growth could be considered in a timeless and spaceless

context with every element, including man himself, neatly

categorized and controlled, problems of economic growth

and economic change would be considerably less vexing.

But men and circumstances are not easily categorized or

controlled; history does not follow a predictable course;

nor is it inevitable. While production is a technical

process, economic change is more an historical process of

evolution than a theoretical or mechanical process of

change (indeed, how many of our problems arise because we

do think mechanistically). It may depend as much upon

strength of will and good fortune, concepts not generally

included in theoretical analyses, as anything else.7

Only in theory can mankind be viewed as "developing"

collectively along a known path to a known goal. In

reality each people is participant in and heir to its

own unique historical experience. The experience of

economic growth has been common to only a few. Perhaps

the one thing we may be sure about is not growth, not

decline, but change.


American Economic Association, LXI (May, 1971), 53-62;
F. H. Hahn, "Some Adjustment Problems," Econometrica,
XXXVIII (January, 1970), 1-11.

 A technical view of man's actions in the world
follows closely in the Cartesian tradition, which works
very well when considering the properties of atoms or
the movement of stars. In part, men's actions also are
predictable, but only in given social and historical
contexts, and then not entirely. When one extends the
analysis to the predictability of changes in the contexts
themselves, the problem becomes still more difficult. It
is common prudence to look ahead, but who really can
predict the future?