Main trends of research in the social and human ... - unesdoc - Unesco

340 Economics
certain times), resources (physical and financial) were allocated directly with a
view to attaining objectives that were fixed from above. Central planning on
these lines, with market mechanisms almost completely eliminated, was former-
ly alone considered to constitute a planned economy. As a result of extensive
discussions on the functioning of a socialist economy, and more or less advanced
experiments in using controlled market mechanisms in implementing (and to
some extent in elaborating) plans, this view was later discredited. Accordingly,
the socialist countries are now also investigating the extent to which the market
is compatible with planning and the consequences of its inclusion. However,
they retain a distinct preference for direct methods in elaborating the plan and
the elements which constitute it, especially the long-term trends of development
and hence, the planning of investment and the pattern of growth of production
capacities.
The present theoretical discussions, and the reforms introduced in the socialist
economies should therefore not be taken as a sign that planned economies are
being discarded. The real issue is to retain the advantages of central planning
but at the same time make use of innovation potential that is now dispersed.
A major problem of economics is to decide, at the existing level of economic
development, which of the available planning techniques will best serve to
attain the objectives laid down under the plan.
d. Social and political consequences of the growing r6le of planned control over
economic processes
AS the emphasis shifts in economics from spontaneous to controlled, dynamic
processes, the implications are not confined to economics or planning, since
planning involves questions that go far beyond the traditional subject-matter of
economics, including vital decisions that affect social development in all its as-
pects which must be checked against the community’s social scale of preferences.
This is where the way in which the plan is elaborated and implemented takes
on a particular importance. For example, there can be no doubt that, with the
use of controlled market mechanisms in planning in the socialist countries,
certain conflicts between different elements of economic policy will come more
easily into the open, thus allowing a more accurate compromise, i.e. the one
which approximates most closely to what may be regarded as the social prefer-
ence of the community. Involving a higher degree of autonomy for the various
units and sectors that go to make up a national economy, market mechanisms
should in various ways help to facilitate the people’s direct participation in econ-
omic decision-making, although they are not sufficient in themselves to ensure
it. In any case, it is obvious that certain elements of pluralism in a planned eco-
nomy depend on the way in which the economy is organized.
But is this all? If what has been said above - particularly concerning the
primacy of the central plan in any realistic system of planning - is correct, the
answer must be in the negative. Centrally-made economic decisions that concern
essential development processes are bound to have a strong influence, either in-
directly or directly, on all the constituents of the economic system, present and
future. It will also be recognized that such decisions cannot be fully objective in