as a publicly funded broadcasting organization, at least for the time being, but its role, its size and its programs are now the subject of a nation wide debate in Britain.

　　[參考譯文] 英國廣播公司將作為一個公共基金支持的廣播組織存在下來，至少目前會這樣，但是它的角色、它的規模和它的節目現在在英國成了全國上下的討論話題。

　　19. The debate was launched by the Government, which invited anyone with an opinion of the BBC--including ordinary listeners and viewer to say what was good or bad about the Corporation, and even whether they thought it was worth keeping.

　　[參考譯文] 這場辯論是由政府發動的，政府請任何一個對英國廣播公司有意見的人一包括普通的聽眾和觀眾一來說說這個公司好在哪里或壞在哪里，甚至要說說他們是否認為這個公司值得被保留下來。

　　20. The change met the technical requirements of the new age by engaging a large profess signal element and prevented the decline in efficiency that so commonly spoiled the fortunes of family firms in the second and third generation after the energetic founders.

　　[參考譯文] 這種變化通過引入許多的專業因素從而適應了這個新時代的技術要求， 并且它防止了效率的降低。這種效率的降低在精力充沛的創業者之后的第二代和第三代人的時候，經常會毀掉那些家族公司的財富。

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　　21. Such large, impersonal manipulation of capital and industry greatly increased the numbers and importance of shareholders as a class, an element in national life representing irresponsible wealth detached from the land and the duties of the landowners: and almost equally detached from the responsible management of business.

　　[參考譯文] 這樣巨大而非個人的對資金和產業的放縱極大地增加了股東的數量和他們作為一個階級的重要性，這是國家生活中代表不負責任的財富的一個因素，這種財富不但遠離了土地和土地擁有者的責任，而且幾乎同樣與公司的負責任的管理毫無關系。

　　22. Towns like Bournemouth and Eastbourne sprang up to house large comfortable classes who had retired on their incomes, and who had no relation to the rest of the community except that of drawing dividends and occasionally attending a shareholders meeting to dictate their orders to the management.

　　[參考譯文] 像伯恩茅斯和伊斯特本這樣的城鎮的涌現是為了給那些數量很多的舒 適階級提供居住場所。這些人依賴于其豐厚收入而不工作，他們除了分紅和偶爾參加一下股東大會，向管理層口授一下自己的命令之外，跟社會的其他階層毫無瓜葛。

　　23. The shareholders as such had no knowledge of the lives, thoughts or needs of the workmen employed by the company in which he held shares, and his influence on the relations of capital and labor was not good.

　　[參考譯文] 這樣的股東對他擁有股份的公司所雇用的工人們的生活、思想和需求一無所知，而且他們對勞資雙方的關系都不會產生積極的影響。

　　24. The paid manager acting for the company was in more direct relation with the men and their demands, but even he had seldom that familiar personal knowledge of the workmen which the employer had often had under the more patriarchal system of the old family business now passing away.

　　[參考譯文] 代表公司的花錢雇來的經理與工人及其需求的關系更加直接，但是就連 他對工人們也沒有那種熟識的私人之間的了解。而在現在正在消失的古老家族公司的那種更加家長式的制度下的雇主們卻常常對他們的工人有這樣的私人關系。

　　25. Among the many shaping factors, I would single out the countrys excellent elementary schools: a labor force that welcomed the new technology; the practice of giving premiums to inventors; and above all the American genius for nonverbal, spatial thinking about things technological.

　　[參考譯文] 在許多形成因素當中，我將挑選出這些：這個國家優秀的小學教育：歡 迎新技術的勞動者們：獎勵發明者的做法;而且最重要的是美國人在對那些技術性事物的非言語的、 空間性的思考方面的天賦。

　　26. As Eugene Ferguson has pointed out, A technologist thinks about objects that can not be reduced to unambiguous verbal descriptions: they are dealt with in his mind by a visual, nonverbal process...The designer and the inventor.., are able to assemble and manipulate in their minds devices that as yet do not exist.

　　[參考譯文] 正如尤金弗格森所指出的那樣：一個技術專家思考那些不能被簡化成 能被清楚的語言描述的東西。這些東西在他的思維中是通過一種視覺的、非語言表述的過程宋處理的設計者和發明者能夠在他們的腦中裝配并作那些還不存在的裝置。

　　27. Robert Fulton once wrote, The mechanic should sit down among levers, screws, wedges, wheel, etc, like a poet among the letters of the alphabet, considering them as an exhibition of his thoughts, in which a new arrangement transmits a new idea.

　　[參考譯文] 羅伯特法歐特曾經這樣寫到：一個技師會坐在杠桿、螺絲釘、楔子、 輪子等等當中，就像一個詩人沉浸在字母表的字母中，把這些字母看成自己思想的展示，在這樣的展示中，每種新的次序安排都傳達了一種新的思想。

　　28. In the last three chapters, he takes off his gloves and gives the creationists a good beating. He describes their programs and, tactics, and, for those unfamiliar with the ways of creationists, the extent of their deception and distortion may come as an unpleasant surprise.

　　[參考譯文] 在最后三章中，他脫下手套，將神造論者好好地揍了一頓。他描述了他 們的活動和戰術，而且，對于那些對神造論者的做事方式刁;熟悉的人來說，神造論者的欺騙和扭曲事實的程度可能會令這些人有一種不快的詫異。

　　29. On the dust jacket of this fine book, Stephen Jay Gould says: This book stands for reason itself. And so it does-and all wound be well were reason the only judge in the creationism/evolution debate.

　　[參考譯文] 在這本杰出的書的外紙封面上，史蒂芬杰伊古爾德寫道：這本書本 身就代表理性。而它確實是這樣的--而且如果理性成為神造論/地化論之間的辯論中的惟一評判標準的話，一切就都好辦了。

　　30. After six months of arguing and final 16 hours of hot parliamentary debates, Australias Northern Territory became the first legal authority in the world to allow doctors to take the lives of incurably ill patients who wish to die.

　　[參考譯文] 經過了六個月的爭論以及最后16個小時激烈的議會辯論，澳大利亞北部地區成了世界上第一個允許醫生終止希望死去的絕癥病人生命的立法當局。

　　31. Some have breathed sighs of relief, others, including churches, right-to-life groups and the Australian Medical Association, bitterly attacked the bill and the haste of its passage. But the tide is unlikely to turn back.

　　[參考譯文] 一些機構終于松了一口氣，但是其他一些機構，包括教堂，倡導生命之 權的團體和澳大利亞醫學協會，尖銳地抨擊這個法案，指責法案的通過過于匆忙。但是大勢已定，不可逆轉。

　　32. In Australia- where an aging population, life-extending technology and changing community attitudes have all played their partother states are going to consider making a similar law to deal with euthanasia.

　　[參考譯文] 在澳大利亞--人口老齡化，延長壽命的技術和變化看的社會態度，這些因素都在發揮作用一一其他的州也會考慮制定相似的關于安樂死的法律。

　　33. There are, of course, exceptions. Small--minded officials, rude waiters, and ill mannered taxi drivers are hardly unknown in the US. Yet it is an observation made so frequently that it deserves comment.

　　[參考譯文] 當然，例外是存在的。在美國，心胸狹窄的官員，粗魯的傳者，和沒有 禮貌的出租車司機也并不少見。然而人們常常得出這樣的觀察意見，這使得它值得被討論一下。

　　34. We live in a society in which the medicinal and social use of substances is pervasive: an aspirin to quiet a headache, some wine to be sociable, coffee to get going in the morning, a cigarette for the nerves.