新概念4-新东课堂笔记-4.doc

Lesson 40 Themes and Variations 主旋律与变奏曲 主旋律与变奏曲 Populations increase and decrease relatively not only to one another, but also to natural resources. Inmost parts of the world, the relation between population and resources is already unfavourable andwill probably become even more unfavourable in the future. This growing poverty in the midst ofgrowing poverty constitutes a permanent menace to peace. And not only to peace, but also todemocratic institutions and personal liberty. For overpopulation is not compatib1e with freedom. Anunfavourable relationship between numbers and resources tends to make the earning of a livingalmost intolerably difficult. Labour is more abundant than goods, and the individual is compelled towork long hours for little pay. No surplus of accumulated purchasing power stands between him andthe tyrannies of unfriendly nature or of the equally unfriendly wielders of political and economicpower. Democracy is, among other things, the ability to say no to the boss. But a man cannot sayno to the boss, unless he is sure of being able to eat when the bosss favour has been withdrawn.And he cannot be certain of his next meal unless he owns the means of producing enough wealth,for his family to live on, or has been able to accumulate a surplus out of past wages, or has a chanceof moving to virgin territories, where he can make a fresh start. In an overcrowded country, very fewpeople own enough to make them financially independent; very few are in a position to accumulatepurchasing power; and there is no free land. Moreover, in any country where population presseshard upon natural resources, the general economic situation is apt to be so precarious thatgovernment control of capital and labour, production and consumption, becomes inevitable. It is noaccident that the twentieth century should be the century of highly centralized governments andtotalitarian dictatorships; it had to be so for the simple reason that the twentieth century is thecentury o