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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.
"Monopoly"(in the last sentence)in the passage refers to_____.
选项 A、the exclusive control of the market forces by the rich
B、the dominant control of the new technologies by a particular sector
C、the powerful control of the K-sector over the C-and S-sectors
D、the ignorance of the social indicators of race, gender, and class in understanding inequality
答案B
解析 这是一道词义题。文章最后一段指出：在现代社会，知识(K成分)占主导地位，消费品生产者(C成分)的地位在下降，第三个成分(S成分)人数众多，收入却低；K成分控制着新技术，掌握着垄断力量；由于垄断的原因，权力不平等的现象在增加。这说明，该词指的是“某个成分独自控制新技术”。B说“某个特殊成分主控新技术”，这与文章的意思符合。A和C明显与文章的意思不符：与D有关的信息是该段的第一句话，文中是说“加尔布雷思淡化了种族、性别和阶级这些社会因素，他告诉我们，这些因素对于理解工资不平等都不重要”，这与该词指代的内容没有关系，所以D不对。
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