SPEAKING. Study the interview with Denis MacShane, a British Member of Parliament for the Labor Party. Interviewer: Denis MacShane

A.

Study the interview with Denis MacShane, a British Member of Parliament for the Labor Party.

Interviewer:	Denis MacShane, do you agree with the people who say that manufacturing industry will inevitably decline in what we call the industrialized countries?
Denis Macshane:	I think manufacturing will change, convert itself. There are many new products that have to be invented to serve new needs, and they can be made in the advanced countries because in fact the technology of production means you need very little labour input. I'm holding in my hand a simple pen that British Airways gives away to its passengers. It is made in Switzerland, a pen, a low-tech product, made in Switzerland, with the highest labor costs in the entire world, and British Airways, a British company, having to pay in low value pounds, is buying from Switzerland a manufactured product. Now what's going on here? It seems to me that the Swiss - and they also manage to do it with their watches, the famous Swatch - have stumbled on a new secret, which is how to make low-tech products, sell them profitably, but actually make them in a country where in theory there should be no more manufacturing, and if you look at any of the successful economies of the 1990s, they all have a strong manufacturing component.
Interviewer:	Which countries are you thinking of?
Denis Macshane:	I'm thinking of the dynamic Asian economies, all based on manufacturing. I'm thinking indeed of the United States which now has created for example a new computer, high-tech computer industry, its car industry is coming right back in America. America is a giant manufacturing economy, which is why it is still the richest nation in the world, so I am extremely dubious of the theorists who say that manufacturing has no future in the advanced industrialized countries.

Act out the interview of MacShane with Mr Brown, Daily News correspondent. Use the questions of the latter for reference.

1. Why do you think that manufacturing has a future?

2. Why do you think that manufacturing has a future in the advanced countries?

3. Why, however, is this manufacturing unlikely to solve the problem of unemployment?

4. What do you mean by “in theory there should be no more manufacturing in Switzerland?” (It is this theory that makes many people argue that manufacturing must move to “less-developed” countries.)

5. Why do you say it is surprising for a British company to be buying Swiss goods?

6. What is the reason you give for the United States still being the richest nation in the world?

B.

Discuss the following issues

1. What kind of system is traditional economy? What areas of the world are they primarily found nowadays? The basic economic questions What, How and For whom in these economies are based on tradition, aren’t they?

2. Who are the basic economic questions answered in command economies by? Why are they called planned economies? What is the role of individuals in this type of economies?

3. What economy is the opposite to command economy? What is the core idea of this type of economy? What are the examples of countries with market economy?

4. All major economies in the world are mixed ones, aren’t they? What are mixed economies characterized by?

5. Are there any purely capitalist or socialist states in the world?

C.

Summarize the information from the Unit and be ready to speak on Economic Systems. Use the following prompts as a plan.

1. The definition of an economic system. Its interaction with a political system.

2. Three basic economic questions.

3. Basic kinds of economic systems.

4. The responsibilities of the state in managing the society.

5. The main task of transition economies.

6. The type of the economic systems Great Britain / the USA / Belarus belong to.