1. Whereas other societies look to the past for guidance, we cast our nets forward（面向未来）
 
2. It is the belief in a brighter future that gives us optimism.
 
3. Even these days, when not all progress seems positive (nuclear weapons, air pollution, unemployment, etc.), the belief remains¹ that for every problem there is a rational solution.
 
4. The job of the parents is to give the children every opportunity while they are growing up and then get out of their way.
 
5. What deference² people in authority do command is based on their actual powers rather than on their age, wisdom, or dignity.
 
6. In a society that changes as fast as ours, experience simply does not have the value that it does in traditional societies.
 
7. It has taken a long time to convince the public that free enterprise does not mean that a company should be free to pollute the air, foul³ the rivers, and destroy the forests.
 
8. The assembly line reduced workers to cogs of machinery⁴ and made their jobs unutterably boring, but it produced goods fast.
 
9. Food is prepackaged and shopping is impersonal⁵, but the efficiency of the operation produces lower prices and less shopping time.

11. In America, there are no such expressions such as in china where “the fat pig gets slaughtered,” or in Japan, where “the nail that sticks out gets hammered down.”
 
12. This freedom from the group has enabled the American to become “Economic Man”—one directed almost purely⁶ by profit motive⁷, mobile and unencumbered（不受阻碍的）by family or community obligations.
 
13. Equipped with the money, one can acquire the taste, style, and ideas that mark each class and launch a quick ascent⁸ of the social ladder.
 
14. Actually, persons in status societies who are secure in their niches⁹ （适当的位置）are allowed more eccentricity¹⁰ than Americans, who rely heavily on signals that other people like them.
 
15. When half the population goes to college, one cannot expect the colleges to maintain the same standards as in countries where only the elite¹¹ attend.
 
16. Just as not every Japanese is hardworking and deferential¹² to superiors （长者、上司）, not every Chinese is devoted¹³ to family, not every American is ambitious or patriotic¹⁴ – or even unsophisticated.
 
17. No one could seriously think that anyone who grows up poor, lives in a bad neighborhood, and attends an inferior school has an opportunity equal to that of someone more favored.
 
18. Americans may not have achieved equality, but at least they aspire¹⁵ to it, which is more than many other nations can claim.
 
19. In many countries, when jobs become available for young people in distant cities, when television begins to dominate home life, when ready – made foods appear in the markets, the culture appears more “American” – although the resemblance could be entirely¹⁶ superficial.

21. When the demand for something is greater than its supply, producers and suppliers will sense the possibility of making a profit – the excess of revenues over expenses is the profit.
 
22. As the case illustrates¹⁷, competition takes four general forms: pure competition, monopoly, monopolistic competition, and oligopoly（少数制造商对市场的控制）.
 
23. The classic example of pure competition occurs with a commodity, like wheat or corn, that has so many producers that no one of them can control its selling price.
 
24. A monopoly occurs when one company alone offers a particular food or service and therefore controls the market and price for it.
 
25. Private restaurants serve gourmet¹⁸ food for $70 per person; incentives¹⁹ boosted agricultural production 25 percent and industrial output 80 percent in just three years; farmers are encouraged to raise as much as they can on their own plots, and some become almost rich in the process.（注意本句中分号的使用）
 
26. All these changes in China’s economic life have brought changes in China’s social and cultural life as well, many of which unwanted.
 
27. If productivity measures the efficiency of an economy, a measure of what an economic system produces is its gross national product (GNP), which is the current market value of all final goods and services that a nation produces within a particular period.