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Sociological and cultural forecasting
Sociological and Cultural Forecasting
49
Sociological and Cultural Forecasting B.
J.
A. Hargreaves·
In this article the authorargues that we need to take a completelynew look at sociologicala nd culturalforecasting. His view is that extrapolationfrom the present has little value. He lists facets of 'today's changing scene' and discussesthe magainstthe backclothof the need for more effectiveforecasting.
Less than ever is it an acceptable premise that forecasting is an extrapolation ofthe present. Perhaps this premise is true during the periods of relative stability in between the great jumps that are taken during the historical process: at the periods of great jumps it is meaningless. The scale, dimension and character of the present 'jump' period is probably unparalleled. The speed of change, the totality ofthe upheaval in consciousness, the shrinking world, the fundamental change in the kind of society we live in and the challenges of the New Age thinking are changing the parameters within which our society lives. The upheavals of two hundred years ago were dramatic within Western Society, but their global implication was limited. Today it is the spectrum of society that is moving from one base to another affecting patterns of our entire upbringing, behaviour and expectations. Any attempt to patch up the old garment with remedies that could be applied to the former structure is largely irrelevant. A new garment is needed for a New Age.
Speed of Change Each of the main facets of today's changing scene merits some treatment in detail and the first of these concerns the speed of change. Change in itself is part of human experience; what makes this period different is the speed •John Hargreaves was, until September 1977, Director of Public Affairs for IBM United Kingdom. He joined IBM after some years in the Army and the Intelligence Service. He has been responsible for steering IBM's involvement in the public policy process and has pioneered much U.K. thinking in the field of corporate responsibility. His book, co-authored with Jan Dauman, 'Business Survival and Social Change' was published in 1976. He has been involved in many organizations outside IBM and was instrumental in starting the Trident Trust and the Action Resource Centre. He has now become Chairman of the Matrix Consultancy Group and Works as a consultant in the U.K. and the U.S.A. in public policy field. J..o". Ra"" Pla""i",. Vol. II. pp. 49-SJ.
with which change is taking place. In the past, there has been a suitable period between the milestones of history to allow the effect of a particular change to be evaluated and assimilated. Nothing comparable to the acceptance of Arabic notation or the invention of the printing press was discernible for a long time either side of the event. Today this is not so. Discoveries of major importance are an almost daily occurrence; the time between research and development is diminishing; power has jumped from being wind and muscle based to the present capacity of nuclear energy in two centuries; communications have shrunk the world to a global village and knowledge of every kind is exploding. At this time of unprecedented change, many of the values that gave continuity and some spiritual fall back for the victims of change have themselves been eroded. The basis is less sure so the reactions to change are less controlled and directed. Of the three things we can do to change, namely, resist it, drift with it or control it, the last is the last thing we do. The reason for this is obvious since, before we can manage change, certain definitions are prerequisite. First, it is necessary to define clearly the framework within which our society moves and the pressures and constraints of all kinds that constitute this framework. Second, we then have to look at the longterm goals which are practical within this framework in order that technology and its material potential can be subordinate to these goals. Third, we have to define the people who will set these goals; a subject to which this article will return having said, at this point, that most of the present soi-disant leaders of our society are incapable of fulfilling this task. Only when these defmitions are made can a serious attempt be made to set about trying to manage change. Perhaps it is just necessary to add that planning a society within parameters that are themselves decreasingly relevant does not constitute the management of change.
