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Globalization's Dual Power
全球化的双重力量
Robert J. Samuelson
罗伯特·J.塞缪尔森
At the edge of a new century, globalization is a double-edged sword: a powerful vehicle that raises economic growth, spreads new technology and raises living standards in rich and poor countries alike; but also an immensely controversial process that assaults national sovereignty, erodes local culture and tradition and threatens economic and social instability.
在新世纪即将到来之际，全球化是一把双刃剑：它不仅仅是富国和穷国促进经济增长、传播新技术、提高生活水平的有力工具；同时它还是一个极具争议性的进程，它侵犯了国家主权，腐蚀了当地的文化传统，造成经济和社会的不稳定。
A daunting question of the 21st century is whether nations will control this great upheaval or whether it will come to control them.
21世纪一个让人胆战心惊的问题是，各个国家能否控制这一剧变，抑或是被这一剧变控制。
In some respects globalization is merely a trendy word for an old process. What we call the market is simply the joining of buyers and sellers, producers and consumers, and savers and investors. Economic history consists largely of the story of the market's expansion: from farm to town, from region to nation and from nation to nation. In the 20th century, the Depression and two world wars retarded the market's growth. But after World War Ⅱ ended, it re-accelerated, driven by political pressures and better technology.
从某种程度上来说，全球化只是一个时髦字眼而已，用来形容一种由来已久的过程。我们所说的市场只不过是买方和卖方、生产者和消费者、储蓄者和投资者的结合。经济史在很大程度上就是市场扩张的过程：从农场到城镇、从地区到国家、从一个国家到另一个国家。在20世纪，经济大萧条和两次世界大战阻碍了市场的发展。但是在二战结束后，受政治压力与更先进技术的推动作用，经济又得以加速发展。
The Cold War, from the late 1940s through the 1980s, caused the United States to champion trade liberalization and economic growth as a way of combating communism. A succession of major trade negotiations reduced average tariffs in industrialized countries to about 5 percent in 1990 from about 40 percent in 1946.
从20世纪40年代后期到80年代，“冷战”促使美国极力捍卫贸易自由化和经济增长，并以此作为对抗共产主义的一种手段。一系列的重要贸易谈判使工业化国家的平均关税从1946年的约40%削减到1990年的5%左右。
