小安阅读第二篇 求指点

Woodrow Wilson was referring tothe liberal idea of the economic market when he said that the free enterprisesystem is the most efficient economic system. Maximum freedom means maximumproductiveness; our “openness” is to be the measure of our stability.Fascination with this ideal has made Americans defy the “Old World” categoriesof settled possessiveness versusunsettling deprivation, the cupidity of retention versus the cupidity of seizure, a “status quo” defended or attacked. The United States, it wasbelieved, had no status quo ante. Our only “station” was the turning of a stationary wheel,spinning faster and faster. We did not base our system on property butopportunity—which meant we based it not on stability but on mobility. The morethings changed, that is, the more rapidly the wheel turned, the steadier wewould be. The conventional picture of class politics is composed of the Haves,who want a stability to keep what they have, and the Have-Nots, who want atouch of (a touch of: 有一点) instability and change in which to scramble for (scramble for: v.争夺, 勉强拼凑) the things they have not. But Americans imagined a condition inwhich speculators, self-makers, runners are always using the newopportunities given by our land. These economic leaders (front-runners)would thus be mainly agents of change. The nonstarters were consideredthe ones who wanted stability, a strong referee to give themsome position in the race, a regulative hand to calm manic speculation; anauthority that can call things to a halt, begin things again fromcompensatorily staggered “starting lines.”

“Reform” in America hasbeen sterile because it can imagine no change except through the extension ofthis metaphor of a race, wider inclusion of competitors, “a piece of the action,” asit were, for the disenfranchised. There is no attempt to call off therace. Since our only stability is change, America seems not to honor the quietwork that achieves social interdependence and stability. There is, in ourlegends, no heroism of the office clerk(office clerk: n.职员), no stableindustrial work force of the people who actually make thesystem work. There is no pride in being an employee (Wilson asked for a returnto the time when everyone was an employer). There has been no boasting aboutour social workers—they are merely signs of the system’s failure, ofopportunity denied or not taken, of things to be eliminated. We have no pridein our growing interdependence, in the fact that our system can serve others,that we are able to help those in need; empty boasts from the past make usashamed of our present achievements, make us try to forget or deny them, moveaway from them. There is no honor but in the Wonderland (wonderland: n.仙境, 奇境) race we mustall run, all trying to win, none winning in the end (for there is no end).