ONE THING ABOUT being a U.S. senator—you fly a lot. There are the flights backand forth1 from Washington at least once a week. There are the trips to other states todeliver a speech, raise money, or campaign for your colleagues. If you represent a bigstate like Illinois, there are flights upstate or downstate, to attend town meetings orribbon cuttings and to make sure that the folks don’t think you’ve forgotten them.
Most of the time I fly commercial and sit in coach, hoping for an aisle3 or window seatand crossing my fingers that the guy in front of me doesn’t want to recline.
But there are times when—because I’m making multiple stops on a West Coast swing,say, or need to get to another city after the last commercial flight has left—I fly on aprivate jet. I hadn’t been aware of this option at first, assuming the cost would beprohibitive. But during the campaign, my staff explained that under Senate rules, asenator or candidate could travel on someone else’s jet and just pay the equivalent of afirst-class airfare. After looking at my campaign schedule and thinking about all thetime I would save, I decided4 to give private jets a try.
It turns out that the flying experience is a good deal different on a private jet. Privatejets depart from privately5 owned and managed terminals, with lounges that feature bigsoft couches and big-screen TVs and old aviation photographs on the walls. Therestrooms are generally empty and spotless, and have those mechanical shoe-shinemachines and mouthwash and mints in a bowl. There’s no sense of hurriedness at theseterminals; the plane is waiting for you if you’re late, ready for you if you’re early. A lotof times you can bypass the lounge altogether and drive your car straight onto thetarmac. Otherwise the pilots will greet you in the terminal, take your bags, and walk youout to the plane.
And the planes, well, they’re nice. The first time I took such a flight, I was on a CitationX, a sleek6, compact, shiny machine with wood paneling and leather seats that you couldpull together to make a bed anytime you decided you wanted a nap. A shrimp8 salad andcheese plate occupied the seat behind me; up front, the minibar was fully9 stocked. Thepilots hung up my coat, offered me my choice of newspapers, and asked me if I wascomfortable. I was.
Then the plane took off, its Rolls-Royce engines gripping the air the way a well-madesports car grips the road. Shooting through the clouds, I turned on the small TV monitorin front of my seat. A map of the United States appeared, with the image of our planetracking west, along with our speed, our altitude, our time to destination, and thetemperature outside. At forty thousand feet, the plane leveled off, and I looked down atthe curving horizon and the scattered10 clouds, the geography of the earth laid out beforeme—first the flat, checkerboard fields of western Illinois, then the python curves of theMississippi, then more farmland and ranch11 land and eventually the jagged Rockies, stillsnow-peaked, until the sun went down and the orange sky narrowed to a thin red linethat was finally consumed by night and stars and moon.
I could see how people might get used to this.
The purpose of that particular trip was fund-raising, mostly—in preparation for mygeneral election campaign, several friends and supporters had organized events for mein L.A., San Diego, and San Francisco. But the most memorable12 part of the trip was avisit that I paid to the town of Mountain View, California, a few miles south of StanfordUniversity and Palo Alto, in the heart of Silicon13 Valley, where the search enginecompany Google maintains its corporate14 headquarters.
Google had already achieved iconic status by mid-2004, a symbol not just of thegrowing power of the Internet but of the global economy’s rapid transformation15. On thedrive down from San Francisco, I reviewed the company’s history: how two StanfordPh.D. candidates in computer science, Larry Page and Sergey Brin, had collaborated17 ina dorm room to develop a better way to search the web; how in 1998, with a milliondollars raised from various contacts, they had formed Google, with three employeesoperating out of a garage; how Google figured out an advertising19 model—based on textads that were nonintrusive and relevant to the user’s search—that made the companyprofitable even as the dot-com boom went bust20; and how, six years after the company’sfounding, Google was about to go public at stock prices that would make Mr. Page andMr. Brin two of the richest people on earth.
Mountain View looked like a typical suburban21 California community—quiet streets,sparkling new office parks, unassuming homes that, because of the unique purchasingpower of Silicon Valley residents, probably ran a cool million or more. We pulled infront of a set of modern, modular buildings and were met by Google’s general counsel,David Drummond, an African American around my age who’d made the arrangementsfor my visit.
“When Larry and Sergey came to me looking to incorporate, I figured they were just acouple of really smart guys with another start-up idea,” David said. “I can’t say Iexpected all this.”
He took me on a tour of the main building, which felt more like a college student centerthan an office—a café on the ground floor, where the former chef of the Grateful Deadsupervised the preparation of gourmet22 meals for the entire staff; video games and aPing-Pong table and a fully equipped gym. (“People spend a lot of time here, so wewant to keep them happy.”) On the second floor, we passed clusters of men and womenin jeans and T-shirts, all of them in their twenties, working intently in front of theircomputer screens, or sprawled23 on couches and big rubber exercise balls, engaged inanimated conversation.
Eventually we found Larry Page, talking to an engineer about a software problem. Hewas dressed like his employees and, except for a few traces of early gray in his hair,didn’t look any older. We spoke24 about Google’s mission—to organize all of the world’sinformation into a universally accessible, unfiltered, and usable form—and the Googlesite index, which already included more than six billion web pages. Recently thecompany had launched a new web-based email system with a built-in search function;they were working on technology that would allow you to initiate25 a voice search overthe telephone, and had already started the Book Project, the goal of which was to scanevery book ever published into a web-accessible format16, creating a virtual library thatwould store the entirety of human knowledge.
Toward the end of the tour, Larry led me to a room where a three-dimensional image ofthe earth rotated on a large flat-panel monitor. Larry asked the young Indian Americanengineer who was working nearby to explain what we were looking at.
“These lights represent all the searches that are going on right now,” the engineer said.
“Each color is a different language. If you move the toggle this way”—he caused thescreen to alter—“you can see the traffic patterns of the entire Internet system.”
The image was mesmerizing26, more organic than mechanical, as if I were glimpsing theearly stages of some accelerating evolutionary27 process, in which all the boundariesbetween men—nationality, race, religion, wealth—were rendered invisible andirrelevant, so that the physicist28 in Cambridge, the bond trader in Tokyo, the student in aremote Indian village, and the manager of a Mexico City department store were drawninto a single, constant, thrumming conversation, time and space giving way to a worldspun entirely30 of light. Then I noticed the broad swaths of darkness as the globe spun29 onits axis—most of Africa, chunks32 of South Asia, even some portions of the United States,where the thick cords of light dissolved into a few discrete33 strands34.
My reverie was broken by the appearance of Sergey, a compact man perhaps a fewyears younger than Larry. He suggested that I go with them to their TGIF assembly, atradition that they had maintained since the beginning of the company, when all ofGoogle’s employees got together over beer and food and discussed whatever they hadon their minds. As we entered a large hall, throngs35 of young people were already seated,some drinking and laughing, others still typing into PDAs or laptops, a buzz ofexcitement in the air. A group of fifty or so seemed more attentive36 than the rest, andDavid explained that these were the new hires, fresh from graduate school; today wastheir induction37 into the Google team. One by one, the new employees were introduced,their faces flashing on a big screen alongside information about their degrees, hobbies,and interests. At least half of the group looked Asian; a large percentage of the whiteshad Eastern European names. As far as I could tell, not one was black or Latino. Later,walking back to my car, I mentioned this to David and he nodded.
“We know it’s a problem,” he said, and mentioned efforts Google was making toprovide scholarships to expand the pool of minority and female math and sciencestudents. In the meantime, Google needed to stay competitive, which meant hiring thetop graduates of the top math, engineering, and computer science programs in thecountry—MIT, Caltech, Stanford, Berkeley. You could count on two hands, David toldme, the number of black and Latino kids in those programs.