Discontinuities The second facet of today's scene is the truism that not only do we live in a time ofchange but in one of revolution. It is this that makes the establishment of a framework so important and mere extrapolation so impossible. 0024-6301/78/0601-0049502.00/
50
Long Range Planning Vol. 11
June 1978
There have, of course, been other times in history when collective consciousness has been in eruption and they have constituted periods of individual and national renewal as one order makes way for a new. The important thing to remember is that, at these times, the upheaval is a total one. The Industrial Revolution in Britain, for example, coincided with the social revolution in France, with the birth ofthe United States ofAmerica, the publishing of Lavoisier's book on chemistry and Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations, with artists like Goya and Pushkin going to prison for their revolutionary activities and with the rise of non-conformist thought. The Zeitgeist was not geographically confined. So, today, we cannot separate the cybernetics revolution from the social revolution of 'rising expectations' nor from the changing attitudes to dress, art, behaviour and religious thought. It is total questioning and is to be understood by lateral thinkers. One of the phenomena of changing expectations concerns business. In fact, business has always had to keep in step with the society of which it is part and from whom its mandate to continue in business is drawn. Practices which, a generation ago, were acceptable have now become intolerable. There is no reason to suppose that the process has ceased. The demand for change in the establishment will most certainly be met, either by intelligent, radical and not cosmetic reform from within or uncomfortably and forcibly from outside with all the consequences of violent change. The call for greater business, or corporate, responsibility is more, however, than a mere sop to conscience or act ofcharity and benevolence. Indeed the phrase'corporate responsibility' can be misleading since it often has just these connotations. What has become a necessity is business involvement in what the Americans refer to as the 'public policy process'-that is, in helping to build and maintain the national fabric on which not only business but all other sections of the community must long term depend. The reasons are twofold. The first is that, in an integrated society, it is impossible to separate the interests of one section from another. Business is, by definition, an integral part of an industrial society and its skills are needed for the development of that society as well as for the development of a business organization. The second is that it must be clear to any observer that the best managed company is having a decreasing effect on its fortunes because the matters over which it has traditionally exercised control are no longer decisive. The decisive factors are political, social and economic, in short the public policy process. If the climate within which business and society as a whole has to live is itself sour, then no unit operating in that climate is going to be successful. Over and above what a business does, therefore, in the line of corporate promotion, there is a need to invest resources in what amounts to corporate survival.
The Shrinking WorId The third facet is the shrinking world. Modem communications, divorced from physical transport, allow people to think in new dimensions and to see the world as a global village. There are several implications from this. The ·first and general one is that, in a single world, it is not possible to have a slum at the end of the rich man's garden. Ecological, environmental, economic, social and political problems are one and indivisible. With some stabilizing of East-West relations, the new divide is between the North and South, between the developing and raw material producing nations and the industrial countries. At a time when the World Bank is talking of the need for 1000 million jobs in the developing world and technology transfer is becoming imperative, our own unemployment problems have less long-term significance. A limit of our material growth is to be expected if other nations are to be given the chance to catch up. In fact, it is a redefinition rather than a rejection ofgrowth that is required. Growth goes through three stages: a growth in quantity to satisfy minimum demands; a growth in quality where the fruits of effort can be enjoyed and a third stage where growth is no longer seen in terms of accretion but rather as released opportunity, greater justice, the removal of mental shackles and the broadening of horizons. The need in the industrial countries is to be willing to transfer the means for growing in the first two ways to those that are in that stage of development and to concentrate our own efforts on the new definition. The second result of a shrinking world is the growth of the multinational corporation. On the whole, the people who have taken advantage of the new means of communications are the businessmen, scientists, professionals and others who are task, rather than nation, oriented. They think and act horizontally across boundaries instead of vertically down boundary lines. Moreover they are the pacesetters in the modem world. But, because there is no political counterpoise to expression of this new thinking in the multinational corporation, we find two sides playing the same game by different rules and a consequent gap in comprehension between political and technical man. The third result is that, while the global village is the correct unit of thinking for certain activities, there is a corresponding need at another level to find identity in some more human 'village'. Hence the assertion of regionalism, nationalism and the desire for control over local affairs that is prevalent in the world.
