ABSTRACT
Economic direction may take many forms and operate on any scale. But to find what it can and cannot do, it is convenient to concentrate on its most massive, extensive, and, often also, detailed use in modern times by the State in peace or war: what is usually known as government economic planning. Yet there is unanimity among those who have written on this recent experience, whether of war or the Welfare State, that State direction, however necessary, is in many ways an unsatisfactory method of control. Direction, in short, is likely to prove useful only where it is already known what changes in the social structure are required, and by what means the changes, or routine activities within a given social structure, are to be carried out. The limits of direction depend in the first place on the amount of attention which needs to be given to planning.
