Summits in History
9 Oct 2000 In the history of any country there is a moment of the maximum momentum, when it shows the way to the rest of the world, but then is bound to stumble and lag behind, if not entirely perish. Most probably, this character of development belongs to a particular epoch in human history, that of civilization. Nevertheless, one could indicate such historical summits for many old countries, while the younger nations are still climbing up. There are certain necessary stages that any society has to pass. This is a fundamental law of economic development, and any attempt to skip the next stage and try to boost the historical progress will be followed by a dramatic roll back, which may ruin the society's developmental capacity at all. Every historical position to achieve is like a rubber wall: you can run against it and force it to give some way, but then it will throw you back with nearly as much momentum as you have applied to it. Slow evolution of the economic basis of the society could be viewed as cutting small bits from the wall, which may eventually become weak enough to allow yet another revolutionary attack to break through, thus opening new vistas for the humanity as a whole.
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