A Distribution Society Another facet of todays' scene is the move towards a distribution society. People have been talking of this for some years and there is a tendency to look at our present
Sociological and Cultural Forecasting ailing manufacturing and poor productivity, particularly in Britain, and say that the forecasts were wrong. In fact it is just because they were right that we have in this country a situation where we find 1! million unemployed, probably double that number under-employed, the chaotic propping up ofobsolescent industries and the abortive attempt to absorb thejobless in an existing industrial structure. The prophecies were right; it was the diagnosis of what was happening that was wrong and the failure to perceive the need for original, strategic thinking that has led to attempts to patch up the old garment instead of putting on the new. The nature ofwork, as much as the nature ofgrowth has to be redefined and its 'moral equivalent' perceived. There is no intrinsic merit in toil nor is there any right to expect or likelihood of receiving the uneventful tenure ofa job until the age of 65. Activity is indeed a ri~ht but not toil. We have to think in terms of a 'waking rather than a 'working' week in which job, education, service and leisure are the constituent parts. Education will be a continuing feature with, perhaps, educational drawing rights that may be utilized at any period. Service, at home and abroad, is morally, economically and socially desirable. Leisure has to be re-thought in positive terms instead of as idle, spare or doing nothing time. The pattern of our week will change. Better use of capital equipment will result in more shift working and a consequent demand for services, shops, recreation and entertainment to be available whenever people are free. There will, and should not be, a rise in numbers ofpeople providing these services together with a pruning of the manufacturing element to make it more competitive. And, bearing in mind the needs of the Third World, we should concentrate our own efforts on the things we can uniquely do.
Creating Work Opportunities Present job creation schemes miss the point of what is happening. Short term jobs ofsocial importance with no encouragement to make a profit are no solace to young people who want the self respect oflearning how to fish and not be hungry rather than to be given a fish so they can hunger again. Nor is the lot of someone who has been employed for six months and then put on the dole or who has been trained in a skill for a saturated market a happy one. The need is to create work, not job, opportunity. This means identifying professionally the holes in the market and training groups of people to set up their own enterprises to satisfy the new needs. Experience has already shown that, at a number of levels, the 'holes' exist. Any dozen housewives or purchasing managers will list the things they cannot get done; the Customs and Excise lists provide scope for import substitution rather than import control; a marriage of business skills, possibly through unemployed executives and financial resources can be put to use to tap unexploited patents and ideas throughout the country.
51
There is a polarization between the big and small firms. The big enjoy economics ofscale but they need the small to feed them with new ideas, to help react to change and do the work that is not economic for them to carry out. A new relationship between the big and small will emerge. And there will be a proliferation of small enterprises, cottage industries, risk capital ventures and craft and art groups that will lift our concept of work to new levels. The mistake, perhaps endemic, lies largely in a political system that is mentally barred by the call of a short term election cycle from taking the grander, larger view and devising a strategy that will recognize, prepare for, harness and exploit the changing parameters within which our society moves. And the time now is so short in which to do this.
New Values The move to a new value base is a trend that cannot be ignored in the survey of today's scene. The expression is varied. Much can be summed up in the term'a New Age philosophy'. There is a rejection of the material values of earlier decades; a growing feeling that somehow the craft of organizing life militates against the art ofliving; an increase in the numbers who opt out, drop out or, worse, become resigned; a rejection of all forms ofhierarchy, be they family, political, religious or industrial together with a rejection of many of the traditional marks of personal identity, whether of class, achievement, or even nation; a search in consciousness for new experience and motivation. A phenomenon of this 'new thought' is that it does not die with adolescence and we can expect a growing effect from this as people, imbued with it, reach positions of influence. It is perhaps worth recalling that there have been relatively few periods in history when business and economic goals have been pursued in any way that appears to be divergent from the broad aims of the community and the immediate warning is that business cannot afford to be out of step with society. The present period is an uncomfortable one because the release ofpeople from a hierarchical society and the assertion of individuality has resulted in a transition from imposed discipline and authority to self-discipline and motivation. The result is often a surge of license rather than true liberty and ofthe claiming ofrights rather than the recognition ofresponsibilities. In a consumer society, the emphasis seems to be on supply and getting in all spheres oflife rather than on an awareness ofthe demands inherent in any age to which people have to respond. It is, however, a transition and the apathy on this subject is likely to swing before long to another extreme human mood of indignation. How long? Ifone looks at the indications of military and economic intelligence, at the precarious detente between East and West and the growing gulf between what is
52
Long Range Planning Vol. 11
June 1978
loosely called the North and South, at the proliferation of nuclear power, the decline in relevance of present systems of government and the challenge of technology in our society, it is difficult to refrain from believing that, perhaps 8-10 years out, some crisis will be reached in the human experiment which will call for a totally new alignment of purpose in the world if deep catastrophe is to be avoided. Which alternative we shall see will depend on the degree to which all those in responsibility first of all wake up to the implication of what is happening in the world, then decide that they can do something about it and finally set out to prepare and lead people into an era of new emphases. Any diagnosis of world trends has to be followed by conscious steps to manage rather than drift with them. The lack of preparedness, certainly in European society, is most reflected in our education systems where it appears that we have not begun to open the eyes of a generation now at school who will experience this changing world and who will therefore be its victims or masters.
