新概念英语85上外美音 第四册 第40课 原文 美音版, 新概念英语

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Lesson 40 Themes and Variations

Populations increase and decrease relatively not only to one another, but also to natural resources. In most parts of the world, the relation between population and resources is already unfavourable and will probably become even more unfavourable in the future. This growing poverty in the midst of growing poverty constitutes a permanent menace to peace. And not only to peace, but also to democratic institutions and personal liberty. For overpopulation is not compatible with freedom. An unfavourable relationship between numbers and resources tends to make the earning of a living almost intolerably difficult. Labour is more abundant than goods, and the individual is compelled to work long hours for little pay. No surplus of accumulated purchasing power stands between him and the tyrannies of unfriendly nature or of the equally unfriendly wielders of political and economic power. Democracy is, among other things, the ability to say 'no' to the boss. But a man cannot say 'no' to the boss, unless he is sure of being able to eat when the boss's favour has been withdrawn. And he cannot be certain of his next meal unless he owns the means of producing enough wealth for his family to live on, or has been able to  accumulate a surplus out of past wages, or has a chance of moving to virgin territories, where he can make a fresh start. In an overcrowded country,very few people own enough to make them financially independent; very few are in a position to accumulate purchasing power; and there is no free land. Moreover, in any country where population presses hard upon natural resources, the general economic situation is apt to be so precarous that government control of capital and labour, production and consumption, becomes inevitable. It is no accident that the twentieth century should be the century of highly centralized governments and totalitarian dictatorships; it had to be so for the simple reason that the twentieth century is the century is the century of planetary overcrowding.

                                                                                                          ALDOUS HUXLEY Themes and Variations
unfavourable adj. 不妙的                             
poverty noun. 贫穷的
on the midst of 在···中间
constitute vt. 构成
overpopulation noun. 人口过剩
menace noun. 威胁
compatible adj. 相容的
intolerably adv. 极端地
compel vt. 强迫
purchasing power 购买力
stand vi. 存在
tyranny noun. 残暴
wielder noun. 支配者
virgin adj. 未开垦的
apt adj. 易于······
precarious adj. 不稳定的
inevitable adj. 不可避免的
totalitarian adj. 极权主义的
dictatorship noun. 独裁，专政
planetary adj. 行星的
theme noun. 主旋律，主题
variation noun.变奏曲

李武军

good job~~