In fact, according to David, just finding American-born engineers, whatever their race,was getting harder—which was why every company in Silicon Valley had come to relyheavily on foreign students. Lately, high-tech38 employers had a new set of worries: Since9/11 a lot of foreign students were having second thoughts about studying in the Statesdue to the difficulties in obtaining visas. Top-notch engineers or software designersdidn’t need to come to Silicon Valley anymore to find work or get financing for a start-up. High-tech firms were setting up operations in India and China at a rapid pace, andventure funds were now global; they would just as readily invest in Mumbai orShanghai as in California. And over the long term, David explained, that could spelltrouble for the U.S. economy.
“We’ll be able to keep attracting talent,” he said, “because we’re so well branded. Butfor the start-ups, some of the less established companies, the next Google, who knows?
I just hope somebody in Washington understands how competitive things have become.
Our dominance isn’t inevitable39.”
AROUND THE SAME time that I visited Google, I took another trip that made methink about what was happening with the economy. This one was by car, not jet, alongmiles of empty highway, to a town called Galesburg, forty-five minutes or so from theIowa border in western Illinois.
Founded in 1836, Galesburg had begun as a college town when a group of Presbyterianand Congregational ministers in New York decided to bring their blend of social reformand practical education to the Western frontier. The resulting school, Knox College,became a hotbed of abolitionist activity before the Civil War—a branch of theUnderground Railroad had run through Galesburg, and Hiram Revels41, the nation’s firstblack U.S. senator, attended the college’s prep school before moving back toMississippi. In 1854, the Chicago, Burlington & Quincy railroad line was completedthrough Galesburg, causing a boom in the region’s commerce. And four years later,some ten thousand people gathered to hear the fifth of the Lincoln-Douglas debates,during which Lincoln first framed his opposition42 to slavery as a moral issue.
It wasn’t this rich history, though, that had taken me to Galesburg. Instead, I’d gone tomeet with a group of union leaders from the Maytag plant, for the company hadannounced plans to lay off 1,600 employees and shift operations to Mexico. Like townsall across central and western Illinois, Galesburg had been pounded by the shift ofmanufacturing overseas. In the previous few years, the town had lost industrial partsmakers and a rubber-hose manufacturer; it was now in the process of seeing ButlerManufacturing, a steelmaker recently bought by Australians, shutter44 its doors. Already,Galesburg’s unemployment rate hovered45 near 8 percent. With the Maytag plant’sclosing, the town stood to lose another 5 to 10 percent of its entire employment base.
Inside the machinists’ union hall, seven or eight men and two or three women hadgathered on metal folding chairs, talking in muted voices, a few smoking cigarettes,most of them in their late forties or early fifties, all of them dressed in jeans or khakis,T-shirts or plaid work shirts. The union president, Dave Bevard, was a big, barrel-chested man in his mid-fifties, with a dark beard, tinted46 glasses, and a fedora that madehim look like a member of the band ZZ Top. He explained that the union had triedevery possible tactic47 to get Maytag to change its mind—talking to the press, contactingshareholders, soliciting49 support from local and state officials. The Maytag managementhad been unmoved.
“It ain’t like these guys aren’t making a profit,” Dave told me. “And if you ask ’em,they’ll tell you we’re one of the most productive plants in the company. Qualityworkmanship. Low error rates. We’ve taken cuts in pay, cuts in benefits, layoffs50. Thestate and the city have given Maytag at least $10 million in tax breaks over the last eightyears, based on their promise to stay. But it’s never enough. Some CEO who’s alreadymaking millions of dollars decides he needs to boost the company stock price so he cancash in his options, and the easiest way to do that is to send the work to Mexico and paythe workers there a sixth of what we make.”
I asked them what steps state or federal agencies had taken to retrain workers, andalmost in unison51 the room laughed derisively52. “Retraining is a joke,” the union vicepresident, Doug Dennison, said. “What are you going to retrain for when there aren’tany jobs out there?” He talked about how an employment counselor53 had suggested thathe try becoming a nursing aide, with wages not much higher than what Wal-Mart paidtheir floor clerks. One of the younger men in the group told me a particularly cruelstory: He had made up his mind to retrain as a computer technician, but a week into hiscourses, Maytag called him back. The Maytag work was temporary, but according to therules, if this man refused to accept Maytag’s offer, he’d no longer be eligible55 forretraining money. If, on the other hand, he did go back to Maytag and dropped out ofthe courses he was already taking, then the federal agency would consider him to haveused up his one-time training opportunity and wouldn’t pay for any retraining in thefuture.
I told the group that I’d tell their story during the campaign and offered a few proposalsthat my staff had developed—amending the tax code to eliminate tax breaks forcompanies who shifted operations offshore56; revamping and better funding federalretraining programs. As I was getting ready to go, a big, sturdy man in a baseball capspoke up. He said his name was Tim Wheeler, and he’d been the head of the union atthe nearby Butler steel plant. Workers had already received their pink slips there, andTim was collecting unemployment insurance, trying to figure out what to do next. Hisbig worry now was health-care coverage57.
“My son Mark needs a liver transplant,” he said grimly. “We’re on the waiting list for adonor, but with my health-care benefits used up, we’re trying to figure out if Medicaidwill cover the costs. Nobody can give me a clear answer, and you know, I’ll selleverything I got for Mark, go into debt, but I still…” Tim’s voice cracked; his wife,sitting beside him, buried her head in her hands. I tried to assure them that we wouldfind out exactly what Medicaid would cover. Tim nodded, putting his arm around hiswife’s shoulder.
On the drive back to Chicago, I tried to imagine Tim’s desperation: no job, an ailingson, his savings58 running out.
Those were the stories you missed on a private jet at forty thousand feet.
YOU’LL GET LITTLE argument these days, from either the left or the right, with thenotion that we’re going through a fundamental economic transformation. Advances indigital technology, fiber59 optics, the Internet, satellites, and transportation haveeffectively leveled the economic barriers between countries and continents. Pools ofcapital scour54 the earth in search of the best returns, with trillions of dollars movingacross borders with only a few keystrokes. The collapse60 of the Soviet61 Union, theinstitution of market-based reforms in India and China, the lowering of trade barriers,and the advent62 of big-box retailers63 like Wal-Mart have brought several billion peopleinto direct competition with American companies and American workers. Whether ornot the world is already flat, as columnist64 and author Thomas Friedman says, it iscertainly getting flatter every day.
There’s no doubt that globalization has brought significant benefits to Americanconsumers. It’s lowered prices on goods once considered luxuries, from big-screen TVsto peaches in winter, and increased the purchasing power of low-income Americans. It’shelped keep inflation in check, boosted returns for the millions of Americans nowinvested in the stock market, provided new markets for U.S. goods and services, andallowed countries like China and India to dramatically reduce poverty, which over thelong term makes for a more stable world.
But there’s also no denying that globalization has greatly increased economic instabilityfor millions of ordinary Americans. To stay competitive and keep investors65 happy in theglobal marketplace, U.S.-based companies have automated66, downsized, outsourced, andoffshored. They’ve held the line on wage increases, and replaced defined-benefit healthand retirement67 plans with 401(k)s and Health Savings Accounts that shift more cost andrisk onto workers.
The result has been the emergence68 of what some call a “winner-take-all” economy, inwhich a rising tide doesn’t necessarily lift all boats. Over the past decade, we’ve seenstrong economic growth but anemic job growth; big leaps in productivity but flatliningwages; hefty corporate profits, but a shrinking share of those profits going to workers.
For those like Larry Page and Sergey Brin, for those with unique skills and talents andfor the knowledge workers—the engineers, lawyers, consultants69, and marketers—whofacilitate their work, the potential rewards of a global marketplace have never beengreater. But for those like the workers at Maytag, whose skills can be automated ordigitized or shifted to countries with cheaper wages, the effects can be dire—a future inthe ever-growing pool of low-wage service work, with few benefits, the risk of financialruin in the event of an illness, and the inability to save for either retirement or a child’scollege education.
