"A powerful business leader has far more opportunity to influence the [b]course of a community or a nation than does any government official. " [b]Discuss the extent to which you agree or disagree with the opinion stated [b]above. Support your views with reasons and/or examples from your own [b]experience, observations, or reading. （人民和政府的关系） [b][b]Historical examples of both influential public officials and influential [b]business leaders abound. However, the power of the modern-era business [b]leader is quite different from that of the government official. On balance, [b]the CEO seems to be better positioned to influence the course of community [b]and of nations. [b][b]Admittedly the opportunities for the legislator to regulate commerce or of [b]the Jurist to dictate rules of equity are official and immediate. No [b]private individual can hold that brand of influence. Yet official power is [b]tempered by our check-and-balance system of government and, in the case of [b]legislators, by the voting power of the electorate. Our business leaders [b]are not so constrained, so their opportunities far exceed those of any [b]public official. Moreover, powerful business leaders all too often seem to [b]hold de facto(actual) legislative and judicial power by way of their direct [b]influence over public officials, as the Clinton Administration's fund- [b]raising scandal of 1997 illuminated all too well. [b][b]The industrial and technological eras have bred such moguls of capitalism [b]as Pullman, Rockefeller, Carnegie, and Gates, who by the nature of their [b]industries and their business savvy, not by force of law, have transformed [b]our economy, the nature of work, and our very day-to-day existence. Of [b]course, many modem-day public servants have made the most of their [b]opportunities, for example, the crime-busting mayor Rudolph Giuliani and [b]the new-dealing President Franklin Roosevelt. Yet their impact seems to [b]pale next to those of our modem captains of industry. [b][b]In sum, modem business leaders by virtue of the far-reaching impact of [b]their industries and of their freedom from external constraints, have [b]supplanted lawmakers as the great opportunists of the world and prime [b]movers of society. [b]