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?
沒有什么是不可避免的。這是我20世紀80年代在劍橋大學(Cambridge University)讀本科時學到的第一條真理，從那時起我學到的所有知識都在反復強調這一點。（我甚至使用拼寫檢查從我的書中剔除“不可避免”這個詞，唯恐它在我疏忽時溜出來。）整部人類歷史都證明了一點：許多人類社會好像正朝著一個看似確定的目標前進，結果卻偏離正軌走進了死胡同，有時幾十年，有時甚至長達幾個世紀。既然如此，我們為何還是認定歐盟(EU)經濟最終恢復顯著增長是不可避免的呢？