The Logic of Planning

Abstract

Tp H ROUGHOUT human history, a certain amount of social planning has been carried on, but we have been through a period in our own immediate past when it was frowned upon and limited to a minimum. In period of early modern expansion many frontiers-geographical, commercial, scientific, technological and industrial-the idea of planning and controlling social processes was indeed utopian. The rangc of foreseen consequences of acts was very limited. Social science as such was unborn. The wise men of day realized that attempted planning without adequate knowledge of laws of social processes would work more mischief than good. Everyone who has ever had a Bumstead neighbor to insist fixing some out of order gadget will appreciate their wisdom. The ideology of day presented doctrine of preordained natural laws or an unseen guiding hand which assured realization of common good, thus rendering human social planning unnecessary. However, rise and moderate success of social sciences along with serious complications in natural social order have quickened hope for successful social planning. The employment of scientific method in study of social phenomena promises to provide us with knowledge necessary for control of many social processes. The founder of sociology in United States, Lester F. Ward, maintained: Society should not drift aimlessly to and fro, backwards and forwards, without guidance. Rather group should carefully study its situations, comprehend aims it desires to accomplish, study scientifically best methods for attainment of these, and then concentrate social energy to task set before it.' And contemporary sociologists like Robert S. Lynd in Knowledge for What? George Lundberg in Can Scietce Save Us? and Howard W. Odum in his many books, to mention only a few, are advocating same approach. Social science may provide requisite knowledge of social processes for social planning, but it cannot provide us with social plans. Lewis Mumford outlines four stages of regional planning, and all social planning is regional planning in a sense: (1) Systematic survey disclosing, by first-hand visual exploration and by systematic fact-gathering, all relevant data regional complex. (2) outline of needs and activities in terms of social ideals and purposes which is a critical formulation-and revision-of current values. (3) The formulation of a plan by imaginative reconstruction and projection on basis of known facts, observed trends, estimated needs, [and] critically formulated purposes.. . (4) The carrying out of plan by community in which the plan undergoes a readaptation as it encounters traditions, conventions, resistances, and sometimes unexpected opportunities of actual life.2 Even if we should conceive of formulation of plan by imaginative reconstruction and projection as formulation of a hypothesis subject to verification in execution, it would not be a scientific hypothesis inasmuch as it would not be descriptive-explanatory in character, distinguishing characteristic of all scientific knowledge. It would contain statements of what ought to be in light of scientific knowledge of situation and certain critically formulated purposes. Thus social planning is neither social science nor entirely dependent upon social science for its data. It is planner's judgment of what ought to be as based farnulation of purpose in term}s of a revision of current values rather than as based scientific knowledge of social processes which arouses strongest opposition today. There is wisdom part of opponents of planning in recognizing that a planner with wrong goals and norms but adequate knowledge of social processes is much more dangerous than a planner with inadequate knowledge. Hence development of social science, although a necessary condition, is not a sufficient condition for social planning. Many are afraid that in planning of society goals planned for would be goals of planners or of special interest groups that con1 Quoted in H. W. Odum, Man's Quest for Social Guidance, p). 503. 2 Culture of Cities, pp. 376-380.