Task 1. Sum up what you know about Adam Smith and his investigations

Task 2. Pronounce correctly the following words:

Economics, economy, economical, monopoly, competition, competitive, society, productivity, to export, to import, social, production, substitution, political, wealth, nation, industrialism

Task 3. Write out:

– from sentence 1, para 1 the group of words related to the word science;

– from sentence 1, para 5 the group of words related to the word ranged;

– the subject and the predicate in the last sentence, para 7.

Task 4. Read and translate the text.

Economics is a social science concerned with how mankind organizes itself to accommodate scarce resources to their wants through the process of production, substitution and exchange.

By the beginning of the eighteenth century economics had taken shape as an academic discipline, largely as a branch of political economy. It should be noted that the old name of economics was “political economy”. Adam Smith was the founding father of modern economics as an academic discipline.

Adam Smith was born in 1723. For most of his life he was a professor of philosophy in Glasgow, Scotland. His first and only economics book, The Wealth of Nations, was not published until 1776, when he was 53.

Smith’s purpose was to explain why some nations become wealthier than others. He was fascinated by the rise of industrialism in the England and Scotland of his time.

Over his lifetime Adam Smith’s economic investigations ranged from the theory of trade to economic growth and an attempt to model the working of the economy. He believed that a free market would maximize the welfare of the population. It followed from his works that the role of government in the economy should be minimal. The government should provide defence, justice and public works. The only market intervention should be to prevent monopoly and to promote competition.

Smith argued that competitive business was not just a possible way but the best way to increase the wealth of a nation. He thought government restraints on competition did more harm than good.

Division of labour was seen by him as the source of society’s capacity to increase its productivity. According to Adam Smith technical progress and free trade between nations were central to economic growth. If a country wished to improve its standard of living it had to export more than it imported.

Text 2. David Ricardo and the Theory of Comparative Advantage

Task 1. Read the text and answer the questions in written form.

David Ricardo, the greatest of the classical economists, was born in 1772. His father, a Jewish immigrant, was a member of the London stock exchange. Ricardo entered his father’s business at the age of 14. In 1973, he married and went into business of his own. The young Ricardo quickly made a large fortune.

In 1799, Ricardo read Adam Smith’s “The Wealth of Nations” and developed an interest in political economy (as economics was then called). In 1809, his first writings on economics appeared. These were a series of newspaper articles on “The High Price of Billion”. In 1814 he retired from business to devote all his time to political economy.

Ricardo’s major work was “Principles of Political Economy and Taxation”. This work contains, among other things, a pioneering statement of the principle of comparative advantage as applied to international trade.

Ricardo showed why it was beneficial for both countries, for England tp export wool to Portugal and import wine in return< even though both products could be produced with less labour in Portugal.

The book covers the whole field of economics as it then existed. Ricardo held that the economy was growing toward a future “steady state”.

Ricardo’s book was extremely influential. For more than half a century thereafter, much of economics was an expansion of or a commentary on Ricardo’s work. Although Karl Marx eventually reached conclusions that differed radically from any of Ricardo’s views, his starting point was Ricardo’s theory of value and method of analyzing economic growth.

1. What was David Ricardo?

2. To what did he devote himself after retiring from business?

3. Ricardo’s works influenced the most famous economist Karl Marx, didn’t they?

Management

Vocabulary

to assert – утверждать, заявлять

to avoid – избегать

authority – власть, полномочия

board– правление

completion – завершение

employee – работник, служащий

executive– администратор, руководитель

executive director – директор-распорядитель

program director – руководитель программы

financial controls – финансовые средства управления

goal– задача

human resources – трудовые ресурсы

leadership– руководство

manager -глава, управляющий, специалист по менеджменту

financial manager – финансовый менеджер

first-line managers – руководство низшего звена

functional manager – функциональный руководитель

general manager – генеральный управляющий, директор предприятия

marketing manager – менеджер по маркетингу

middle managers – руководство среднего звена

personnel manager – начальник отдела кадров

product manager – руководитель, ответственный за производство

product line manager – управляющий предметно-производственной специализацией

project manager – руководитель проекта

top (executive) manager – высший исполнительный руководитель

sales manager – заведующий отделом продаж

management- управление, заведование, руководство

top management – высшее исполнительное руководство

managerial– управленческий

nonprofit organization – некоммерческая организация

objective– цель

practitioner – практик, профессионал

profit-making organization – коммерческая организация

project planning – планирование проекта

promotions planning – планирование продвижения продукта на рынок

skills – навыки

subordinate – подчиненный

to oversee – надзирать, следить, смотреть

to pursue – добиваться

to refer to – иметь отношение, относиться

to supervise – наблюдать, надзирать, заведовать

Vocabulary Exercises