ABSTRACT
Castells puts the argument in the following manner: If it is true that the State expresses, in the last instance and through the necessary mediations, the overall interests of the dominant classes, then urban planning cannot be an instrument of social change, but only one of domination, integration and regulation of contradictions. Planning and the planning profession have to be evaluated in the same manner as other professions and occupational strata: the state of the society at a particular moment in time has to be considered, the function and structure of the profession at that moment, variations in ideology and practice within the profession, the differing constraints which refer to particular planning functions and duties, and so on. Esland describes the emergence of the professions as a very clear example of the process of bureaucratic rationalisation which has become so dominant a feature of advanced industrial societies.