Guidelines Some guidelines seem apposite. First is the need to see education as a continuing process throughout an individual's life. The OECD Special Committee on Work and Education (1975) included in its recommendations the establishment of education 'drawing rights' which would allow people to transfer into and out ofeducation at intervals throughout their careers. This education will be both academic and job-related. To maintain some elasticity of mind and a broadening vision is one way in which obsolescence ofskills need not lead to redundancy of people since the opportunity to re-Iearn and retrain is there. A second need is to escape from the tyranny of facts whereby a series of examination hurdles determines an individual's progress. The acquisition of specialist facts and knowledge, so prevalent in the sixties, is decreasingly relevant. It is the ability to use facts, to think originally, to be adaptable and to let facts foster ideas that is needed at a time when, in high technology areas, we do not even know what training will be needed in 10 years time. A third need is that we have to balance the requirements of an age of science with a thorough grounding in the humanities and liberal arts. Without this grounding there are clear gaps in the equipment of people as they move into the higher echelons of management. In the development of people we have to find the individual whose interests and capabilities straddle the traditional boundaries that divide our nation into business, government and academic streams. Proficiency in any one ofthese is not enough. It is the academic industrialist and the industrial statesman that is needed more than the professor and business manager but we are doing little to train him.
The last of the guidelines is that we have to distinguish between instruction and education. Instruction in many subjects ranging from basic reading and arithmetic to language training and experimental work for chemical and medical students is already carried out successfully by computers. In many cases, instruction is a deflection of a teachers' professional ability. The purpose ofeducation, on the other hand, is well described by Dante as 'Bringing the pupil face to face with greatness. Then he will feel first awe and then curiosity'. The sparking offof awe and curiosity may be of too great importance to leave to educationalists and may be a charge on a whole elder generation who have this opportunity to plant the seed corn of a future one. The record of social and technological change can be pursued but enough has been said to throw up three deficiencies in our current planning for change. The first is lack of time. We are being overtaken by events and the runaway nature of change is apparent. The second is that there is no vehicle, particularly in Britain for looking at and legislating for changed management. Parliament is totally inadequate because issue management needs to be one of those subjects that belong to the area of common consent. It is not only not so but the scale of problems places real issue management outside the timescale of Parliamentary thinking and, too often, outside the limits of Parliamentary vision. Think tanks and research institutes abound and their influence is varying but, unless their findings enter the legislative process, they do not meet the real and urgent need. The third, and consequent, deficiency is the lack of any real preparation of people for the world of change that they will experience. Unless the real issues are defined they cannot be stated. Unless they are stated they cannot be part of the consciousness of the responsible leadership of the country. Unless they are part of this leadership thinking in all fields, the hope ofpreparing and leading a society into an era of new emphases are slim. And unless this leading takes place our hopes are even slimmer. One arena where the long term thinking might usefully take place would be in a reformed House of Lords. It is part of the legislative machinery and has already proved itself capable of concentrating on issues separate from party political quarrels and means. A House of experts, divorced from the shorter term and reflecting the talent of the country is an urgent need. Complementing this vehicle for managing change is the need to co-ordinate the efforts of many organizations concerned in one aspect or other of future planning. While having separate functions and audiences, there is nevertheless scope for co-operating in common interest areas. Perhaps, instead ofpushing the idea ofa Brookings Institute in the U.K., we might think in terms of an Institute for the Management of Change which would house a number ofseparate organizations but would share common facilities and produce a number of combined reports on major issues. A major part ofthe responsibility
Sociological and Cultural Forecasting of both this Institute and a reformed legislative process would be a planned and professional approach towards altering teachers and trainers to the kind of world that a new generation will shape and experience. The answers to the problems of change are unlikely to
53
be clear for some time. The danger arises when the questions to which answers are required have not been defined. Only when these definitions are made and taken into the thinking of responsible people up and down the country can we hope to plan reasonably for social and cultural change.