The question is what we should do about all this. Since the early nineties, when thesetrends first began to appear, one wing of the Democratic Party—led by Bill Clinton—has embraced the new economy, promoting free trade, fiscal70 discipline, and reforms ineducation and training that will help workers to compete for the high-value, high-wagejobs of the future. But a sizable chunk31 of the Democratic base—particularly blue-collarunion workers like Dave Bevard—has resisted this agenda. As far as they’re concerned,free trade has served the interests of Wall Street but has done little to stop thehemorrhaging of good-paying American jobs.
The Republican Party isn’t immune from these tensions. With the recent uproar71 aroundillegal immigration, for example, Pat Buchanan’s brand of “America first” conservatismmay see a resurgence72 within the GOP, and present a challenge to the BushAdministration’s free trade policies. And in his 2000 campaign and early in his firstterm, George W. Bush suggested a legitimate73 role for government, a “compassionateconservatism” that, the White House argues, has expressed itself in the Medicareprescription drug plan and the educational reform effort known as No Child LeftBehind—and that has given small-government conservatives heartburn.
For the most part, though, the Republican economic agenda under President Bush hasbeen devoted74 to tax cuts, reduced regulation, the privatization of government services—and more tax cuts. Administration officials call this the Ownership Society, but most ofits central tenets have been staples75 of laissez-faire economics since at least the 1930s: abelief that a sharp reduction—or in some cases, elimination—of taxes on incomes, largeestates, capital gains, and dividends76 will encourage capital formation, higher savingsrates, more business investment, and greater economic growth; a belief that governmentregulation inhibits78 and distorts the efficient working of the market; and a belief thatgovernment entitlement programs are inherently inefficient79, breed dependency, andreduce individual responsibility, initiative, and choice.
Or, as Ronald Reagan succinctly80 put it: “Government is not the solution to our problem;government is the problem.”
So far, the Bush Administration has only achieved one-half of its equation; theRepublican-controlled Congress has pushed through successive rounds of tax cuts, buthas refused to make tough choices to control spending—special interest appropriations,also known as earmarks, are up 64 percent since Bush took office. Meanwhile,Democratic lawmakers (and the public) have resisted drastic cuts in vital investments—and outright81 rejected the Administration’s proposal to privatize Social Security.
Whether the Administration actually believes that the resulting federal budget deficitsand ballooning national debt don’t matter is unclear. What is clear is that the sea of redink has made it more difficult for future administrations to initiate any new investmentsto address the economic challenges of globalization or to strengthen America’s socialsafety net.
I don’t want to exaggerate the consequences of this stalemate. A strategy of doingnothing and letting globalization run its course won’t result in the imminent82 collapse ofthe U.S. economy. America’s GDP remains83 larger than China’s and India’s combined.
For now, at least, U.S.-based companies continue to hold an edge in such knowledge-based sectors85 as software design and pharmaceutical86 research, and our network ofuniversities and colleges remains the envy of the world.
But over the long term, doing nothing probably means an America very different fromthe one most of us grew up in. It will mean a nation even more stratified economicallyand socially than it currently is: one in which an increasingly prosperous knowledgeclass, living in exclusive enclaves, will be able to purchase whatever they want on themarketplace—private schools, private health care, private security, and private jets—while a growing number of their fellow citizens are consigned87 to low-paying servicejobs, vulnerable to dislocation, pressed to work longer hours, dependent on anunderfunded, overburdened, and underperforming public sector84 for their health care,their retirement, and their children’s educations.
It will mean an America in which we continue to mortgage our assets to foreign lendersand expose ourselves to the whims89 of oil producers; an America in which weunderinvest in the basic scientific research and workforce90 training that will determineour long-term economic prospects91 and neglect potential environmental crises. It willmean an America that’s more politically polarized and more politically unstable92, aseconomic frustration93 boils over and leads people to turn on each other.
Worst of all, it will mean fewer opportunities for younger Americans, a decline in theupward mobility94 that’s been at the heart of this country’s promise since its founding.
That’s not the America we want for ourselves or our children. And I’m confident thatwe have the talent and the resources to create a better future, a future in which theeconomy grows and prosperity is shared. What’s preventing us from shaping that futureisn’t the absence of good ideas. It’s the absence of a national commitment to take thetough steps necessary to make America more competitive—and the absence of a newconsensus around the appropriate role of government in the marketplace.
TO BUILD THAT consensus95, we need to take a look at how our market system hasevolved over time. Calvin Coolidge once said that “the chief business of the Americanpeople is business,” and indeed, it would be hard to find a country on earth that’s beenmore consistently hospitable96 to the logic97 of the marketplace. Our Constitution places theownership of private property at the very heart of our system of liberty. Our religioustraditions celebrate the value of hard work and express the conviction that a virtuous98 lifewill result in material reward. Rather than vilify99 the rich, we hold them up as rolemodels, and our mythology100 is steeped in stories of men on the make—the immigrantwho comes to this country with nothing and strikes it big, the young man who headsWest in search of his fortune. As Ted7 Turner famously said, in America money is howwe keep score.
The result of this business culture has been a prosperity that’s unmatched in humanhistory. It takes a trip overseas to fully appreciate just how good Americans have it;even our poor take for granted goods and services—electricity, clean water, indoorplumbing, telephones, televisions, and household appliances—that are still unattainablefor most of the world. America may have been blessed with some of the planet’s bestreal estate, but clearly it’s not just our natural resources that account for our economicsuccess. Our greatest asset has been our system of social organization, a system that forgenerations has encouraged constant innovation, individual initiative, and the efficientallocation of resources.
It should come as no surprise, then, that we have a tendency to take our free-marketsystem as a given, to assume that it flows naturally from the laws of supply and demandand Adam Smith’s invisible hand. And from this assumption, it’s not much of a leap toassume that any government intrusion into the magical workings of the market—whether through taxation101, regulation, lawsuits102, tariffs103, labor18 protections, or spending onentitlements—necessarily undermines private enterprise and inhibits economic growth.
The bankruptcy104 of communism and socialism as alternative means of economicorganization has only reinforced this assumption. In our standard economics textbooksand in our modern political debates, laissez-faire is the default rule; anyone who wouldchallenge it swims against the prevailing105 tide.
It’s useful to remind ourselves, then, that our free-market system is the result neither ofnatural law nor of divine providence106. Rather, it emerged through a painful process oftrial and error, a series of difficult choices between efficiency and fairness, stability andchange. And although the benefits of our free-market system have mostly derived107 fromthe individual efforts of generations of men and women pursuing their own vision ofhappiness, in each and every period of great economic upheaval108 and transition we’vedepended on government action to open up opportunity, encourage competition, andmake the market work better.
In broad outline, government action has taken three forms. First, government has beencalled upon throughout our history to build the infrastructure109, train the workforce, andotherwise lay the foundations necessary for economic growth. All the Founding Fathersrecognized the connection between private property and liberty, but it was AlexanderHamilton who also recognized the vast potential of a national economy—one based noton America’s agrarian110 past but on a commercial and industrial future. To realize thispotential, Hamilton argued, America needed a strong and active national government,and as America’s first Treasury111 secretary he set about putting his ideas to work. Henationalized the Revolutionary War debt, which not only stitched together theeconomies of the individual states but helped spur a national system of credit and fluidcapital markets. He promoted policies—from strong patent laws to high tariffs—toencourage American manufacturing, and proposed investment in roads and bridgesneeded to move products to market.
Hamilton encountered fierce resistance from Thomas Jefferson, who feared that a strongnational government tied to wealthy commercial interests would undermine his visionof an egalitarian democracy tied to the land. But Hamilton understood that only throughthe liberation of capital from local landed interests could America tap into its mostpowerful resource—namely the energy and enterprise of the American people. This ideaof social mobility constituted one of the great early bargains of American capitalism112;industrial and commercial capitalism might lead to greater instability, but it would be adynamic system in which anyone with enough energy and talent could rise to the top.
