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  3. The United States in the 1990s has had seven years of economic boom with low unemployment, low inflation, and low government def

The United States in the 1990s has had seven years of economic boom with low unemployment, low inflation, and low government def

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问题     The United States in the 1990s has had seven years of economic boom with low unemployment, low inflation, and low government deficit. Amid all of this good news, inequality has increased and wages have barely risen. Common sense knowledge seems to be right in this instance, that is, the rich get richer, the poor get poorer, and the middle class is shrinking. Though President Clinton boasts that the number of people on welfare has decreased significantly under his regime to 8 million, a 44% decline from 1994, he forgets that there are still 36.5 million poor people in the United States, which is only a 2% decline in the same amount of time. How is it possible that we have increasing inequality during economic prosperity?
    This contradiction is not easily explained by the dominant neoclassical economic discourse of our time. Nor is it resolved by neoconservative social policy. More helpful is the one book under review: James K. Galbraith’s Created Unequal, a Keynesian analysis of increasing wage inequality.
    James K. Galbraith provides a multicausal analysis that blames the current free market monetary policy for the increasing wage inequality. He calls for a rebellion in economic analysis and policy and for a reapplication of Keynesian macroeconomics to solve the problem. In Created Unequal, Galbraith successfully debunks the conservative contention that wage inequality is necessary because the new skill-based technological innovation requires educated workers who are in short supply. For Galbraith, this is a fantasy. He also critiques their two other assertions: first, that global competition requires an increase in inequality and that the maintenance of inequality is necessary to fight inflation. He points to transfer payments that are mediated by the state: payment to the poor in the form of welfare is minor relative to payment to the elderly in the form of social security or to the rich in the form of interest on public and private debt.
    Galbraith minimizes the social indicators of race, gender, and class and tells us that these are not important in understanding wage inequality. What is important is Keynesian macroeconomics. To make this point, he introduces a sectoral analysis of the economy. Here knowledge is dominant(the K-sector)and the producers of consumption goods(the C-sector)are in decline. The third sector is large and low paid(the S-sector). The K-sector controls the new technologies and wields monopoly power. Both wages and profit decline in the other two sectors. As a result of monopoly, power inequality increases.
According to the conservative theory, wage inequality is necessary because_____.
选项 A、it is a condition created by the labor market
B、there is an overall decline in the world’s economy
C、technological innovation has not produced the desired result
D、the number of people on welfare has decreased
答案A
解析 这是一道细节题。题干中的信号词为conservative，出自第三段第三句话。文章第三段指出：在《创造的不平等》一书中，加尔布雷思成功地批驳了这样的保守观点，也就是，工资的不平等是必然的，因为以新技能为基础的技术革新需要的是受过教育的工人，而这些人供不应求。这说明，保守派理论认为，造成这种现象的原因是劳动力市场。A说“这是由劳动力市场导致的一种现象”，这与文章的意思符合。文中没有提到B和C；与D有关的信息是第一段的第四句话，文中是说“克林顿总统鼓吹说，在他执政期间，靠福利生活的人数已经大幅度减少”，而这并不是保守派理论的观点，所以D不对。
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