Письменно ответьте на вопросы к тексту:
1. What is the first ingredient of any economic system?
2. What is the traditional managerial structure in America?
The first ingredient of a nation’s economic system is its natural resources.
The United States is rich in mineral resources and fertile farm soil, and it is
blessed with a moderate climate. It also has extensive coastlines on both the
Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, as well as on the Gulf of Mexico. Rivers flow from
far within the continent and the Great Lakes- five large, inland lakes along the
U.S. border with Canada- provide additional shipping access. These extensive
waterways have helped shape the country’s economic growth over the years and
helped bind America’s 50 individual states together in a single economic unit.
The second ingredient is labor, which converts natural resources into
goods.
Labor mobility has likewise been important to the capacity of the
American economy to adapt to changing conditions. When immigrants flooded
labor markets on the East Coast, many workers moved inland, often to farmland
waiting to be tilled. Similarly, economic opportunities in industrial, northern
cities attracted back Americans from southern farms in the first half of the 20 th
century.
But natural resources and labor account for only part of an economic
system. These resources must be organized and directed as efficiently as
possible. In the American economy, managers, responding to signals from
markets, perform this function. The traditional managerial structure in America
is based on a top-down chain of command: authority flows from the chief
executive in the boardroom, who makes sure that the entire business runs
smoothly and efficiently, through various lower levels of management
responsible for coordinating different parts of enterprise, down to the foreman
on the shop floor. Numerous tasks are divided among different divisions and
workers. In early 20th-century America, this specialization, or division of labor,
was said to reflect “scientific management” based on systematic analysis. Many
enterprises continue to operate with this traditional structure, but others have
taken changing views on management.