And on this point, at least, Jefferson agreed—it was based on his belief in ameritocracy, rather than a hereditary113 aristocracy, that Jefferson would champion thecreation of a national, government-financed university that could educate and traintalent across the new nation, and that he considered the founding of the University ofVirginia to be one of his greatest achievements.
This tradition, of government investment in America’s physical infrastructure and in itspeople, was thoroughly114 embraced by Abraham Lincoln and the early Republican Party.
For Lincoln, the essence of America was opportunity, the ability of “free labor” toadvance in life. Lincoln considered capitalism the best means of creating suchopportunity, but he also saw how the transition from an agricultural to an industrialsociety was disrupting lives and destroying communities.
So in the midst of civil war, Lincoln embarked115 on a series of policies that not only laidthe groundwork for a fully integrated national economy but extended the ladders ofopportunity downward to reach more and more people. He pushed for the constructionof the first transcontinental railroad. He incorporated the National Academy ofSciences, to spur basic research and scientific discovery that could lead to newtechnology and commercial applications. He passed the landmark116 Homestead Act of1862, which turned over vast amounts of public land across the western United States tosettlers from the East and immigrants from around the world, so that they, too, couldclaim a stake in the nation’s growing economy. And then, rather than leave thesehomesteaders to fend117 for themselves, he created a system of land grant colleges toinstruct farmers on the latest agricultural techniques, and to provide them the liberaleducation that would allow them to dream beyond the confines of life on the farm.
Hamilton’s and Lincoln’s basic insight—that the resources and power of the nationalgovernment can facilitate, rather than supplant118, a vibrant119 free market—has continued tobe one of the cornerstones of both Republican and Democratic policies at every stage ofAmerica’s development. The Hoover Dam, the Tennessee Valley Authority, theinterstate highway system, the Internet, the Human Genome Project—time and again,government investment has helped pave the way for an explosion of private economicactivity. And through the creation of a system of public schools and institutions ofhigher education, as well as programs like the GI Bill that made a college educationavailable to millions, government has helped provide individuals the tools to adapt andinnovate in a climate of constant technological120 change.
Aside from making needed investments that private enterprise can’t or won’t make onits own, an active national government has also been indispensable in dealing121 withmarket failures—those recurring122 snags in any capitalist system that either inhibit77 theefficient workings of the market or result in harm to the public. Teddy Rooseveltrecognized that monopoly power could restrict competition, and made “trust busting” acenterpiece of his administration. Woodrow Wilson instituted the Federal ReserveBank, to manage the money supply and curb123 periodic panics in the financial markets.
Federal and state governments established the first consumer laws—the Pure Food andDrug Act, the Meat Inspection124 Act—to protect Americans from harmful products.
But it was during the stock market crash of 1929 and the subsequent Depression that thegovernment’s vital role in regulating the marketplace became fully apparent. Withinvestor confidence shattered, bank runs threatening the collapse of the financialsystem, and a downward spiral in consumer demand and business investment, FDRengineered a series of government interventions125 that arrested further economiccontraction. For the next eight years, the New Deal administration experimented withpolicies to restart the economy, and although not all of these interventions producedtheir intended results, they did leave behind a regulatory structure that helps limit therisk of economic crisis: a Securities and Exchange Commission to ensure transparencyin the financial markets and protect smaller investors from fraud and insidermanipulation; FDIC insurance to provide confidence to bank depositors; andcountercyclical fiscal and monetary127 policies, whether in the form of tax cuts, increasedliquidity, or direct government spending, to stimulate128 demand when business andconsumers have pulled back from the market.
Finally—and most controversially—government has helped structure the socialcompact between business and the American worker. During America’s first 150 years,as capital became more concentrated in trusts and limited liability corporations, workerswere prevented by law and by violence from forming unions that would increase theirown leverage129. Workers had almost no protections from unsafe or inhumane workingconditions, whether in sweatshops or meatpacking plants. Nor did American culturehave much sympathy for workers left impoverished130 by capitalism’s periodic gales40 of“creative destruction”—the recipe for individual success was greater toil131, not pamperingfrom the state. What safety net did exist came from the uneven132 and meager133 resources ofprivate charity.
Again, it took the shock of the Great Depression, with a third of all people findingthemselves out of work, ill housed, ill clothed, and ill fed, for government to correct thisimbalance. Two years into office, FDR was able to push through Congress the SocialSecurity Act of 1935, the centerpiece of the new welfare state, a safety net that wouldlift almost half of all senior citizens out of poverty, provide unemployment insurancefor those who had lost their jobs, and provide modest welfare payments to the disabledand the elderly poor. FDR also initiated134 laws that fundamentally changed therelationship between capital and labor: the forty-hour workweek, child labor laws, andminimum wage laws; and the National Labor Relations Act, which made it possible toorganize broad-based industrial unions and forced employers to bargain in good faith.
Part of FDR’s rationale in passing these laws came straight out of Keynesianeconomics: One cure for economic depression was putting more disposable income inthe pockets of American workers. But FDR also understood that capitalism in ademocracy required the consent of the people, and that by giving workers a larger shareof the economic pie, his reforms would undercut the potential appeal of government-managed, command-and-control systems—whether fascist135, socialist136, or communist—that were gaining support all across Europe. As he would explain in 1944, “People whoare hungry, people who are out of a job are the stuff of which dictatorships are made.”
For a while this seemed to be where the story would end—with FDR saving capitalismfrom itself through an activist137 federal government that invests in its people andinfrastructure, regulates the marketplace, and protects labor from chronic138 deprivation139.
And in fact, for the next twenty-five years, through Republican and Democraticadministrations, this model of the American welfare state enjoyed a broad consensus.
There were those on the right who complained of creeping socialism, and those on theleft who believed FDR had not gone far enough. But the enormous growth of America’smass production economy, and the enormous gap in productive capacity between theUnited States and the war-torn economies of Europe and Asia, muted most ideologicalbattles. Without any serious rivals, U.S. companies could routinely pass on higher laborand regulatory costs to their customers. Full employment allowed unionized factoryworkers to move into the middle class, support a family on a single income, and enjoythe stability of health and retirement security. And in such an environment of steadycorporate profits and rising wages, policy makers43 found only modest political resistanceto higher taxes and more regulation to tackle pressing social problems—hence thecreation of the Great Society programs, including Medicare, Medicaid, and welfare,under Johnson; and the creation of the Environmental Protection Agency andOccupational Health and Safety Administration under Nixon.
There was only one problem with this liberal triumph—capitalism would not stand still.
By the seventies, U.S. productivity growth, the engine of the postwar economy, beganto lag. The increased assertiveness141 of OPEC allowed foreign oil producers to lop off amuch bigger share of the global economy, exposing America’s vulnerability todisruptions in energy supplies. U.S. companies began to experience competition fromlow-cost producers in Asia, and by the eighties a flood of cheap imports—in textiles,shoes, electronics, and even automobiles—had started grabbing big chunks of thedomestic market. Meanwhile, U.S.-based multinational142 corporations began locatingsome of their production facilities overseas—partly to access these foreign markets, butalso to take advantage of cheap labor.
In this more competitive global environment, the old corporate formula of steady profitsand stodgy143 management no longer worked. With less ability to pass on higher costs orshoddy products to consumers, corporate profits and market share shrank, and corporateshareholders began demanding more value. Some corporations found ways to improveproductivity through innovation and automation. Others relied primarily on brutallayoffs, resistance to unionization, and a further shift of production overseas. Thosecorporate managers who didn’t adapt were vulnerable to corporate raiders and leveragedbuyout artists, who would make the changes for them, without any regard for theemployees whose lives might be upended or the communities that might be torn apart.