49
Sociological and Cultural Forecasting B.
J.
A. Hargreaves·
In this article the authorargues that we need to take a completelynew look at sociologicala nd culturalforecasting. His view is that extrapolationfrom the present has little value. He lists facets of 'today's changing scene' and discussesthe magainstthe backclothof the need for more effectiveforecasting.
Less than ever is it an acceptable premise that forecasting is an extrapolation ofthe present. Perhaps this premise is true during the periods of relative stability in between the great jumps that are taken during the historical process: at the periods of great jumps it is meaningless. The scale, dimension and character of the present 'jump' period is probably unparalleled. The speed of change, the totality ofthe upheaval in consciousness, the shrinking world, the fundamental change in the kind of society we live in and the challenges of the New Age thinking are changing the parameters within which our society lives. The upheavals of two hundred years ago were dramatic within Western Society, but their global implication was limited. Today it is the spectrum of society that is moving from one base to another affecting patterns of our entire upbringing, behaviour and expectations. Any attempt to patch up the old garment with remedies that could be applied to the former structure is largely irrelevant. A new garment is needed for a New Age.
Speed of Change Each of the main facets of today's changing scene merits some treatment in detail and the first of these concerns the speed of change. Change in itself is part of human experience; what makes this period different is the speed •John Hargreaves was, until September 1977, Director of Public Affairs for IBM United Kingdom. He joined IBM after some years in the Army and the Intelligence Service. He has been responsible for steering IBM's involvement in the public policy process and has pioneered much U.K. thinking in the field of corporate responsibility. His book, co-authored with Jan Dauman, 'Business Survival and Social Change' was published in 1976. He has been involved in many organizations outside IBM and was instrumental in starting the Trident Trust and the Action Resource Centre. He has now become Chairman of the Matrix Consultancy Group and Works as a consultant in the U.K. and the U.S.A. in public policy field. J..o". Ra"" Pla""i",. Vol. II. pp. 49-SJ.
with which change is taking place. In the past, there has been a suitable period between the milestones of history to allow the effect of a particular change to be evaluated and assimilated. Nothing comparable to the acceptance of Arabic notation or the invention of the printing press was discernible for a long time either side of the event. Today this is not so. Discoveries of major importance are an almost daily occurrence; the time between research and development is diminishing; power has jumped from being wind and muscle based to the present capacity of nuclear energy in two centuries; communications have shrunk the world to a global village and knowledge of every kind is exploding. At this time of unprecedented change, many of the values that gave continuity and some spiritual fall back for the victims of change have themselves been eroded. The basis is less sure so the reactions to change are less controlled and directed. Of the three things we can do to change, namely, resist it, drift with it or control it, the last is the last thing we do. The reason for this is obvious since, before we can manage change, certain definitions are prerequisite. First, it is necessary to define clearly the framework within which our society moves and the pressures and constraints of all kinds that constitute this framework. Second, we then have to look at the longterm goals which are practical within this framework in order that technology and its material potential can be subordinate to these goals. Third, we have to define the people who will set these goals; a subject to which this article will return having said, at this point, that most of the present soi-disant leaders of our society are incapable of fulfilling this task. Only when these defmitions are made can a serious attempt be made to set about trying to manage change. Perhaps it is just necessary to add that planning a society within parameters that are themselves decreasingly relevant does not constitute the management of change.
