首页
登录
职称英语
David Landes, author of The Wealth and Poverty of Nations: Why Some Are So R
David Landes, author of The Wealth and Poverty of Nations: Why Some Are So R
游客
2023-12-21
32
管理
问题
David Landes, author of The Wealth and Poverty of Nations: Why Some Are So Rich and Some So Poor, credits the world’s economics and social progress over the last thousand years to "Western civilization and its dissemination." The reason, he believes, is that Europeans invented systematic economic development. Landes adds that two unique aspects of Europeans culture were crucial ingredient in Europe’s economic growth.
First, Landes espouses a generalized form of Max Weber’s thesis that the values of work, initiative, and investment made the difference for Europe. Despite his emphasis on science, Landes does not stress the notion of rationality as such. In his view, "what counts is work, thrift, honesty, patience, tenacity." The only route to economic success for individuals or states is working hard, spending less than you earn, and investing the rest in productive capacity. This is the fundamental explanation of the problem posed by his hook’s subtitle: "Why Some Are So Rich and Some So Poor." For historical reasons—an emphasis on private property, an experience of political pluralism, a temperate climate, an urban style--Europeans have, on balance, followed those practices and therefore have prospered.
Second, and perhaps most important, Europeans were learners. They "learned rather greedily," as Joel Mokyr put it in a review of Landes’s book. Even if Europeans possessed indigenous technologies that gave them an advantage (spectacles, for example), as Landes believes they did, their most vital asset was the ability to assimilate knowledge from around the world and put it to use—as in borrowing the concept of zero and rediscovering Aristotle’s Logic from the Arabs and taking paper and gunpowder from the Chinese via the Muslim world. Landes argues that a systematic resistance to learning from other cultures had become the greatest handicap of the Chinese by the eighteenth century and remains the greatest handicap of Arab countries today.
Although his analysis of Europeans expansion is almost nonexistent, Landes does not argue that Europeans were beneficent bearers of civilization to a benighted world. Rather, he relies on his own common-sense law: "When one group is strong enough to push another around and stands to gain by it, it will do so." In contrast to the new school of world historians, Landes believes that specific cultural values enabled technological advances that in turn made some Europeans strong enough to dominate people in other parts of the world. Europeans therefore proceeded to do so with great viciousness and cruelty. By focusing on their victimization in this process, Landes holds, some postcolonial states have wasted energy that could have been put into productive work and investment. If one could sum up Landes’s advice to these states in one sentence, it might be "Stop whining and get to work." This is particularly important, indeed hopeful, advice, he would argue, because success is not permanent. Advantages are not fixed, gains from trade are unequal, and different societies react differently to market signals. Therefore, not only is there hope for undeveloped countries, but developed countries have little cause to be complacent, because the current situation "will press hard" on them.
The thrust of studies like Landes’s is to identify those distinctive features of European civilization that lie behind Europe’s rise to power and the creation of modernity more generally. Other historians have placed a greater emphasis on such features as liberty, individualism, and Christianity. In a review essay, the art historian Craig Clunas listed some of the less well known linkages that have been proposed between Western culture and modernity, including the propensities to think quantitatively, enjoy pornography, and consume sugar. All such proposals assume the fundamental aptness of the question: What elements of Europeans civilization led to European success? It is a short leap from this assumption to outright triumphalism. The paradigmatic book of this school is, of course, The End of History and the Last Man, in which Francis Fukuyama argues that after the collapse of Nazism in the twentieth century, the only remaining model for human organization in the industrial and communications ages is a combination of market economics and limited, pluralist, democratic government.
选项
A、they lack Work ethic.
B、they lack rationality.
C、they are scientifically backward.
D、they are victimized by colonists.
答案
A
解析
本题是推断题。第二段第四句提到:The only route to economic Success for individuals or states is working hard...,最后说明“Europeans have, on balance, followed those practices and therefore have prospered”,既然Landes认为欧洲之所以与众不同,主要是因为勤劳,由此可以推断贫穷国家是因为缺乏正确的劳动观而致贫。故[A]为答案。
转载请注明原文地址:https://tihaiku.com/zcyy/3292416.html
相关试题推荐
Newscanbesomethingtheauthoritieswantyoutoknow,orsomethingtheywo
Newscanbesomethingtheauthoritieswantyoutoknow,orsomethingtheywo
Newscanbesomethingtheauthoritieswantyoutoknow,orsomethingtheywo
Newscanbesomethingtheauthoritieswantyoutoknow,orsomethingtheywo
Newscanbesomethingtheauthoritieswantyoutoknow,orsomethingtheywo
Newscanbesomethingtheauthoritieswantyoutoknow,orsomethingtheywo
Newscanbesomethingtheauthoritieswantyoutoknow,orsomethingtheywo
Newscanbesomethingtheauthoritieswantyoutoknow,orsomethingtheywo
Newscanbesomethingtheauthoritieswantyoutoknow,orsomethingtheywo
Newscanbesomethingtheauthoritieswantyoutoknow,orsomethingtheywo
随机试题
Spaceisadangerousplace,notonlybecauseofmeteors(流星)butalsobecaus
三维电影three-dimensionalmovie
【B1】[br]【B10】[audioFiles]audio_eufm_j01_231(200910)[/audioFiles]Bybeingdepe
Venturi面罩的吸入氧浓度可调范围为A.25%~50% B.24%~50%
关于三级预防说法错误的是()A.公众体育场所的修建是第一级预防措施 B.对
下列属于脂溶性维生素的有( )A.维生素A B.维生素K C.维生素C
心动周期中,占时间最长的是A.等容收缩期B.射血期C.等容舒张期D.充盈期E.心
变电检修管理规定中,检查与考核内容是指检修质量、检修计划和方案、标准化作业、抢修
某学校的校园改造工程由甲乙两个工程队承包,若甲队单独施工需要30天完成,若乙队单
最易被致龋菌利用产酸的糖是A.葡萄糖 B.蔗糖 C.麦芽糖 D.果糖 E
最新回复
(
0
)