One way or another, American companies became leaner and meaner—with old-linemanufacturing workers and towns like Galesburg bearing the brunt of thistransformation.
It wasn’t just the private sector that had to adapt to this new environment. As RonaldReagan’s election made clear, the people wanted the government to change as well.
In his rhetoric144, Reagan tended to exaggerate the degree to which the welfare state hadgrown over the previous twenty-five years. At its peak, the federal budget as a totalshare of the U.S. economy remained far below the comparable figures in WesternEurope, even when you factored in the enormous U.S. defense145 budget. Still, theconservative revolution that Reagan helped usher146 in gained traction126 because Reagan’scentral insight—that the liberal welfare state had grown complacent147 and overlybureaucratic, with Democratic policy makers more obsessed148 with slicing the economicpie than with growing the pie—contained a good deal of truth. Just as too manycorporate managers, shielded from competition, had stopped delivering value, too manygovernment bureaucracies had stopped asking whether their shareholders48 (the Americantaxpayer) and their consumers (the users of government services) were getting theirmoney’s worth.
Not every government program worked the way it was advertised. Some functionscould be better carried out by the private sector, just as in some cases market-basedincentives could achieve the same results as command-and-control-style regulations, ata lower cost and with greater flexibility150. The high marginal tax rates that existed whenReagan took office may not have curbed151 incentives149 to work or invest, but they diddistort investment decisions—and did lead to a wasteful152 industry of setting up taxshelters. And while welfare certainly provided relief for many impoverished Americans,it did create some perverse153 incentives when it came to the work ethic154 and familystability.
Forced to compromise with a Democrat-controlled Congress, Reagan would neverachieve many of his most ambitious plans for reducing government. But hefundamentally changed the terms of the political debate. The middle-class tax revoltbecame a permanent fixture155 in national politics and placed a ceiling on how muchgovernment could expand. For many Republicans, noninterference with the marketplacebecame an article of faith.
Of course, many voters continued to look to the government during economicdownturns, and Bill Clinton’s call for more aggressive government action on theeconomy helped lift him to the White House. After the politically disastrous156 defeat ofhis health-care plan and the election of a Republican Congress in 1994, Clinton had totrim his ambitions but was able to put a progressive slant157 on some of Reagan’s goals.
Declaring the era of big government over, Clinton signed welfare reform into law,pushed tax cuts for the middle class and working poor, and worked to reducebureaucracy and red tape. And it was Clinton who would accomplish what Reagannever did, putting the nation’s fiscal house in order even while lessening158 poverty andmaking modest new investments in education and job training. By the time Clinton leftoffice, it appeared as if some equilibrium159 had been achieved—a smaller government,but one that retained the social safety net FDR had first put into place.
Except capitalism is still not standing160 still. The policies of Reagan and Clinton mayhave trimmed some of the fat of the liberal welfare state, but they couldn’t change theunderlying realities of global competition and technological revolution. Jobs are stillmoving overseas—not just manufacturing work, but increasingly work in the servicesector that can be digitally transmitted, like basic computer programming. Businessescontinue to struggle with high health-care costs. America continues to import far morethan it exports, to borrow far more than it lends.
Without any clear governing philosophy, the Bush Administration and its congressionalallies have responded by pushing the conservative revolution to its logical conclusion—even lower taxes, even fewer regulations, and an even smaller safety net. But in takingthis approach, Republicans are fighting the last war, the war they waged and won in theeighties, while Democrats161 are forced to fight a rearguard action, defending the NewDeal programs of the thirties.
Neither strategy will work anymore. America can’t compete with China and Indiasimply by cutting costs and shrinking government—unless we’re willing to tolerate adrastic decline in American living standards, with smog-choked cities and beggarslining the streets. Nor can America compete simply by erecting162 trade barriers andraising the minimum wage—unless we’re willing to confiscate163 all the world’scomputers.
But our history should give us confidence that we don’t have to choose between anoppressive, government-run economy and a chaotic164 and unforgiving capitalism. It tellsus that we can emerge from great economic upheavals165 stronger, not weaker. Like thosewho came before us, we should be asking ourselves what mix of policies will lead to adynamic free market and widespread economic security, entrepreneurial innovation andupward mobility. And we can be guided throughout by Lincoln’s simple maxim166: thatwe will do collectively, through our government, only those things that we cannot do aswell or at all individually and privately.
In other words, we should be guided by what works.
WHAT MIGHT SUCH a new economic consensus look like? I won’t pretend to haveall the answers, and a detailed167 discussion of U.S. economic policy would fill up severalvolumes. But I can offer a few examples of where we can break free of our currentpolitical stalemate; places where, in the tradition of Hamilton and Lincoln, we caninvest in our infrastructure and our people; ways that we can begin to modernize168 andrebuild the social contract that FDR first stitched together in the middle of the lastcentury.
Let’s start with those investments that can make America more competitive in theglobal economy: investments in education, science and technology, and energyindependence.
Throughout our history, education has been at the heart of a bargain this nation makeswith its citizens: If you work hard and take responsibility, you’ll have a chance for abetter170 life. And in a world where knowledge determines value in the job market, wherea child in Los Angeles has to compete not just with a child in Boston but also withmillions of children in Bangalore and Beijing, too many of America’s schools are notholding up their end of the bargain.
In 2005 I paid a visit to Thornton Township High School, a predominantly black highschool in Chicago’s southern suburbs. My staff had worked with teachers there toorganize a youth town hall meeting—representatives of each class spent weeksconducting surveys to find out what issues their fellow students were concerned aboutand then presented the results in a series of questions to me. At the meeting they talkedabout violence in the neighborhoods and a shortage of computers in their classrooms.
But their number one issue was this: Because the school district couldn’t afford to keepteachers for a full school day, Thornton let out every day at 1:30 in the afternoon. Withthe abbreviated171 schedule, there was no time for students to take science lab or foreignlanguage classes.
How come we’re getting shortchanged? they asked me. Seems like nobody even expectsus to go to college, they said.
They wanted more school.
We’ve become accustomed to such stories, of poor black and Latino childrenlanguishing in schools that can’t prepare them for the old industrial economy, much lessthe information age. But the problems with our educational system aren’t restricted tothe inner city. America now has one of the highest high school dropout172 rates in theindustrialized world. By their senior year, American high school students score loweron math and science tests than most of their foreign peers. Half of all teenagers can’tunderstand basic fractions, half of all nine-year-olds can’t perform basic multiplicationor division, and although more American students than ever are taking college entranceexams, only 22 percent are prepared to take college-level classes in English, math, andscience.
I don’t believe government alone can turn these statistics around. Parents have theprimary responsibility for instilling173 an ethic of hard work and educational achievementin their children. But parents rightly expect their government, through the publicschools, to serve as full partners in the educational process—just as it has for earliergenerations of Americans.
Unfortunately, instead of innovation and bold reform of our schools—the reforms thatwould allow the kids at Thornton to compete for the jobs at Google—what we’ve seenfrom government for close to two decades has been tinkering around the edges and atolerance for mediocrity. Partly this is a result of ideological140 battles that are as outdatedas they are predictable. Many conservatives argue that money doesn’t matter in raisingeducational achievement; that the problems in public schools are caused by haplessbureaucracies and intransigent teachers’ unions; and that the only solution is to break upthe government’s education monopoly by handing out vouchers175. Meanwhile, those onthe left often find themselves defending an indefensible status quo, insisting that morespending alone will improve educational outcomes.
Both assumptions are wrong. Money does matter in education—otherwise why wouldparents pay so much to live in well-funded suburban school districts?—and many urbanand rural schools still suffer from overcrowded classrooms, outdated174 books, inadequateequipment, and teachers who are forced to pay out of pocket for basic supplies. Butthere’s no denying that the way many public schools are managed poses at least as big aproblem as how well they’re funded.
