THE PLACE OF PLANNING IN SOCIAL DYNAMICS.

SOCIAL planning; SOCIAL change; SOCIAL order; SOCIAL structure; DEMOCRACY; POLITICAL planning; SOCIAL sciences

The article focuses on the importance of social planning in social dynamics. The student of social change can do no better than continually to remind himself that society exists both as product and as process. If the energies of men are merged and channeled in a hundred different processes to result in a hundred different social products, one can assert that the process is essentially one of change, but the product is essentially one of social order. Continuous changes are thus essential to the maintenance of an adjusting and readjusting social organization. While planning represents an important reaction against the static view of society, it has met varied responses from both the students and the proponents of social change. In a democracy the determination of policy is regarded as a rational process involving the adjustment of various group interests to the general welfare in terms of national goals to be sought. When the issues are stated in this fashion it is doubtful whether any large group in our society would care to challenge the importance of social science in the formulation of public policy.