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       2020考研英语阅读水平想要提升较快，并不容易!需要2020考研者每天有良好的英语阅读习惯，久而久之慢慢进步!接下来，北京文都考研网为助力学子们备考英语阅读，特意整理了考研英语阅读双语经济学人:实体书店的未来何在? 供考生参考。

2020考研英语阅读双语经济学人:实体书店的未来何在?

New ways of selling books clash with France’s old pricing rules

在法国，新的书籍销售模式与旧的定价规则相冲突

Can a “one book, one price” principle survive e-commerce?

“一书一价”原则能否在电子商务的洪流中继续生存

A book is so much more than mere ink and paper. So insist French booksellers, who for nearly four decades have successfully lobbied to keep the forces of the free market at bay.

说起书籍，它不仅仅是墨水和纸张。法国书商一直是这样认为的，近40年来，他们的游说成功地遏制了自由市场的发展。

A law passed in 1981 bans the sale of any book at anything other than the price decreed by its publisher. Authorities are cracking down on those trying to flog the latest Thomas Piketty or J.K. Rowling at a discount.

1981年，法国通过了一项法律，要求任何书籍必须以出版商规定的价格来出售。法国当局正在打击那些试图打折出售托马斯·皮凯蒂或J·K·罗琳最新作品的人。

The fixed-price rule is meant to keep customers loyal to their local bookshop and out of the clutches of supermarkets and hypercapitaliste American corporations.

固定价格的规定是为了让顾客忠于当地的书店，并免受超级市场和美国超级资本主义公司的诱惑。

But the advent of e-commerce and e-readers has prompted questions worthy of their own tomes. Can you fix the price of a book if it is part of an all-you-can-read subscription service? Are audiobooks books at all? And what of authors who self-publish?

但电子商务和电子书的出现引发了一些值得我们探讨的问题。作为“随你读”订阅服务中的一本书，你能确定它的价格吗?有声书算是书吗?还有那些由作家自己出版的书籍呢?

Tweaks have been made to preserve the principle of one book, one price. In 2011 the rule began to apply to digital tomes. Free delivery by online sellers was prohibited on the grounds it implied a subsidy on the delivered books (prompting websites to charge all of €0.01 for postage). But a new challenge to the policy is proving thornier.

为了维持一书一价的原则，法国当局已经做出了一些调整。2011年，线上销售的大部分书籍开始适用这一规定了。规定禁止线上卖家对书籍包邮，因为包邮就意味着对书籍的配送给予了补贴(线上卖家只得收取0.01欧元的邮费)。但事实证明，这项政策面临着更加棘手的挑战。

Used books are exempt from the pricing rule. Third-party sellers on Amazon are accused of using this as a way to apply forbidden discounts: selling brand-new books as “second-hand” to make them cheaper.

二手书籍是不受定价规则限制的。有人指控，亚马逊上的第三方卖家利用这种方式避开了打折禁令：将新书当作“二手书”以更便宜的价格出售。

So fans of bleak fiction can purchase a copy of the latest Michel Houellebecq novel, “Sérotonine”, for €11.71 ($13.21) on Amazon, roughly half its mandated price. Its seller claims it is in “perfectly new” condition.

因此，致郁系小说迷可以在亚马逊上以11.71欧元(约合13.21美元，大约是其法定价格的一半)的价格购买米歇尔·维勒贝克最新的小说《血清素》。卖家则声称书是“全新的”。

Amazon claims its practices are legal. But booksellers are fuming, and their political allies with them. “This is a major preoccupation,” complained Franck Riester, the culture minister, at a booksellers’ shindig this week. He says new legislation may be needed.

亚马逊声称其行为是合法的。但书商和他们的政治盟友则感到愤怒。法国文化部长弗兰克·里斯特本周在一次书商座谈会中抱怨称：“现在的当务之急是解决这一问题。”他表示，想要解决这一问题可能需要新的立法。

 

【重难点词汇】

lobby ['lɑbi] n. 大厅;休息室;会客室;游说议员的团体 vt. 对……进行游说 vi. 游说议员

decree [dɪ'kri] n. 法令;判决 vt. 命令;颁布;注定;判决 vi. 注定;发布命令

subscription [səb'skrɪpʃən] n. 捐献;订阅;订金;签署

mandate ['mændet] n. 授权;命令，指令;委托管理;受命进行的工作 vt. 授权;托管

preoccupation [prɪ,ɑkju'peʃən] n. 全神贯注，入神;当务之急;关注的事物;抢先占据;成见

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