Our task, then, is to identify those reforms that have the highest impact on studentachievement, fund them adequately, and eliminate those programs that don’t produceresults. And in fact we already have hard evidence of reforms that work: a morechallenging and rigorous curriculum with emphasis on math, science, and literacy skills;longer hours and more days to give children the time and sustained attention they needto learn; early childhood education for every child, so they’re not already behind ontheir first day of school; meaningful, performance-based assessments176 that can provide afuller picture of how a student is doing; and the recruitment and training oftransformative principals and more effective teachers.
This last point—the need for good teachers—deserves emphasis. Recent studies showthat the single most important factor in determining a student’s achievement isn’t thecolor of his skin or where he comes from, but who the child’s teacher is. Unfortunately,too many of our schools depend on inexperienced teachers with little training in thesubjects they’re teaching, and too often those teachers are concentrated in alreadystruggling schools. Moreover, the situation is getting worse, not better: Each year,school districts are hemorrhaging experienced teachers as the Baby Boomers reachretirement, and two million teachers must be recruited in the next decade just to meetthe needs of rising enrollment177.
The problem isn’t that there’s no interest in teaching; I constantly meet young peoplewho’ve graduated from top colleges and have signed up, through programs like Teachfor America, for two-year stints178 in some of the country’s toughest public schools. Theyfind the work extraordinarily179 rewarding; the kids they teach benefit from their creativityand enthusiasm. But by the end of two years, most have either changed careers ormoved to suburban schools—a consequence of low pay, a lack of support from theeducational bureaucracy, and a pervasive180 feeling of isolation181.
If we’re serious about building a twenty-first-century school system, we’re going tohave to take the teaching profession seriously. This means changing the certificationprocess to allow a chemistry major who wants to teach to avoid expensive additionalcourse work; pairing up new recruits with master teachers to break their isolation; andgiving proven teachers more control over what goes on in their classrooms.
It also means paying teachers what they’re worth. There’s no reason why anexperienced, highly qualified182, and effective teacher shouldn’t earn $100,000 annually183 atthe peak of his or her career. Highly skilled teachers in such critical fields as math andscience—as well as those willing to teach in the toughest urban schools—should be paideven more.
There’s just one catch. In exchange for more money, teachers need to become moreaccountable for their performance—and school districts need to have greater ability toget rid of ineffective teachers.
So far, teacher’s unions have resisted the idea of pay for performance, in part because itcould be disbursed184 at the whim88 of a principal. The unions also argue—rightly, I think—that most school districts rely solely185 on test scores to measure teacher performance, andthat test scores may be highly dependent on factors beyond any teacher’s control, likethe number of low-income or special-needs students in their classroom.
But these aren’t insoluble problems. Working with teacher’s unions, states and schooldistricts can develop better measures of performance, ones that combine test data with asystem of peer review (most teachers can tell you with amazing consistency186 whichteachers in their schools are really good, and which are really bad). And we can makesure that nonperforming teachers no longer handicap children who want to learn.
Indeed, if we’re to make the investments required to revamp our schools, then we willneed to rediscover our faith that every child can learn. Recently, I had the chance tovisit Dodge187 Elementary School, on the West Side of Chicago, a school that had oncebeen near the bottom on every measure but that is in the midst of a turnaround. While Iwas talking to some of the teachers about the challenges they faced, one young teachermentioned what she called the “These Kids Syndrome”—the willingness of society tofind a million excuses for why “these kids” can’t learn; how “these kids come fromtough backgrounds” or “these kids are too far behind.”
“When I hear that term, it drives me nuts,” the teacher told me. “They’re not ‘thesekids.’ They’re our kids.”
How America’s economy performs in the years to come may depend largely on howwell we take such wisdom to heart.
OUR INVESTMENT IN education can’t end with an improved elementary andsecondary school system. In a knowledge-based economy where eight of the ninefastest-growing occupations this decade require scientific or technological skills, mostworkers are going to need some form of higher education to fill the jobs of the future.
And just as our government instituted free and mandatory188 public high schools at thedawn of the twentieth century to provide workers the skills needed for the industrialage, our government has to help today’s workforce adjust to twenty-first-centuryrealities.
In many ways, our task should be easier than it was for policy makers a hundred yearsago. For one thing, our network of universities and community colleges already existsand is well equipped to take on more students. And Americans certainly don’t need tobe convinced of the value of a higher education—the percentage of young adults gettingbachelor’s degrees has risen steadily189 each decade, from around 16 percent in 1980 toalmost 33 percent today.
Where Americans do need help, immediately, is in managing the rising cost ofcollege—something with which Michelle and I are all too familiar (for the first ten yearsof our marriage, our combined monthly payments on our undergraduate and law schooldebt exceeded our mortgage by a healthy margin). Over the last five years, the averagetuition and fees at four-year public colleges, adjusted for inflation, have risen 40percent. To absorb these costs, students have been taking on ever-increasing debt levels,which discourages many undergraduates from pursuing careers in less lucrative190 fieldslike teaching. And an estimated two hundred thousand college-qualified students eachyear choose to forgo2 college altogether because they can’t figure out how to pay thebills.
There are a number of steps we can take to control costs and improve access to highereducation. States can limit annual tuition increases at public universities. For manynontraditional students, technical schools and online courses may provide a cost-effective option for retooling191 in a constantly changing economy. And students can insistthat their institutions focus their fund-raising efforts more on improving the quality ofinstruction than on building new football stadiums.
But no matter how well we do in controlling the spiraling cost of education, we will stillneed to provide many students and parents with more direct help in meeting collegeexpenses, whether through grants, low-interest loans, tax-free educational savingsaccounts, or full tax deductibility of tuition and fees. So far, Congress has been movingin the opposite direction, by raising interest rates on federally guaranteed student loansand failing to increase the size of grants for low-income students to keep pace withinflation. There’s no justification192 for such policies—not if we want to maintainopportunity and upward mobility as the hallmark of the U.S. economy.
There’s one other aspect of our educational system that merits attention—one thatspeaks to the heart of America’s competitiveness. Since Lincoln signed the Morrill Actand created the system of land grant colleges, institutions of higher learning have servedas the nation’s primary research and development laboratories. It’s through theseinstitutions that we’ve trained the innovators of the future, with the federal governmentproviding critical support for the infrastructure—everything from chemistry labs toparticle accelerators—and the dollars for research that may not have an immediatecommercial application but that can ultimately lead to major scientific breakthroughs.
Here, too, our policies have been moving in the wrong direction. At the 2006Northwestern University commencement, I fell into a conversation with Dr. RobertLanger, an Institute Professor of chemical engineering at MIT and one of the nation’sforemost scientists. Langer isn’t just an ivory tower academic—he holds more than fivehundred patents, and his research has led to everything from the development of thenicotine patch to brain cancer treatments. As we waited for the procession to begin, Iasked him about his current work, and he mentioned his research in tissue engineering,research that promised new, more effective methods of delivering drugs to the body.
Remembering the recent controversies193 surrounding stem cell research, I asked himwhether the Bush Administration’s limitation on the number of stem cell lines was thebiggest impediment to advances in his field. He shook his head.
“Having more stem cell lines would definitely be useful,” Langer told me, “but the realproblem we’re seeing is significant cutbacks in federal grants.” He explained that fifteenyears ago, 20 to 30 percent of all research proposals received significant federal support.
That level is now closer to 10 percent. For scientists and researchers, this means moretime spent raising money and less time spent on research. It also means that each year,more and more promising194 avenues of research are cut off—especially the high-riskresearch that may ultimately yield the biggest rewards.