Discontinuities The second facet of today's scene is the truism that not only do we live in a time ofchange but in one of revolution. It is this that makes the establishment of a framework so important and mere extrapolation so impossible. 0024-6301/78/0601-0049502.00/
50
Long Range Planning Vol. 11
June 1978
There have, of course, been other times in history when collective consciousness has been in eruption and they have constituted periods of individual and national renewal as one order makes way for a new. The important thing to remember is that, at these times, the upheaval is a total one. The Industrial Revolution in Britain, for example, coincided with the social revolution in France, with the birth ofthe United States ofAmerica, the publishing of Lavoisier's book on chemistry and Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations, with artists like Goya and Pushkin going to prison for their revolutionary activities and with the rise of non-conformist thought. The Zeitgeist was not geographically confined. So, today, we cannot separate the cybernetics revolution from the social revolution of 'rising expectations' nor from the changing attitudes to dress, art, behaviour and religious thought. It is total questioning and is to be understood by lateral thinkers. One of the phenomena of changing expectations concerns business. In fact, business has always had to keep in step with the society of which it is part and from whom its mandate to continue in business is drawn. Practices which, a generation ago, were acceptable have now become intolerable. There is no reason to suppose that the process has ceased. The demand for change in the establishment will most certainly be met, either by intelligent, radical and not cosmetic reform from within or uncomfortably and forcibly from outside with all the consequences of violent change. The call for greater business, or corporate, responsibility is more, however, than a mere sop to conscience or act ofcharity and benevolence. Indeed the phrase'corporate responsibility' can be misleading since it often has just these connotations. What has become a necessity is business involvement in what the Americans refer to as the 'public policy process'-that is, in helping to build and maintain the national fabric on which not only business but all other sections of the community must long term depend. The reasons are twofold. The first is that, in an integrated society, it is impossible to separate the interests of one section from another. Business is, by definition, an integral part of an industrial society and its skills are needed for the development of that society as well as for the development of a business organization. The second is that it must be clear to any observer that the best managed company is having a decreasing effect on its fortunes because the matters over which it has traditionally exercised control are no longer decisive. The decisive factors are political, social and economic, in short the public policy process. If the climate within which business and society as a whole has to live is itself sour, then no unit operating in that climate is going to be successful. Over and above what a business does, therefore, in the line of corporate promotion, there is a need to invest resources in what amounts to corporate survival.
The Shrinking WorId The third facet is the shrinking world. Modem communications, divorced from physical transport, allow people to think in new dimensions and to see the world as a global village. There are several implications from this. The ·first and general one is that, in a single world, it is not possible to have a slum at the end of the rich man's garden. Ecological, environmental, economic, social and political problems are one and indivisible. With some stabilizing of East-West relations, the new divide is between the North and South, between the developing and raw material producing nations and the industrial countries. At a time when the World Bank is talking of the need for 1000 million jobs in the developing world and technology transfer is becoming imperative, our own unemployment problems have less long-term significance. A limit of our material growth is to be expected if other nations are to be given the chance to catch up. In fact, it is a redefinition rather than a rejection ofgrowth that is required. Growth goes through three stages: a growth in quantity to satisfy minimum demands; a growth in quality where the fruits of effort can be enjoyed and a third stage where growth is no longer seen in terms of accretion but rather as released opportunity, greater justice, the removal of mental shackles and the broadening of horizons. The need in the industrial countries is to be willing to transfer the means for growing in the first two ways to those that are in that stage of development and to concentrate our own efforts on the new definition. The second result of a shrinking world is the growth of the multinational corporation. On the whole, the people who have taken advantage of the new means of communications are the businessmen, scientists, professionals and others who are task, rather than nation, oriented. They think and act horizontally across boundaries instead of vertically down boundary lines. Moreover they are the pacesetters in the modem world. But, because there is no political counterpoise to expression of this new thinking in the multinational corporation, we find two sides playing the same game by different rules and a consequent gap in comprehension between political and technical man. The third result is that, while the global village is the correct unit of thinking for certain activities, there is a corresponding need at another level to find identity in some more human 'village'. Hence the assertion of regionalism, nationalism and the desire for control over local affairs that is prevalent in the world.
A Distribution Society Another facet of todays' scene is the move towards a distribution society. People have been talking of this for some years and there is a tendency to look at our present
Sociological and Cultural Forecasting ailing manufacturing and poor productivity, particularly in Britain, and say that the forecasts were wrong. In fact it is just because they were right that we have in this country a situation where we find 1! million unemployed, probably double that number under-employed, the chaotic propping up ofobsolescent industries and the abortive attempt to absorb thejobless in an existing industrial structure. The prophecies were right; it was the diagnosis of what was happening that was wrong and the failure to perceive the need for original, strategic thinking that has led to attempts to patch up the old garment instead of putting on the new. The nature ofwork, as much as the nature ofgrowth has to be redefined and its 'moral equivalent' perceived. There is no intrinsic merit in toil nor is there any right to expect or likelihood of receiving the uneventful tenure ofa job until the age of 65. Activity is indeed a ri~ht but not toil. We have to think in terms of a 'waking rather than a 'working' week in which job, education, service and leisure are the constituent parts. Education will be a continuing feature with, perhaps, educational drawing rights that may be utilized at any period. Service, at home and abroad, is morally, economically and socially desirable. Leisure has to be re-thought in positive terms instead of as idle, spare or doing nothing time. The pattern of our week will change. Better use of capital equipment will result in more shift working and a consequent demand for services, shops, recreation and entertainment to be available whenever people are free. There will, and should not be, a rise in numbers ofpeople providing these services together with a pruning of the manufacturing element to make it more competitive. And, bearing in mind the needs of the Third World, we should concentrate our own efforts on the things we can uniquely do.
