ABSTRACT
The primary focus of the institutionalist perspective is instrumentalist problem solving. Problems are delivered by the institutional process and solved by altering the social structure. To solve socioeconomic problems, planning is necessary. Important to any planning is the question of when actions and events are to occur. To find social time it is necessary to observe the cultural symbols and institutions through which human experience is construed. The time construct was thought to be circular. As new technological combinations began to appear more rapidly, it became obvious that society was changing. The traditional Western linear time-stream came into being with Christianity; however, seeds of it had been alive for some time. Neoclassical thought puts its temporal construct into operation through the use of the geometric mean discounting formula. In modern thought, time is no longer an exogeneous concept but rather another element in the sociotechnical system.
