ABSTRACT
“ALL experience hath shewn that mankind are more disposed to suffer while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed,” states the Declaration of Independence. These words touch the heart of the problem. They explain why it seems to be so difficult to persuade most people of our imperative need to take into account the potentialities inherent in scientific discovery just as much as the customary and tried methods when planning for the future. Flexibility has been indicated as one of the main characteristics of national planning. We must be ready for changes in the structure of population as well as in the field of technical innovations. For there is hardly a single innovation which does not influence the social and economic sphere of our life. It is, of course, not easy, indeed it is sometimes scarcely possible, to predict the course which some technical trends may take. But what we can do is to develop a framework of national planning that is wide and adaptable enough even for changes of a fundamentally different nature. Such considerations have hardly received enough attention in our preparati6ns and discussions about national planning. The technical means which are at our disposal to-day were accepted as the exclusive methods for putting the machinery of national planning into operation. It is just for this reason that attention must be given to this problem in a work like this; but it should be understood that the following pages can give only a general indication of some factors which are of special importance in regard to planning. It is, therefore, merely an attempt to “state a case”, for the problems are manifold and of such magnitude that a large number of experts will be needed to investigate it in all its detailed ramifications.
