????今天的旅客可以從兩個視角觀察歐洲。如果退后一步，悉心觀察周圍的景象和聲音，他會被眼前戲劇般的變化搞得目瞪口呆。教堂的尖塔已經將其對天際的主宰權讓位于直沖云霄的高樓大廈，這些由玻璃、鋼筋和混凝土組成的建筑物仿佛跟紐約公園大道上的那些摩天大樓出自同一張畫板。街上的自行車隊，甚或摩托車隊已風光不再，取而代之的是汽車及其邪惡的副產品：交通擁擠。駕駛著私家車去上班的工人們太多了，為泊車位留出價值不菲的地皮已經成為企業一個不可小覷的成本項目。在歐洲的歷史上，富裕的生活第一次惠及社會深層，衣食住方面的階級差異也因此變得模糊不清。

????但如果旅客向前一步，靠近人群，聆聽他們在此刻的所思所想，他又會發覺這片大陸似乎充斥著種種問題，局勢相當緊張。一兩年前還在以不可思議的速度快速擴張的歐洲經濟正逐漸減緩到比較正常的步態。昔日熱情高漲的商人開始擔憂起一些世俗的問題：利潤越來越稀薄，股市看跌，國內外的競爭變得愈加激烈，某些區域經濟蕭條，他們跟政府的關系已變得緊張起來。

????在本文作者最近訪問法國、英國、意大利、德國和比利時期間，這兩種印象時不時地交織在一起。訪問期間，筆者對大約50位公司高管、銀行家及政府官員進行了采訪。他們中的許多人都深陷自己的困境，對現狀非常不滿，在報道歐洲現狀時，這些情況不可不察。但眼前這些細節，不應掩蓋更宏大的圖景：歐洲的經濟環境正在演變，跟美國的情形非常類似。

????當然，美國的理念和資本對這種變化發揮了推波助瀾的作用。眾多的美國公司（既有大公司，也有小公司）在歐洲的工廠和其他設施上投下重資，與歐洲公司組建合資企業，引進新產品、技術工藝和分銷方式。美國在歐洲的存在隨處可見。我們可以想象，一位歐洲的公司高管早上醒來以后，或許使用明尼阿波利斯—霍尼韋爾（Minneapolis-Honeywell）調節其中央供熱系統，用高露潔牙膏（Colgate）刷牙，早餐吃家樂氏（Kellogg）麥片，開著歐寶轎車（Opel，美國通用汽車公司旗下品牌）去寫字樓，乘坐奧的斯電梯（Otis）上樓，使用通用電話（General Telephone）設備打幾通電話，咨詢從IBM終端上獲取的數據，跟福斯特惠勒公司（Foster Wheeler ）的工程師商討某個工廠建設項目。大西洋顯然不再是美國經濟的邊疆。

????The traveler today can see Europe in either of two perspectives. If he stands back and lets the sights and sounds sink in, he is stunned by the spectacle of dramatic change. Church steeples have yielded their domination of the skyline to towering glass-and-steel slabs that look as if they came off the same drawing boards as those on New York's Park Avenue. The picturesque platoons of bicyclists and even the motor scooters have given way to the automobile and its satanic byproduct, the traffic jam. So many factory workers drive their own cars to work that the laying aside of valuable real estate for parking space has become an appreciable cost item in industry. Class distinctions in living, dressing, and eating have been blurred by an affluence that, for the first time in Europe's history, reaches deep down.

????But if the traveler gets close up and listens to people talk about what is on their minds at the moment, the landscape seems crowded with problems and tensions. The fantastic pace at which European economies were expanding a year or two ago is slowing to a more normal gait, and the euphoria of businessmen has given way to mundane worries about thinning profits, bearish stock markets, stiffer competition at home and abroad, depressed areas, abrasive relations with government.

????These two sets of impressions constantly intruded on each other during a recent trip this writer made to France, Britain, Italy, Germany, and Belgium, a trip that included talks with some fifty corporation executives, bankers, and government officials. Many of these people were engrossed in their own difficulties and grievances, and these deserve serious consideration in any report on the current state of Europe. But the foreground specifics should not be allowed to obscure the bigger story: the evolution in Europe of an economic environment much like our own.

????American ideas and American capital have, of course, helped bring this about. A vast number of U.S. corporations, big and small, have made heavy commitments in European plant and other facilities, formed joint ventures with European firms, introduced new products, technical processes, and distribution methods. The on-the-spot evidence of the U.S. presence is overwhelming. It is conceivable that a European executive could wake up in the morning, adjust the Minneapolis-Honeywell thermostat on his central heating system, brush his teeth with Colgate, eat a Kellogg cereal for breakfast, drive to his office building in an Opel (General Motors (GM)), ascend in an Otis elevator, make a few phone calls on General Telephone equipment, consult data from an I.B.M. (IBM) machine, discuss a plant-construction project with Foster Wheeler engineers, and so on. The frontier of the U.S. economy, clearly, is no longer the Atlantic.