Creating Work Opportunities Present job creation schemes miss the point of what is happening. Short term jobs ofsocial importance with no encouragement to make a profit are no solace to young people who want the self respect oflearning how to fish and not be hungry rather than to be given a fish so they can hunger again. Nor is the lot of someone who has been employed for six months and then put on the dole or who has been trained in a skill for a saturated market a happy one. The need is to create work, not job, opportunity. This means identifying professionally the holes in the market and training groups of people to set up their own enterprises to satisfy the new needs. Experience has already shown that, at a number of levels, the 'holes' exist. Any dozen housewives or purchasing managers will list the things they cannot get done; the Customs and Excise lists provide scope for import substitution rather than import control; a marriage of business skills, possibly through unemployed executives and financial resources can be put to use to tap unexploited patents and ideas throughout the country.
51
There is a polarization between the big and small firms. The big enjoy economics ofscale but they need the small to feed them with new ideas, to help react to change and do the work that is not economic for them to carry out. A new relationship between the big and small will emerge. And there will be a proliferation of small enterprises, cottage industries, risk capital ventures and craft and art groups that will lift our concept of work to new levels. The mistake, perhaps endemic, lies largely in a political system that is mentally barred by the call of a short term election cycle from taking the grander, larger view and devising a strategy that will recognize, prepare for, harness and exploit the changing parameters within which our society moves. And the time now is so short in which to do this.
New Values The move to a new value base is a trend that cannot be ignored in the survey of today's scene. The expression is varied. Much can be summed up in the term'a New Age philosophy'. There is a rejection of the material values of earlier decades; a growing feeling that somehow the craft of organizing life militates against the art ofliving; an increase in the numbers who opt out, drop out or, worse, become resigned; a rejection of all forms ofhierarchy, be they family, political, religious or industrial together with a rejection of many of the traditional marks of personal identity, whether of class, achievement, or even nation; a search in consciousness for new experience and motivation. A phenomenon of this 'new thought' is that it does not die with adolescence and we can expect a growing effect from this as people, imbued with it, reach positions of influence. It is perhaps worth recalling that there have been relatively few periods in history when business and economic goals have been pursued in any way that appears to be divergent from the broad aims of the community and the immediate warning is that business cannot afford to be out of step with society. The present period is an uncomfortable one because the release ofpeople from a hierarchical society and the assertion of individuality has resulted in a transition from imposed discipline and authority to self-discipline and motivation. The result is often a surge of license rather than true liberty and ofthe claiming ofrights rather than the recognition ofresponsibilities. In a consumer society, the emphasis seems to be on supply and getting in all spheres oflife rather than on an awareness ofthe demands inherent in any age to which people have to respond. It is, however, a transition and the apathy on this subject is likely to swing before long to another extreme human mood of indignation. How long? Ifone looks at the indications of military and economic intelligence, at the precarious detente between East and West and the growing gulf between what is
52
Long Range Planning Vol. 11
June 1978
loosely called the North and South, at the proliferation of nuclear power, the decline in relevance of present systems of government and the challenge of technology in our society, it is difficult to refrain from believing that, perhaps 8-10 years out, some crisis will be reached in the human experiment which will call for a totally new alignment of purpose in the world if deep catastrophe is to be avoided. Which alternative we shall see will depend on the degree to which all those in responsibility first of all wake up to the implication of what is happening in the world, then decide that they can do something about it and finally set out to prepare and lead people into an era of new emphases. Any diagnosis of world trends has to be followed by conscious steps to manage rather than drift with them. The lack of preparedness, certainly in European society, is most reflected in our education systems where it appears that we have not begun to open the eyes of a generation now at school who will experience this changing world and who will therefore be its victims or masters.
