Passage 3
A famous cliche maintainsthat"the business of business is business". The business of businessis not government, charity or social welfare.nor, the cliche implies, is itmorality.But what does "the business of business"is business mean? Toget some perspective on the question, we must look beyond our own society. Whatwe find is this? what is considerde to be business and its business varies fromsociety to society. In Japan, the business of large corporations is not only toproduce goods but to care for the firm's employees—in effect, to guaranteethem lifetime employment Paternalism is thus part of the business of businessin Japan, in a way that it is not in the United States. In the former SovietUnion, private ownership of the means of production, that is, of companies andfactories, was prohibited by law. Nevertheless, there were in Russia factories,offices, stores, and goods. But business there was state affair, not a privateaffair. What constitutes business varies from society to society. The questionof what business per se is, and what its proper concern is, is a socialquestion, one that must be answered in social context.
In the United States, themandate to business was initially rather simple. People wanted goods to be asplentiful, as good, and as cheap as possible. Those interested in producingthem were given relatively free rein under competitive conditions. Somebusinesses succeeded and grew: others failed. As problems developed,regulations were introduced by law. These laws regulated working conditions,protected children, prevented monopolistic practices, and preserved theenvironment. The regulations frequently represented the moral concerns of theAmerican people. The business of business was, and is, decided by the people ofeach society. What practices are or are not to be tolerated are not eternalgivens, nor are the determinations of what is or is not acceptable toa society.To some extent, the mandate to business also sets the limits to its properactivity, and to what is not socially tolerable. The limits are not set bybusiness or by those who run business, even though some of them act as if theywere.The limits imposed on business and the demands made upon business bysociety are frequently moral ones. A business may ignore the moral demands ofan individual, but it can hardly ignore the moral demands of a whole society,because it is both part of that society and dependent on it, even though itserves society.
There is increasing evidencethat the mandate to business in the United States is changing, and thatbusinesses are increasingly expected to weigh more than financial factors intheir actions. What the business of business is, in fact, is itself a moraldecision, and one that is socially made and implemented. Insofar as business isa part of society, it rightfully has voice in arriving at the socialdeterminatic of what its business is.
The author mentions what the business of business' means in Japan and the former Soviet Union in order to explain______.
A、how the two countries managed their businesses
B、that business varies from society to society
C、that the business of business is not social welfare
D、that the business of business is a moral question
【正确答案】：B
【名师解析】:作者提到日本和前苏联的"商业的本质"是为了解释商业在不同的社会中是不同的。在文本中，作者首先提出了一个常见的观点，即商业的本质是商业，而不是政府、慈善或社会福利，也不是道德。然后，作者通过比较日本和前苏联的商业实践来说明这一点。在日本，大型企业的商业不仅仅是生产商品，还包括照顾公司的员工，实际上就是保证他们终身雇佣，这体现了日本商业中的家长式管理。而在前苏联，私人拥有生产资料是非法的，尽管存在工厂、办公室、商店和商品，但商业是国家事务，不是私人事务。这些例子展示了商业的本质和社会角色是如何随着社会的不同而变化的。因此，正确答案是选项B，即商业在不同的社会中是不同的。