Indeed, this conclusion was all but inevitable if no search was made for other restraints, and so complete was the preoccupation with competition that none was made.
句子选自一篇关于商业中竞争问题的文章。下面是这句话所处的语境:
They also came to look to competition exclusively and in formal theory still do. The notion that there might be another regulatory mechanism in the economy had been almost completely excluded from economic thought. Thus, with the widespread disappearance of competition in its classical form and its replacement by the small group of firms if not in overt, at least in conventional or tacit, collusion, it was easy to suppose that since competition had disappeared, all effective restraint on private power had disappeared. <Indeed, this conclusion was all but inevitable if no search was made for other restraints, and so complete was the preoccupation with competition that none was made.>
第二个倒装分句解释地很清楚,其实我就是这个部分不明白,现在完全懂了。
但是关于“preoccupation”这个词的理解,我觉得不应该是“成见”,“the preoccupation with competition was so complete”,翻译成“关于竞争的研究是如此地完善”,你觉得呢?
嗯,你这样翻译应该好一些。
可以改成:实质上,在不探究其他限制因素的情况下,得出这个结论几乎是必然的。而且关于竞争的研究已经很完善,无须再探究其他因素。