雅思阅读模拟题:经济进化论.docx
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1、雅思阅读模拟题:经济进化论 雅思模拟试题在雅思备考过程中所起的作用不行小觑,通过模拟练习题,我们可以很干脆地了解到自己的备考状况,从而可以更有针对性地进行之后的复习。学习啦为大家打算了雅思阅读模拟题:经济进化论.希望以下内容能够对大家的雅思备考有所帮助! 雅思阅读模拟题:经济进化论 Economic Evolution A Living along the Orinoco River that borders Brazil and Venezuela are the Yanomam people, hunter-gatherers whose average annual income has
2、 been estimated at the equivalent of $90 per person per year. Living along the Hudson River that borders New York State and New Jersey are the Manhattan people, consumer traders whose average annual income has been estimated at $36,000 per person per year. That dramatic difference of 400 times, howe
3、ver, pales in comparison to the differences in Stock Keeping Units (SKUs, a measure of the number of types of retail products available), which has been estimated at 300 for the Yanomam and 10 billion for the Manhattans, a difference of 33 million times. B How did this happen? According to economist
4、 Eric D. Beinhocker, who published these calculations in his revelatory work The Origin of Wealth (Harvard Business School Press, 2006), the explanation is to be found in complexity theory. Evolution and economics are not just analogous to each other, but they are actually two forms of a larger phen
5、omenon called complex adaptive systems, in which individual elements, parts or agents interact, then process information and adapt their behavior to changing conditions. Immune systems, ecosystems, language, the law and the Internet are all examples of complex adaptive systems. C In biological evolu
6、tion, nature selects from the variation produced by random genetic mutations and the mixing of parental genes. Out of that process of cumulative selection emerges complexity and diversity. In economic evolution, our material economy proceeds through the production and selection of numerous permutati
7、ons of countless products. Those 10 billion products in the Manhattan village represent only those variations that made it to market, after which there is a cumulative selection by consumers in the marketplace for those deemed most useful:VHS over Betamax, DVDs over VHS, CDs over vinyl records, flip
8、 phones over brick phones, computers over typewriters, Google over Altavista, SUVs over station wagons, paper books over e-books (still), and Internet news over network news (soon).Those that are purchased “survive” and "reproduce" into the future through repetitive use and remanufacturing
9、. D As with living organisms and ecosystems, the economy looks designedso just as humans naturally deduce the existence of a top-down intelligent designer, humans also (understandably) infer that a top-down government designer is needed in nearly every aspect of the economy. But just as living organ
10、isms are shaped from the bottom up by natural selection, the economy is molded from the bottom up by the invisible hand. The correspondence between evolution and economics is not perfect, because some top-down institutional rules and laws are needed to provide a structure within which free and fair
11、trade can occur. But too much top-down interference into the marketplace makes trade neither free nor fair. When such attempts have been made in the past they have failedbecause markets are far too complex, interactive and autocatalytic to be designed from the top down. In his 1922 book, Socialism,
12、Ludwig Von Mises spelled out the reasons why, most notably the problem of “economic calculation” in a planned socialist economy. In capitalism, prices are in constant and rapid flux and are determined from below by individuals freely exchanging in the marketplace. Money is a means of exchange, and p
13、rices are the information people use to guide their choices. Von Mises demonstrated that socialist economies depend on capitalist economies to determine what prices should be assigned to goods and services. And they do so cumbersomely and inefficiently. Relatively free markets are, ultimately, the o
14、nly way to find out what buyers are willing to pay and what sellers are willing to accept. E Economics helps to explain how Yanomam-like hunter-gatherers evolved into Manhattan-like consumer-traders. In the Nineteenth century French economist Frederic Bastiat well captured the principle: “Where good
15、s do not cross frontiers, armies will." In addition to being fierce warriors, the Yanomam are also sophisticated traders, and the more they trade the less they fight. The reason is that trade is a powerful social adhesive that creates political alliances. One village cannot go to another villag
16、e and announce that they are worried about being conquered by a third, more powerful villagethat would reveal weakness. Instead they mask the real motives for alliance through trade and reciprocal feasting. And, as a result, not only gain military protection but also initiate a system of trade thati
17、n the long runleads to an increase in both wealth and SKUs. F Free and fair trade occurs in societies where most individuals interact in ways that provide mutual benefit. The necessary rules weren't generated by wise men in a sacred temple, or lawmakers in congress, but rather evolved over gener
18、ations and were widely accepted and practiced before the law was ever written. Laws that fail this test are ignored. If enforcement becomes too onerous, there is rebellion. Yet the concept that human interaction must, and can be controlled by a higher force is universal. Interestingly, there is no w
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