ABSTRACT
An extreme version of the latter criticism might claim that British ‘planning’ has not been planning at all, but mere negative control. Its achievements fall well below the achievements of (say) Swedish planning and well below the aspirations of its founding fathers. Extreme environmental conservatism would be a social policy designed to prevent any increase in population or urbanisation, and all economic growth which threatened to reduce the quality of the environment. It is the duty of anyone who advocates a new principle for policy to outline how it should be effected. Sustained economic growth must in the long run destroy their environment and be to the detriment of all men. There is a great deal of evidence that the satisfaction human beings obtain from possession of material objects is largely comparative: the objects themselves mean nothing; it is only as sources and symbols of status and self-esteem that they satisfy.
