10 

 How many alternative advantages they are willing to forego. Take the example 

 of a public works ministry that is planning an important highway system. 

 The cost of the system - the total resources it will draw from the economy - 

 with planning not yet accomplished, is flexible. It will depend on opti- 

 mization of route selected according to a complex set of criteria, the economic 

 use of materials and machines granted highly particularistic local conditions 

 and, related to this, the upkeep and maintenance that will be required once 

 the system is in place. Let us further assume that the ministry has two 

 planning schemes, both carrying the same cost. The first involves a small 

 but specially-trained staff, a computer, and a shorter planning period: 

 the second, a larger, less-specialized staff, which is already on hand, no 

 machine, and a longer planning period. At first glance the second plan 

 may seem more advantageous in terms of providing employment and by-passing 

 import restrictions. This kind of planning scheme will be easier to imple- 

 ment, more popular, perhaps even cheaper; but modern planning technology 

 will have been foregone at the expense of greater construction and operating 

 costs over time. A higher net allocation of domestic resources to the 

 project will have to be made because modern planning technology was not 

 employed, and this higher cost the underdeveloped nations are ill-equipped 

 to sustain. Beset with the other disadvantages to which the underdeveloped 

 nations are prey - smaller markets, ineffecient natural resource exploita- 

 tion, poorly formed capital markets, cultural and institutional drag - these 

 nations require the most sophisticated technological approaches that they can 

 acquire and just as soon as they can be brought into reach. 



This may be all very true, you say, but there is also the matter 

 of national goals that do not lend themselves to external manipulation. 

 This is only partly true. What we may be talking about is a common human 



