Long-range development planning. Notes on its substance and methodology

In its article the author reviews a number of the main problems posed by long-range development planning and outlines his own views concerning them. He starts out by discussing the political aspects of planning and stresses that planning is part of a power-based decision-making process in which decision-makers’ mental images play an important role. His examination of the relationship between planning and them arket in mixed econom ies leads into a discussion of the “planning object” which, in the author’s opinion, should be regarded as a “multiorganization” composed of enterprises, political bodies, social organizations and movements, etc. In exploring the concept of the planning object, he identifies various types of economies (élite, formal and total) and the problems posed by each.