⑴The American economic system is organized around a basically private-enterprise，market-oriented economy in which consumers largely determine what shall be produced by spending their money in the marketplace for those goods and services that they want most. ⑵ Private businessmen, striving to make profits, produce these goods and services in competition with other businessmen; and the profit motive, operating under competitive pressures, largely determines how these goods and services are produced. ⑶Thus, in the American economic system it is the demand of individual consumers, coupled with the desire of businessmen to maximize profits and the desire of individuals to maximize their incomes, that together determine what shall be produced and how resources are used to produce it. ⑴An important factor in a market-oriented economy is the mechanism by which consumer demands can be expressed and responded to by producers. ⑵In the American economy, this mechanism is provided by a price system, a process in which prices rise and fall in response to relative demands of consumers and supplies offered by seller-producers. ⑶If the product is in short supply relative to the demand, the price will be bid up and some consumers will be eliminated from the market. ⑷If, on the other hand, producing more of a commodity results in reducing its cost, this will tend to increase the supply offered by seller-producers, which in turn will lower the price and permit more consumers to buy the product. ⑸Thus, price is the regulating mechanism in the American economic system. ⑴The important factor in a private-enterprise economy is that individuals are allowed to own productive resources(private property), and they are permitted to hire labour, gain control over natural resources, and produce goods and services for sale at a profit. ⑵In the American economy, the concept of private property embraces not only the ownership of productive resources but also certain right, including the right to determine the price of a product or to make a free contract with another private individual. 这篇文章的第一句就开门见山，明确了主题，提出美国经济制度的特点是通过私有企业和市场导向调节作用。围绕这一主题，文章的三个段落层层展开，环环相扣，每一段落各有侧重。 第一段是讲私有企业受盈利动机驱使进行生产和服务，这一动机决定企业的生产和服务方式，但更重要的是，这一动机取决于消费者的需求和愿望，即市场导向。这一段的最末一句是该段的段落主题句，实际上也是全文中心思想的另一种表述方式。 第二段开头一句是该段的段落主题句，说明市场导向型经济的重要特点之一是它有一个价格机制，价格的上涨和下跌反映并调节消费需求。围绕这个主题句，第(2)、(3)、(4)句进一步阐述产品供需与价格浮动和消费需求的关系。 第三段的主题句也是该段的第一句，说明私有制企业的重要特色。该段的第二句是对主题句的进一步阐释。 编辑推荐
（编辑：何莹莹）
