GMAT考试写作指导：Issue写作范文二四

　　24. Historical examples of both influential public officials and influential business

　　leaders abound. However, the power of the modern-era business leader is quite different

　　from that of the government official. On balance, the CEO seems to be better positioned

　　to influence the course of community and of nations.

　　Admittedly the opportunities for the legislator to regulate commerce or of the

　　jurist to dictate rules of equity are official and immediate. No private individual can

　　hold that brand of influence. Yet official power is tempered by our check-and-balance

　　system of government and, in the case of legislators, by the voting power of the

　　electorate. Our business leaders are not so constrained, so, their opportunities far exceed

　　those of any public official. Moreover, powerful business leaders all too often seem to

　　hold de facto legislative and judicial power by way of their direct influence over public

　　officials, as the Clinton Administrations fund-raising scandal of 1997 illuminated all

　　too well.

　　The industrial and technological eras have bred such moguls of capitalism as

　　Pullman, Rockefeller, Carnegie, and Gates, who by the nature of their industries and

　　their business savvy, not by force of law, have transformed our economy, the nature of

　　work, and our very day-to-day existence. Of course, many modern-day public servants

　　have made the most of their opportunities―for example, the crime-busting mayor

　　Rudolph Giuliani and the new-dealing President Franklin Roosevelt. Yet their impact

　　seems to pale next to those of our modern captains of industry.

　　In sum, modem business leaders by virtue of the far-reaching impact of their

　　industries and of their freedom from external constraints, have supplanted lawmakers as

　　the great opportunists of the world and prime movers of society.