首页
外语
计算机
考研
公务员
职业资格
财经
工程
司法
医学
专升本
自考
实用职业技能
登录
考研
Between the invention of agriculture and the commercial revolution that marked the end of the middle ages, wealth and technology
Between the invention of agriculture and the commercial revolution that marked the end of the middle ages, wealth and technology
admin
2013-01-30
26
问题
Between the invention of agriculture and the commercial revolution that marked the end of the middle ages, wealth and technology developed slowly indeed. Medieval historians tell of the centuries it took for key inventions like the watermill or the heavy plow to diffuse across the landscape. During this period, increases in technology led to increases in the population, with little if any appearing as an improvement in the median standard of living.
Even the first century of the industrial revolution produced more " improvements" than "revolutions" in standards of living. With the railroad and the spinning and weaving of textiles as important exceptions, most innovations of that period were innovations in how goods were produced and transported and in new kinds of capital, but not in consumer goods. Standards of living improved, but styles of life remained much the same.
The eighteenth and nineteenth centuries saw a faster and different kind of change. For the first time, technological capability outran population growth and natural resource scarcity. By the last quarter of the nineteenth century, the typical inhabitant of the leading economies—a Briton, a Belgian, an American, or an Australian had perhaps three times the standard of living of some-one in a pre-industrial economy.
Still, so slow was the pace of change that people, or at least aristocratic intellectuals, could think of their predecessors of some two thousand years before as effectively their contemporaries. Marcus Tullius Cicero, a Roman aristocrat and politician, might have felt more or less at home in the company of Thomas Jefferson. The plows were better in Jefferson’ s time. Sailing ships were much improved. However, these might have been insufficient to create a sense of a qualitative change in the order of life for the elite. Moreover, being a slave of Jefferson was probably a lot like being a slave of Cicero.
So slow was the pace of change that intellectuals in the early nineteenth century debated whether the industrial revolution was worthwhile, whether it was an improvement or a degeneration in the standard of living. Opinions were genuinely divided, with as optimistic a liberal as John Stuart Mill coming down on the "pessimist" side as late as the end of the 1840s.
In the twentieth century, however, standards of living exploded. In the twentieth century, the magnitude of the growth in material wealth has been so great as to make it nearly impossible to measure. Consider a sample of consumer goods available through Montgomery Ward in 1895— when a one-speed bicycle cost $ 65. Since then, the price of a bicycle measured in "nominal" dollars has more than doubled (as a result of inflation) . Today, the bicycle is much less expensive in terms of the measure that truly counts, its "real" price: the work and sweat needed to earn its cost. In 1895, it took perhaps 260 hours worth of the average American worker’ s production to amass enough money to buy a one-speed bicycle. Today an average American worker can buy one—and of higher quality—for less than 8 hours worth of production.
On the bicycle standard (measuring wealth by counting up how many bicycles the labor can buy) the average American worker today is 36 times richer than his or her counterpart was in 1895. Other commodities would tell a different story. An office chair has become 12. 5 times cheaper in terms of the time it takes the average worker to produce enough to pay for it. A Steinway piano or an accordion is only twice as cheap. A silver teaspoon is 25 percent more expensive.
Thus the answer to the question "How much wealthier are we today than our counterparts of a century ago? " depends on which commodities you view as important. For many personal services—having a butler to answer the door and polish your silver spoons—you would find little difference in average wealth between 1895 and 1990: an hour of a butler’ s time costs about the same then as now. For mass-produced manufactured goods—like bicycles—we are wealthier by as much as 36 times.
In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries upper-class intellectuals_____.
选项
A、believed that they were very much the same as their equals some two thousand years before
B、probably thought that great changes had occurred since Cicero
C、felt that qualitative changes had occurred in the last two thousand years
D、believed in the efficacy of slavery
答案
A
解析
根据第四段第一句“So slow was the pace of change that intellectuals in the early nineteenth century debated”可知,变化最慢的是19世纪的知识分子。由此可得,答案为A。
转载请注明原文地址:https://kaotiyun.com/show/Gmhi777K
0
在职申硕(同等学力)英语
相关试题推荐
What’syourearliestchildhoodmemory?Canyourememberlearningtowalk?Ortalk?Thefirsttimeyou【C1】______thunderorwatche
What’syourearliestchildhoodmemory?Canyourememberlearningtowalk?Ortalk?Thefirsttimeyou【C1】______thunderorwatche
Formillionsofyearsbeforetheappearanceoftheelectriclight,shiftwork,all-nightcableTVandtheInternet,theEarth’s
PerhapsAsurprisinglytheBmainobstaclestoCrealizethisdreamDisneithertechnicalnorcommercial.
Insomeways,theUnitedStateshasmadespectacularprogress.Firesnolongerdestroy18,000buildingsastheydidintheGreat
Thewriterappliedforthejobbecause______Whatwasthewriter’sopinionofthepsychologist?
Andreaallowedthehitchhikertotakearideinhercar,mainlybecause______Andreasuddenlystoppedthecarbecause______
Hemustnotallowthisunusualbarriertostophimfromfightingagainsttheenemy.
Childrenaregettingsofattheymaybethefirstgenerationtodiebeforetheirparents,anexpertclaimedyesterday.Today’
Theverysightoftheimposingbuildingsassuredthesetouristsofthesignificantchangesinthiscity.
随机试题
背景某耐火材料厂新建厂区工程,主要单体为一重钢结构多层厂房工程,地下部分为混凝土灌注桩基础,地上部分柱为钢管混凝土,其他构件均为H型钢构件,钢构件的连接方式主要为高强度螺栓连接。钢构件加工过程中,驻加工厂监理发现个别构件焊接时出现咬边,经过施工单位的科
载脂蛋白AI是下列哪种酶的激活剂
患者,女性,20岁,近1个半月来干咳伴有低热,自觉乏力。听诊右上锁骨下区有固定的湿性啰音。怀疑其肺结核。为进一步确诊,最重要的检查是()
下列情形中,人民法院、人民检察院和公安机关应当通知法律援助机构指派律师为其提供辩护的有:()
关于土的含水率试验请回答以下问题。测量土的含水率试验方法有()。
我国《合同法》规定的承担违约责任的形式有()。
注意事项1.申论考试是对应试者阅读理解能力、综合分析能力、提出和解决问题的能力、文字表达能力的测试。2.应试参考时限:阅读资料40分钟,作答110分钟。3.仔细阅读给定资料,按照后面提出的“作答要求”作答。给定资料
根据对认识源泉的不同回答可将认识论分为
若要使指针p指向一个double类型的动态存储单元,请填空。p=【】malloc(sizeof(double));
Fromtheverybeginning,waterhasfurnishedmanwithasourceoffoodandahighwaytotravel.Thefirstcivilizationsarose【2
最新回复
(
0
)