单选题 The United States in the 1990s has had even 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. Commonsense 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 4496 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 rebellion in economic analysis and policy and for a reapplication of Keynesian macroeconomics to solve the problem. In Crested Unequal, Galbraith successfully debunks the conservative contention that wage inequality is necessary because the new skill-biased 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 are minor relative to payment to the elderly in the form of social security or to the rich in the form of interest on pubic 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-section 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.

单选题 The writer accuses President Clinton of______.
【正确答案】 A
【答案解析】[解析] 第一段提到,虽然克林顿总统鼓吹说在他执政期间,靠福利生活的人的数量大幅度地减少到800万,自1994年减少了44%,但他忘记了美国还有3,600.5万穷人,在同一时期内只下降了32%。B不对,克林顿总统只是过于乐观,并没有撒谎,经济形势好也是不可否认的事实。
单选题 Galbraith's book______.
【正确答案】 D
【答案解析】[解析] 第二段第一句提到,Galbraith对工资不平等问题的原因进行了多重分析。因而选D:“认为”目前正在扩大的工资不平等现象是由几个因素造成的。
单选题 According to the conservative theory, wage inequality is necessary because______.
【正确答案】 A
【答案解析】[解析] 文章第三段第三句:保守的观点认为工资不平等的存在是必要的,因为以技能为基础的技术革新需要受过教育的人,而这些人是短缺的。可见,这里强调的是劳动力市场(劳动力的供求关系对工资的影响)。
单选题 To which of the following statement would Galbraith agree?
【正确答案】 D
【答案解析】[解析] 见文章第三段最后一句。由州政府作中介的转移支出是造成不平等的主要原因。作者指出,与以公债和私人债务上取得的利息形式支付给富人的款项相比,以福利金形式支付给穷人的款项少得多。深入体会,即选项D“对富人的转移支付使得富人更富”。
单选题 "Monopoly" (in the last sentence) in this passage refers to______.
【正确答案】 B
【答案解析】[解析] 根据最后一段,在现代社会中知识(K成分)占主导地位,控制新技术,可以实施垄断力。而另外两个成分的工资和利润在下降。可见,最后一句中所说的“垄断”指经济中的“K成分”对新技术的垄断。