Dr. Langer’s observation isn’t unique. Each month, it seems, scientists and engineersvisit my office to discuss the federal government’s diminished commitment to fundingbasic scientific research. Over the last three decades federal funding for the physical,mathematical, and engineering sciences has declined as a percentage of GDP—just atthe time when other countries are substantially increasing their own R & D budgets.
And as Dr. Langer points out, our declining support for basic research has a directimpact on the number of young people going into math, science, and engineering—which helps explain why China is graduating eight times as many engineers as theUnited States every year.
If we want an innovation economy, one that generates more Googles each year, then wehave to invest in our future innovators—by doubling federal funding of basic researchover the next five years, training one hundred thousand more engineers and scientistsover the next four years, or providing new research grants to the most outstanding early-career researchers in the country. The total price tag for maintaining our scientific andtechnological edge comes out to approximately $42 billion over five years—realmoney, to be sure, but just 15 percent of the most recent federal highway bill.
In other words, we can afford to do what needs to be done. What’s missing is notmoney, but a national sense of urgency.
THE LAST CRITICAL investment we need to make America more competitive is in anenergy infrastructure that can move us toward energy independence. In the past, war ora direct threat to national security has shaken America out of its complacency and led tobigger investments in education and science, all with an eye toward minimizing ourvulnerabilities. That’s what happened at the height of the Cold War, when the launchingof the satellite Sputnik led to fears that the Soviets195 were slipping ahead of ustechnologically. In response, President Eisenhower doubled federal aid to education andprovided an entire generation of scientists and engineers the training they needed to leadrevolutionary advances. That same year, the Defense Advanced Research ProjectsAgency, or DARPA, was formed, providing billions of dollars to basic research thatwould eventually help create the Internet, bar codes, and computer-aided design. And in1961, President Kennedy would launch the Apollo space program, further inspiringyoung people across the country to enter the New Frontier of science.
Our current situation demands that we take the same approach with energy. It’s hard tooverstate the degree to which our addiction196 to oil undermines our future. According tothe National Commission on Energy Policy, without any changes to our energy policyU.S. demand for oil will jump 40 percent over the next twenty years. Over the sameperiod, worldwide demand is expected to jump at least 30 percent, as rapidly developingcountries like China and India expand industrial capacity and add 140 million cars totheir roads.
Our dependence169 on oil doesn’t just affect our economy. It undermines our nationalsecurity. A large portion of the $800 million we spend on foreign oil every day goes tosome of the world’s most volatile regimes—Saudi Arabia, Nigeria, Venezuela, and,indirectly at least, Ira
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forgo
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aisle
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decided
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privately
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shrimp
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ranch
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silicon
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corporate
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transformation
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format
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advertising
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opposition
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| n.制造者，制造商（maker的复数形式） | |
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44
shutter
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| n.百叶窗；(照相机)快门；关闭装置 | |
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45
hovered
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| 鸟( hover的过去式和过去分词 )； 靠近（某事物）； （人）徘徊； 犹豫 | |
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46
tinted
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| adj. 带色彩的 动词tint的过去式和过去分词 | |
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47
tactic
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| n.战略，策略；adj.战术的，有策略的 | |
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48
shareholders
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| n.股东( shareholder的名词复数 ) | |
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49
soliciting
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| v.恳求( solicit的现在分词 )；（指娼妇）拉客；索求；征求 | |
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50
layoffs
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| 临时解雇( layoff的名词复数 )； 停工，停止活动 | |
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51
unison
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| n.步调一致，行动一致 | |
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52
derisively
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| adv. 嘲笑地，嘲弄地 | |
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53
counselor
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| n.顾问，法律顾问 | |
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54
scour
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| v.搜索；擦，洗，腹泻，冲刷 | |
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55
eligible
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| adj.有条件被选中的；(尤指婚姻等)合适(意)的 | |
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56
offshore
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| adj.海面的，吹向海面的；adv.向海面 | |
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57
coverage
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| n.报导，保险范围，保险额，范围，覆盖 | |
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58
savings
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| n.存款，储蓄 | |
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59
fiber
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| n.纤维，纤维质 | |
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60
collapse
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| vi.累倒；昏倒；倒塌；塌陷 | |
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61
Soviet
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| adj.苏联的，苏维埃的；n.苏维埃 | |
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62
advent
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| n.(重要事件等的)到来，来临 | |
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63
retailers
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| 零售商，零售店( retailer的名词复数 ) | |
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64
columnist
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| n.专栏作家 | |
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65
investors
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| n.投资者，出资者( investor的名词复数 ) | |
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66
automated
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| a.自动化的 | |
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67
retirement
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| n.退休，退职 | |
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68
emergence
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| n.浮现，显现，出现，（植物）突出体 | |
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69
consultants
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| 顾问( consultant的名词复数 )； 高级顾问医生，会诊医生 | |
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70
fiscal
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| adj.财政的，会计的，国库的，国库岁入的 | |
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71
uproar
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| n.骚动，喧嚣，鼎沸 | |
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72
resurgence
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| n.再起，复活，再现 | |
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73
legitimate
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|
| adj.合法的，合理的，合乎逻辑的；v.使合法 | |
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74
devoted
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| adj.忠诚的，忠实的，热心的，献身于...的 | |
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75
staples
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|
| n.（某国的）主要产品( staple的名词复数 )；钉书钉；U 形钉；主要部份v.用钉书钉钉住( staple的第三人称单数 ) | |
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76
dividends
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| 红利( dividend的名词复数 )； 股息； 被除数； （足球彩票的）彩金 | |
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77
inhibit
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| vt.阻止，妨碍，抑制 | |
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78
inhibits
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| 阻止，抑制( inhibit的第三人称单数 )； 使拘束，使尴尬 | |
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79
inefficient
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|
| adj.效率低的，无效的 | |
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80
succinctly
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|
| adv.简洁地；简洁地，简便地 | |
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81
outright
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|
| adv.坦率地；彻底地；立即；adj.无疑的；彻底的 | |
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82
imminent
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| adj.即将发生的，临近的，逼近的 | |
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83
remains
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|
| n.剩余物，残留物；遗体，遗迹 | |
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84
sector
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| n.部门，部分；防御地段，防区；扇形 | |
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85
sectors
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| n.部门( sector的名词复数 )；领域；防御地区；扇形 | |
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86
pharmaceutical
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| adj.药学的，药物的；药用的，药剂师的 | |
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87
consigned
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| v.把…置于（令人不快的境地）( consign的过去式和过去分词 )；把…托付给；把…托人代售；丟弃 | |
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88
whim
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| n.一时的兴致，突然的念头；奇想，幻想 | |
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89
WHIMS
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| 虚妄，禅病 | |
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90
workforce
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| n.劳动大军，劳动力 | |
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91
prospects
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| n.希望，前途(恒为复数) | |
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92
unstable
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| adj.不稳定的，易变的 | |
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93
frustration
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| n.挫折，失败，失效，落空 | |
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94
mobility
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| n.可动性，变动性，情感不定 | |
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95
consensus
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| n.(意见等的)一致，一致同意，共识 | |
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96
hospitable
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|
| adj.好客的；宽容的；有利的，适宜的 | |
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97
logic
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| n.逻辑(学)；逻辑性 | |
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98
virtuous
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| adj.有品德的，善良的，贞洁的，有效力的 | |
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99
vilify
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| v.诽谤，中伤 | |
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100
mythology
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|
| n.神话，神话学，神话集 | |
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101
taxation
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| n.征税，税收，税金 | |
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102
lawsuits
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| n.诉讼( lawsuit的名词复数 ) | |
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103
tariffs
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|
| 关税制度； 关税( tariff的名词复数 )； 关税表； （旅馆或饭店等的）收费表； 量刑标准 | |
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104
bankruptcy
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|
| n.破产；无偿付能力 | |
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105
prevailing
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|
| adj.盛行的；占优势的；主要的 | |
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106
providence
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| n.深谋远虑，天道，天意；远见；节约；上帝 | |
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107
derived
