評論
打印
Globalization's Dual Power
全球化的雙重力量
Robert J. Samuelson
羅伯特·J.塞繆爾森
At the edge of a new century, globalization is a double-edged sword: a powerful vehicle that raises economic growth, spreads new technology and raises living standards in rich and poor countries alike; but also an immensely controversial process that assaults national sovereignty, erodes local culture and tradition and threatens economic and social instability.
在新世紀即將到來之際，全球化是一把雙刃劍：它不僅僅是富國和窮國促進經濟增長、傳播新技術、提高生活水平的有力工具；同時它還是一個極具爭議性的進程，它侵犯了國家主權，腐蝕了當地的文化傳統，造成經濟和社會的不穩定。
A daunting question of the 21st century is whether nations will control this great upheaval or whether it will come to control them.
21世紀一個讓人膽戰心驚的問題是，各個國家能否控制這一劇變，抑或是被這一劇變控制。
In some respects globalization is merely a trendy word for an old process. What we call the market is simply the joining of buyers and sellers, producers and consumers, and savers and investors. Economic history consists largely of the story of the market's expansion: from farm to town, from region to nation and from nation to nation. In the 20th century, the Depression and two world wars retarded the market's growth. But after World War Ⅱ ended, it re-accelerated, driven by political pressures and better technology.
從某種程度上來說，全球化只是一個時髦字眼而已，用來形容一種由來已久的過程。我們所說的市場只不過是買方和賣方、生產者和消費者、儲蓄者和投資者的結合。經濟史在很大程度上就是市場擴張的過程：從農場到城鎮、從地區到國家、從一個國家到另一個國家。在20世紀，經濟大蕭條和兩次世界大戰阻礙了市場的發展。但是在二戰結束后，受政治壓力與更先進技術的推動作用，經濟又得以加速發展。
The Cold War, from the late 1940s through the 1980s, caused the United States to champion trade liberalization and economic growth as a way of combating communism. A succession of major trade negotiations reduced average tariffs in industrialized countries to about 5 percent in 1990 from about 40 percent in 1946.
從20世紀40年代后期到80年代，“冷戰”促使美國極力捍衛貿易自由化和經濟增長，并以此作為對抗共產主義的一種手段。一系列的重要貿易談判使工業化國家的平均關稅從1946年的約40%削減到1990年的5%左右。
