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？

　　Passage 5

　　When I decided to quit my full time employment it never occurred to me that I might become a part of a new international trend. A lateral move that hurt my pride and blocked my professional progress prompted me to abandon my relatively high profile career although, in the manner of a disgraced government minister, I covered my exit by claiming "I wanted to spend more time with my family".

　　Curiously, some two-and-a-half years and two novels later, my experiment in what the Americans term "downshifting" has turned my tired excuse into an absolute reality. I have been transformed from a passionate advocate of the philosophy of "having it all", preached by Linda Kelsey for the past seven years in the page of She magazine, into a woman who is happy to settle for a bit of everything.

　　I have discovered, as perhaps Kelsey will after her much-publicized resignation from the editorship of She after a build up of stress, that abandoning the doctrine of "juggling your life", and making the alternative move into "downshifting" brings with it far greater rewards than financial success and social status. Nothing could persuade me to return to the kind of life Kelsey used to advocate and I once enjoyed: 12 hour working days, pressured deadlines, the fearful strain of office politics and the limitations of being a parent on "quality time".

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