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In Britain the Luddites broke stocking frames to stop machines taking their jobs.
在英國，盧德派分子已經開始破壞織襪機，以阻止機器搶了他們的飯碗。
On the other hand, global demand was damaged by failed ventures in South America and debilitated by the eventual downfall of Napoleon.
另一方面，全球需求因為在南美洲的失敗投機而元氣大傷，因為拿破侖的最終倒臺而一蹶不振。
In Britain government spending was cut by 40% after the Battle of Waterloo in 1815.
在英國，1815年的滑鐵盧戰役后，政府開支被砍掉了40%。
Some 300,000 discharged soldiers and sailors were forced to seek alternative employment.
大約30000名解甲歸田的士兵和水手被迫另謀生路。
The result was a tide of overcapacity, what Say's contemporaries called a “general glut”.
其結果是一波產能過剩，即薩伊的同輩人所說的“總體性供過于求”（general glut）。
Britain was accused of inundating foreign markets, from Italy to Brazil, much as China is blamed for dumping products today.
就像當今的中國一樣，當時的英國被指向從意大利到巴西的外國市場傾銷商品。
In 1818 a visitor to America found “not a city, nor a town, in which the quantity of goods offered for sale is not infinitely greater than the means of the buyers”.
1818年，一位前往美國的游客發現“沒有一座城市或者城鎮，其被用于出售的商品數量不是無限地大于購買者能力”。
It was this “general overstock of all the markets of the universe” that came to preoccupy Say and his critics.
就是這種“世間所有市場的總體存貨過剩”最終吸引了薩伊和他的評論。
In trying to explain it, Say at first denied that a “general” glut could exist.
在試圖解釋這種過剩時，薩伊一上來就否認，“總體性的”供過于求可能存在。
Some goods can be oversupplied, he conceded.
他承認，有些商品可能是被過度供給了。
But goods in general cannot.
但是，商品總體是不可能的。
His reasoning became known as Say's law: “it is production which opens a demand for products”, or, in a later, snappier formulation: supply creates its own demand.
他的推理成為了著名的薩伊定律（Say's law）:“正是生產開啟對產品的需求”，或者是用后來更時髦的公式來說，就是：供給創造自己的需求（supply creates its own demand）。
This proposition, he admitted, has a “paradoxical complexion, which creates a prejudice against it”.
他承認，這種觀點有一種“似是而非的情況，這造成了一種對它的偏見”。
To the modern ear, it sounds like the foolhardy belief that “if you build it, they will come”.
對于現代人來說，這聽上去像是那種“只要建，就有人來”的愚蠢信條。
Rick Perry, America's energy secretary, was ridiculed after a recent visit to a West Virginia coal plant for saying, “You put the supply out there and the demand will follow.”
日前，美國能源部長里克·佩里在訪問了西佛吉尼亞的一座煤礦后，曾因為“把供給擺在那里，需求就會隨之而來”的言論遭到嘲笑。
譯文來源考研英語時事閱讀