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|
| vi.起源；由来；衍生；导出v.得到( derive的过去式和过去分词 )；（从…中）得到获得；源于；（从…中）提取 | |
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108
upheaval
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|
| n.胀起，(地壳)的隆起；剧变，动乱 | |
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109
infrastructure
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| n.下部构造，下部组织，基础结构，基础设施 | |
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110
agrarian
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|
| adj.土地的，农村的，农业的 | |
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111
treasury
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| n.宝库；国库，金库；文库 | |
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112
capitalism
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| n.资本主义 | |
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113
hereditary
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| adj.遗传的，遗传性的，可继承的，世袭的 | |
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114
thoroughly
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| adv.完全地，彻底地，十足地 | |
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115
embarked
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| 乘船( embark的过去式和过去分词 )； 装载； 从事 | |
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116
landmark
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| n.陆标，划时代的事，地界标 | |
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117
fend
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| v.照料（自己），（自己）谋生，挡开，避开 | |
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118
supplant
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| vt.排挤；取代 | |
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119
vibrant
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|
| adj.震颤的，响亮的，充满活力的，精力充沛的，(色彩)鲜明的 | |
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120
technological
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| adj.技术的；工艺的 | |
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121
dealing
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| n.经商方法，待人态度 | |
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122
recurring
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| adj.往复的，再次发生的 | |
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123
curb
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| n.场外证券市场，场外交易；vt.制止，抑制 | |
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124
inspection
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| n.检查，审查，检阅 | |
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125
interventions
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| n.介入，干涉，干预( intervention的名词复数 ) | |
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126
traction
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| n.牵引；附着摩擦力 | |
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127
monetary
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| adj.货币的，钱的；通货的；金融的；财政的 | |
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128
stimulate
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| vt.刺激，使兴奋；激励，使…振奋 | |
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129
leverage
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| n.力量，影响；杠杆作用，杠杆的力量 | |
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130
impoverished
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|
| adj.穷困的，无力的，用尽了的v.使（某人）贫穷( impoverish的过去式和过去分词 )；使（某物）贫瘠或恶化 | |
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131
toil
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| vi.辛劳工作，艰难地行动；n.苦工，难事 | |
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132
uneven
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| adj.不平坦的，不规则的，不均匀的 | |
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133
meager
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| adj.缺乏的，不足的，瘦的 | |
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134
initiated
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| n. 创始人 adj. 新加入的 vt. 开始，创始，启蒙，介绍加入 | |
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135
fascist
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|
| adj.法西斯主义的；法西斯党的；n.法西斯主义者，法西斯分子 | |
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136
socialist
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| n.社会主义者；adj.社会主义的 | |
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137
activist
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| n.活动分子，积极分子 | |
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138
chronic
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| adj.(疾病)长期未愈的，慢性的；极坏的 | |
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139
deprivation
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| n.匮乏；丧失；夺去，贫困 | |
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140
ideological
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| a.意识形态的 | |
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141
assertiveness
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| n.过分自信 | |
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142
multinational
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| adj.多国的，多种国籍的；n.多国籍公司，跨国公司 | |
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143
stodgy
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|
| adj.易饱的；笨重的；滞涩的；古板的 | |
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144
rhetoric
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| n.修辞学，浮夸之言语 | |
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145
defense
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| n.防御，保卫；[pl.]防务工事；辩护，答辩 | |
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146
usher
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|
| n.带位员，招待员；vt.引导，护送；vi.做招待，担任引座员 | |
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147
complacent
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| adj.自满的；自鸣得意的 | |
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148
obsessed
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| adj.心神不宁的,鬼迷心窍的,沉迷的 | |
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149
incentives
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| 激励某人做某事的事物( incentive的名词复数 )； 刺激； 诱因； 动机 | |
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150
flexibility
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| n.柔韧性，弹性，（光的）折射性，灵活性 | |
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151
curbed
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| v.限制，克制，抑制( curb的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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152
wasteful
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|
| adj.（造成）浪费的，挥霍的 | |
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153
perverse
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| adj.刚愎的；坚持错误的，行为反常的 | |
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154
ethic
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| n.道德标准，行为准则 | |
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155
fixture
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| n.固定设备；预定日期；比赛时间；定期存款 | |
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156
disastrous
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|
| adj.灾难性的，造成灾害的；极坏的，很糟的 | |
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157
slant
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| v.倾斜，倾向性地编写或报道；n.斜面，倾向 | |
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158
lessening
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| 减轻，减少，变小 | |
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159
equilibrium
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| n.平衡，均衡，相称，均势，平静 | |
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160
standing
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| n.持续，地位；adj.永久的，不动的，直立的，不流动的 | |
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161
democrats
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| n.民主主义者，民主人士( democrat的名词复数 ) | |
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162
erecting
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| v.使直立，竖起( erect的现在分词 )；建立 | |
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163
confiscate
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|
| v.没收(私人财产)，把…充公 | |
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164
chaotic
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|
| adj.混沌的，一片混乱的，一团糟的 | |
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165
upheavals
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| 突然的巨变( upheaval的名词复数 )； 大动荡； 大变动； 胀起 | |
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166
maxim
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| n.格言，箴言 | |
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167
detailed
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| adj.详细的，详尽的，极注意细节的，完全的 | |
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168
modernize
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| vt.使现代化，使适应现代的需要 | |
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169
dependence
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|
| n.依靠，依赖；信任，信赖；隶属 | |
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170
abetter
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| n.教唆者，怂恿者 | |
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171
abbreviated
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|
| adj. 简短的，省略的 动词abbreviate的过去式和过去分词 | |
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172
dropout
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| n.退学的学生；退学；退出者 | |
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173
instilling
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| v.逐渐使某人获得（某种可取的品质），逐步灌输( instil的现在分词 )；逐渐使某人获得（某种可取的品质），逐步灌输( instill的现在分词 ) | |
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174
outdated
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| adj.旧式的，落伍的，过时的；v.使过时 | |
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175
vouchers
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| n.凭证( voucher的名词复数 )；证人；证件；收据 | |
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176
assessments
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| n.评估( assessment的名词复数 )；评价；（应偿付金额的）估定；（为征税对财产所作的）估价 | |
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177
enrollment
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| n.注册或登记的人数；登记 | |
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178
stints
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| n.定额工作( stint的名词复数 )；定量；限额；慷慨地做某事 | |
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179
extraordinarily
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| adv.格外地；极端地 | |
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180
pervasive
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| adj.普遍的；遍布的，(到处)弥漫的；渗透性的 | |
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181
isolation
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| n.隔离，孤立，分解，分离 | |
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182
qualified
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| adj.合格的，有资格的，胜任的，有限制的 | |
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183
annually
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| adv.一年一次，每年 | |
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184
disbursed
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| v.支出，付出( disburse的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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185
solely
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| adv.仅仅，唯一地 | |
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186
consistency
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| n.一贯性，前后一致，稳定性；(液体的)浓度 | |
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187
dodge
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| v.闪开，躲开，避开；n.妙计，诡计 | |
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188
mandatory
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| adj.命令的；强制的；义务的；n.受托者 | |
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189
steadily
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| adv.稳定地；不变地；持续地 | |
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190
lucrative
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| adj.赚钱的，可获利的 | |
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191
retooling
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| v.（给…）更换工具， （给…）更换机械设备( retool的现在分词 )；改组，革新 | |
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192
justification
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| n.正当的理由；辩解的理由 | |
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193
controversies
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| 争论 | |
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194
promising
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| adj.有希望的，有前途的 | |
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195
soviets
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| 苏维埃（Soviet的复数形式） | |
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196
addiction
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| n.上瘾入迷，嗜好 | |
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