ABSTRACT
HUMAN life consists in its visible sphere of the four functions of housing, working, distributing, recreating. Their physical manifestation is human settlement in town and country and all that it implies in the broadest sense. We know that these four functions are not soundly balanced and that the function “working” in particular has assumed such a preponderance over the others that not only the whole of our functional life, but also of our personal life has been thrown completely out of gear. This disparity and the resulting uncertainty as to the true values of our life are the deeper reasons for the degrading state of our urban and rural settlements. The restoration of this balance is the prerequisite for successful planning in the future. If we admit the co-ordination of these four functions and there can be no doubt about this—we must go still a step further and ask: Is this balance sufficient in itself, or does it still need a connecting link like the scale-beam of a weighing machine ? The answer is: Yes—but the reason is not easy to explain. However, it is too important a problem in relation to planning to be left in abeyance. I remember a lively discussion with two other persons who were eagerly interested in planning; they tried to convince me that economic problems should be considered as of primary importance, for, so they concluded, where man can work and earn enough money, there all other problems, especially the social one, would be solved automatically. Although I tried hard to convince them that no true community of happy human beings has ever been founded on money alone, I did not succeed. This state of mind is very common. If we allow it to continue we should be encouraging the perpetuation of all vested interests. It seems that the scale-beam is urgently needed ! But is it right to put the problem in this way ? Not quite, for this scale-beam does already exist. What is needed is only to make it workable again. In other words, the centre in which the four functions meet is man himself; he is the connecting link and the balancing power. Following the terminology of Professor John Macmurray we may call this side of human life the personal life or the social life; in any case it is something that is different from, but complementary to, the functional life. At the time when the above-mentioned discussion took place I did not see the way as clearly as I do to-day. Now I know that this discussion was about aspects of life that are not comparable. The question whether economic or social problems are to be given primacy in national planning simply cannot be asked. Economic problems are in a different sphere altogether from social problems; they belong to the sphere of the four functions, while social problems belong to the sphere of the personal life of man and are, in fact, the scale-beam which balances these four functions. The fact that this balancing-beam does not work without friction explains the unbalanced interrelationship between the four functions. Consequently, planning must (a) re-establish the balance between the four functions of housing, working, distributing, recreating; and (b) free man so that he can live his personal life full of responsibility towards himself and the community and be strong enough to weigh the four functions against each other.
