ABSTRACT
This chapter presents the newest and recently most popular modes of achieving efficiency—cost-benefit analysis, systems analysis, and program budgeting—and shows how much more is involved than mere economizing. The economic model on which cost-benefit analysis depends for its validity is based on a political theory. An effective dealing with uncertainty must be a major goal of systems analysis. Systems analysis is characterized by the aids to calculation it uses, not to conquer, but to circumvent and mitigate some of the pervasive effects of uncertainty. Political rationality is the fundamental kind of reason, because it deals with the preservation and improvement of decision structures, and decision structures are the source of all decisions. A course of action which corrects economic or social deficiencies but increases political difficulties must be rejected, while an action which contributes to political improvement is desirable even if it is not entirely sound from an economic or social standpoint.
