SEMAINE D'ÉTUDE SUR LE ROLE DE L ANALYSE ECONOMETRIOUE ETc. 1031

WoLbp

When reading this paper in advance, I was quite fascinated by the
new vistas it opens up on the analysis of organization problems. At
the same time I was puzzled by some of the implications, and I am
not quite sure I have grasped the underlying basic hypotheses. This
is in particular so with your statement that neither zero nor
100%, spatial decentralization work at a disadvantage or at an advantage.
 Am I right to understand that this result is based on an
assumption of complete insight into the future?
To emphasize this question I should like to tell what I once heard
from a friend of mine in the foreign service. We had talked about
the possibility of predicting developments about war and peace at the
upper decision levels of the great powers, and in particular I had
asked whether diplomats find it more difficult to predict such development
 for the Soviet, Union than for the United States, My friend
said that the developments are quite unpredictable in both countries,
but for entirely different reasons. In the Soviet Union the decisions
of the inner circle are watertight secrets, and no outsider can get the
smallest clue to predicting what will happen. In the States, he
continued, every senator is an open book on his political views, and
his opinions can be read in any newspaper; different senators however
have different views, and the political decisions are made by committees;
 what will happen in the future thus is a question of which
senators will be members of the committee at issue, and this depends
on so many intangible factors that no specialist in the world is able
to make valid predictions. Thus although the two systems differ very
much with regard to information about the inner circles, the situation
with regard to prediction is in reality very much the same, because
in the open system the complete insight is only apparent. What is
needed for genuine prediction is much more. The point I wish to
make is that the assumption of complete insight which is customary
in many scientific approaches is indeed very stringent.

:+ Isard - pag. 20