Nothing is inevitable. It was the first truth I was taught as a Cambridge undergraduate in the 1980s, and it has been italicised and underlined for me by everything I have learnt since. (I even use spellcheck to excise the word “inevitable” from my books, lest it’s crept in at a lazy moment.) The whole of human history is testament to the fact that vast sections of mankind can seem to be progressing towards what looks like an established goal, only to get sidetracked into cul-de-sacs, sometimes for decades, occasionally for centuries. So why do we still assume that an eventual return to any significant economic growth in the European Union is inevitable?
没有什么是不可避免的。这是我20世纪80年代在剑桥大学(Cambridge University)读本科时学到的第一条真理，从那时起我学到的所有知识都在反复强调这一点。（我甚至使用拼写检查从我的书中剔除“不可避免”这个词，唯恐它在我疏忽时溜出来。）整部人类历史都证明了一点：许多人类社会好像正朝着一个看似确定的目标前进，结果却偏离正轨走进了死胡同，有时几十年，有时甚至长达几个世纪。既然如此，我们为何还是认定欧盟(EU)manbetx20客户端下载 最终恢复显著增长是不可避免的呢？