The Logic of Planning

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 the period of early modern expansion on 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 the day realized that attempted planning without adequate knowledge of the laws of social processes would work more mischief than good. Everyone who has ever had a Bumstead neighbor to insist on fixing some out of order gadget will appreciate their wisdom. The ideology of the day presented the doctrine of preordained natural laws or "an unseen guiding hand" which assured the realization of the common good, thus rendering human social planning unnecessary. However, the rise and moderate success of the social sciences along with serious complications in the natural social order have quickened the hope for successful social planning. The employment of the scientific method in the study of social phenomena promises to provide us with the knowledge necessary for control of many social processes. The founder of sociology in the United States, Lester F. Ward, maintained: "Society should not drift aimlessly to and fro, backwards and forwards, without guidance. Rather the group should carefully study its situations, comprehend the aims it desires to accomplish, study scientifically the best methods for the attainment of these, and then concentrate social energy to the 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 the same approach. Social science may provide the 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 the relevant data on the regional complex." (2) ". . . the critical 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 the basis of known facts, observed trends, estimated needs, [and] critically formulated purposes.. ." (4) The carrying out of the plan by the community in which "the plan undergoes a readaptation as it encounters the traditions, the conventions, the resistances, and sometimes the unexpected opportunities of actual life."2 Even if we should conceive of the formulation of the plan by imaginative reconstruction and projection as the 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, the distinguishing characteristic of all scientific knowledge. It would contain statements of what ought to be in light of the scientific knowledge of the situation and certain critically formulated purposes. Thus social planning is neither social science nor entirely dependent upon social science for its data. It is the planner's judgment of what ought to be as based on the farnulation of purpose in term}s of a revision of current values rather than as based on scientific knowledge of social processes which arouses the strongest opposition today. There is wisdom on the part of the 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 the development of social science, although a necessary condition, is not a sufficient condition for social planning. Many are afraid that in the planning of society the goals planned for would be the goals of the 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.