Diagram 1  Unemployment Rate %  %  9  9  6  6  3  3  0  1973  1977  1981  1985  1989  1993  0 1997  Ideally, we should try to eliminate the business cycle (and recessions) altogether, but that would be too utopian an aspiration.
The business cycle has been declared dead before, only to re-assert itself. I do believe, however, that if inflation is kept under control, this expansion will be a lot longer than its predecessors and any subsequent downturn kept milder than in the past.