考研英语阅读命题思路透析和真题揭秘(54)

The world is going through the biggest wave of mergers and acquisitions ever witnessed. The process sweeps from hyperactive America to Europe and reaches the emerging countries with unsurpassed might. Many in these countries are looking at this process and worrying: Won't the wave of business concentration turn into an uncontrollable anti-competitive force?

There's no question that the big are getting bigger and more powerful. Multinational corporations accounted for less than 20% of international trade in 1982. Today the figure is more than 25% and growing rapidly. International affiliates account for a fast-growing segment of production in economies that open up and welcome foreign investment. In Argentina, for instance, after the reforms of the early 1990s, multinationals went from 43% to almost 70% of the industrial production of the 200 largest firms. This phenomenon has created serious concerns over the role of smaller economic firms, of national businessmen and over the ultimate stability of the world economy.

I believe that the most important forces behind the massive M&A wave are the same that underlie the globalization process: falling transportation and communication costs, lower trade and investment barriers and enlarged markets that require enlarged operations capable of meeting customers' demands. All these are beneficial, not detrimental, to consumers. As productivity grows, the world's wealth increases.

Examples of benefits or costs of the current concentration wave are scanty. Yet it is hard to imagine that the merger of a few oil firms today could re-create the same threats to competition that were feared nearly a century ago in the US, when the Standard Oil trust was broken up. The mergers of telecom companies, such as World Com, hardly seem to bring higher prices for consumers or a reduction in the pace of technical progress. On the contrary, the price of communications is coming down fast. In cars, too, concentration is increasing-witness Daimler and Chrysler, Renault and Nissan-but it does not appear that consumers are being hurt.

Yet the fact remains that the merger movement must be watched. A few weeks ago, Alan Greenspan warned against the megamergers in the banking industry. Who is going to supervise, regulate and operate as lender of last resort with the gigantic banks that are being created? Won't multinationals shift production from one place to another when a nation gets too strict about infringements to fair competition? And should one country take upon itself the role of defending competition on issues that affect many other nations, as in the US vs. Microsoft case?

世界正在经历一场前所未有的巨大的并购浪潮。这个浪潮从异常活跃的美国席卷到欧洲，并以不可比拟的威力影响到那些新兴的国家。这些国家的许多人面对这个浪潮开始担忧："企业合并的浪潮会不会变成一股无法控制的反竞争力量？"

毫无疑问，大规模企业正在变得更大、更强。跨国公司在1982年在国际贸易中只占不到20％的份额。而现在，这个数字超过了25％，并且还在迅速上升。在那些对外开放并鼓励外资的国家中，国际分公司在国民生产中成为一个快速增长的部分。比如在阿根廷，经过90年代初的改革之后，在该国的200家最大型企业的工业生产中，跨国公司的比重从43％增加到几乎70％。这个现象引起了人们对小型企业和民族资本的作用、以及世界经济的基本稳定性的极大忧虑。

我认为，推动这股巨大的并购浪潮的最主要力量，也是推动全球化进程的力量，包括日趋下降的运输与通讯费用，减少的贸易与投资壁垒，以及市场的扩大和为满足市场需求而进行的生产扩大。所有这些对消费者来说都有益而无害的。随着生产力的提高，世界的财富也在增加。

目前证明这股合并浪潮是利还是弊的实例并不多。但是很难想像当今的几个石油公司的合并是否会重新造成约100年前美国标准石油托拉斯对竞争造成的同样的威胁，那时由于人们对该公司的这种担心而导致了它的最终解体。像世界通讯这类通讯公司的合并似乎没有给消费者带来更高的价格、或者降低技术进步的速度。相反，通信费用在迅速下降。而在汽车行业，合并同样也在增加--比如戴姆勒与克莱斯勒，雷诺与尼桑的合并--但消费者看起来并未受到伤害。

然而，我们必须密切关注这股合并运动的发展。就在几星期以前，艾伦·格林斯潘对银行业的大规模合现象发出了警告。如果合并后出现如此巨大的银行，那么谁来充当其最终贷款人，谁来发挥监督、规范和管理的作用呢？当一个国家对破坏公平竞争的行为处理过于严厉时，跨国公司会不会把生产从一个地方转到另一个地方呢？在那些将会影响许多其他国家的事情中，如美国政府与微软公司的诉讼案，一个国家是否应该担负起"保护竞争"的责任呢？