Текст 1. Socialism, Communism, or whatever one chooses to call it, by converting private property into public wealth

Socialism, Communism, or whatever one chooses to call it, by converting private property into public wealth, and substituting cooperation for competition, will restore socie­ty to its proper condition of a thoroughly healthy organism, and ensure the material well-being of each member of the community. It will, in fact, give life its proper basis and its proper environment. But for the full development of life to its highest mode of perfection, something more is needed. What is needed is Individualism.

At present, in consequence of the existence of private property, a great many people are enabled to develop a cer­tain very limited amount of Individualism. They are either under no necessity to work for their living, or are enabled to choose the sphere of activity that is really congenial to them, and gives them pleasure. These are the poets, the philoso­phers, the men of science, the men of culture in a word, the real men, the men who have realized themselves, and in whom all Humanity gains a partial realization.

Upon the other hand, there are a great many people who, having no private property of their own, are compelled to do the work that is quite uncongenial to them, and to which they are forced by the unreasonable, degrading Tyranny of want. These are the poor; and amongst them there is no grace of manner, or charm of speech, or civilization or cul­ture, or joy of life. From their collective force Humanity gains much in material prosperity. But it is only the material result that it gains, and the man who is poor is in himself absolutely of no importance. He is only the smallest atom of a force that crushes him: indeed, prefers him crushed, as in that case he is far more obedient

Under the new conditions Individualism will be far freer, far finer, and far more intensified than it is now. For the recognition of private property had really harmed Indivi­dualism, and obscured it, by confusing" a man with what he possesses. It has made gain, not growth, its aim. So that men thought that the important thing was to have, and did not know that the important thing is to be. The true perfection of man lies, not in what man has, but in what man is. Private property has crushed true Individualism, and set up an Individualism that is false.

In a community like ours, where property brings immense distinction, social position, honour, respect, titles, and other pleasant things of the kind, man, being naturally ambitious, makes it his aim to accumulate this property, and goes on accumulating it long after he has got far more than he wants, or can use, or enjoy, or perhaps even know of.

With the abolition of private property, then, we shall have true, beautiful, healthy Individualism. Nobody will waste his life in accumulating things, and the symbols of things. One will live. To live is the rarest thing in the world. Most people exist; that is all. (Wilde 0. The Soul of Man under Socialism: Complete Works of Oscar Wilde. London, 1968. P 1080-1083).

Crashes are generally said to be salutary reminders of the old wisdom that markets can fall as well as rise. Mar­ket commentators habitually berate investors for forget­ting this " lesson" later on. But the lesson many people leamt from 1987 is not, in truth, that markets can fall. It is rather that the consequences of a crash do not need to be calamitous, and will probably be only temporary. As the folk memory of 1987 displaces the folk memory of 1929, the popular fear of shares seems therefore to be fading.

The trouble is that the apparent lesson of 1987 - that crashes can be free of pain - is not the only thing that has added to equities' lustre in the decade. That lesson has absorbed at the same time as two other big changed have helped boost demand.

One change is demographic: the large bulge in the number of affluent people in the rich world who are now between the ages of 40 and 60, and who possess a vast pool of personal savings looking for a profitable home. In the past decade, millions of people who had never before done so have invested in the stockmarket through mutual funds and other instruments, instead of in cash or bonds, and have profited mightily from their decision. The other change is globalisation, and the opportunity this has given to the rich world's savers to spread their risk and increase their returns by investing in the fast-growing economies of Latin America, Asia and Eastern Europe. There could hardly be a happier coincidence. Or could there?

One reason to feel less sanguine about this week's anniversary is the growing misunderstanding of the real benefits of globalisation. Instead of being seen as an opportunity to diversify investment and therefore to spread risk, globalisation has lately become muddled up| with the so-called " new paradigm" in America - the seductive doctrine, verging on clap-trap, that says that inflation is dead, that old economic laws have been repealed and that America's stockmarkets can therefore keep on growing indefinitely at their present rate. On this view, emerging markets are being seen less as attractive in­vestment opportunities, more as a reason to believe that the globalisation of labour and product markets can fore­ver stop workers and firms from raising wages and prices.

It is hardly surprising that emerging markets have recently lost some of their appeal as means of diversifying risk. Since their peak in 1993, when their share prices jumped by an average of 75%, bad news has marched through most of these new markets. In 1994-95 the collapse of the Mexican peso lowered returns from most of Latin America, and recent months have toppled one currency after another in East Asia. Several of Eastern Europe's cur­rencies now look vulnerable too. As a group, over the past dozen years, emerging stockmarkets have under-performed Wall Street. In principle, this does invalidate the case for investing in these markets in order to reduce overall risk. In practice, it is yet another reason why, having digested what they think is the lesson from a decade ago, investors are now in grave danger of driving Wall Street far too high.

For a second, bigger, reason to worry is that the apparent lesson of 1987 is wrong: crashes are hardly ever benign. It is true that the crash of 1987 did little lasting damage. But a stock-market slump in Japan in 1990 knocked the stuffing out of its banks and led to a period of stagnation from which it has still to emerge. The crash of 1987 was relatively painless because, unlike the Bank of Japan, the American Fed moved quickly to reassure banks and stave off a slump in investment and demand by easing monetary policy.

At today's valuations a similar drop in New York would destroy some $2 trillion of wealth. There is no guarantee, if this happened, that the Fed would be able to repeat its damage-averting trick in the present looser mo­netary conditions without setting fire to inflation. In that case, history would repeat itself as tragedy, and plumme­ting investors would find no helpful coil of elastic wrapped around their feet.

Ответьте на вопросы к тексту:

1. What was the striking thing about the crash of 1987?

2. What are crashes generally considered to be?

3. Why are new markets not so appealing?

4. Why was the crash of 1987 relatively painless?

5. In what case the history can be repeated?