Guidelines Some guidelines seem apposite. First is the need to see education as a continuing process throughout an individual's life. The OECD Special Committee on Work and Education (1975) included in its recommendations the establishment of education 'drawing rights' which would allow people to transfer into and out ofeducation at intervals throughout their careers. This education will be both academic and job-related. To maintain some elasticity of mind and a broadening vision is one way in which obsolescence ofskills need not lead to redundancy of people since the opportunity to re-Iearn and retrain is there. A second need is to escape from the tyranny of facts whereby a series of examination hurdles determines an individual's progress. The acquisition of specialist facts and knowledge, so prevalent in the sixties, is decreasingly relevant. It is the ability to use facts, to think originally, to be adaptable and to let facts foster ideas that is needed at a time when, in high technology areas, we do not even know what training will be needed in 10 years time. A third need is that we have to balance the requirements of an age of science with a thorough grounding in the humanities and liberal arts. Without this grounding there are clear gaps in the equipment of people as they move into the higher echelons of management. In the development of people we have to find the individual whose interests and capabilities straddle the traditional boundaries that divide our nation into business, government and academic streams. Proficiency in any one ofthese is not enough. It is the academic industrialist and the industrial statesman that is needed more than the professor and business manager but we are doing little to train him.
The last of the guidelines is that we have to distinguish between instruction and education. Instruction in many subjects ranging from basic reading and arithmetic to language training and experimental work for chemical and medical students is already carried out successfully by computers. In many cases, instruction is a deflection of a teachers' professional ability. The purpose ofeducation, on the other hand, is well described by Dante as 'Bringing the pupil face to face with greatness. Then he will feel first awe and then curiosity'. The sparking offof awe and curiosity may be of too great importance to leave to educationalists and may be a charge on a whole elder generation who have this opportunity to plant the seed corn of a future one. The record of social and technological change can be pursued but enough has been said to throw up three deficiencies in our current planning for change. The first is lack of time. We are being overtaken by events and the runaway nature of change is apparent. The second is that there is no vehicle, particularly in Britain for looking at and legislating for changed management. Parliament is totally inadequate because issue management needs to be one of those subjects that belong to the area of common consent. It is not only not so but the scale of problems places real issue management outside the timescale of Parliamentary thinking and, too often, outside the limits of Parliamentary vision. Think tanks and research institutes abound and their influence is varying but, unless their findings enter the legislative process, they do not meet the real and urgent need. The third, and consequent, deficiency is the lack of any real preparation of people for the world of change that they will experience. Unless the real issues are defined they cannot be stated. Unless they are stated they cannot be part of the consciousness of the responsible leadership of the country. Unless they are part of this leadership thinking in all fields, the hope ofpreparing and leading a society into an era of new emphases are slim. And unless this leading takes place our hopes are even slimmer. One arena where the long term thinking might usefully take place would be in a reformed House of Lords. It is part of the legislative machinery and has already proved itself capable of concentrating on issues separate from party political quarrels and means. A House of experts, divorced from the shorter term and reflecting the talent of the country is an urgent need. Complementing this vehicle for managing change is the need to co-ordinate the efforts of many organizations concerned in one aspect or other of future planning. While having separate functions and audiences, there is nevertheless scope for co-operating in common interest areas. Perhaps, instead ofpushing the idea ofa Brookings Institute in the U.K., we might think in terms of an Institute for the Management of Change which would house a number ofseparate organizations but would share common facilities and produce a number of combined reports on major issues. A major part ofthe responsibility
Sociological and Cultural Forecasting of both this Institute and a reformed legislative process would be a planned and professional approach towards altering teachers and trainers to the kind of world that a new generation will shape and experience. The answers to the problems of change are unlikely to
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be clear for some time. The danger arises when the questions to which answers are required have not been defined. Only when these definitions are made and taken into the thinking of responsible people up and down the country can we hope to plan reasonably for social and cultural change.