This sort of choice represents the interests and the valuations of the prosperous, as it must. If the bulk of prosperous America were to conclude, as it has not, that slums and poverty were blights upon our society substantial enough to warrant personal sacrifices to eliminate, then systems analysis would have something to say about the most efficient way to go about the job.

My second illustration relates to housing, a related area, in fact. Suppose that tomorrow building technology were modernized, craft-union sabotage of efficient practice defeated, and ancient building codes granted decent burial. Our progress to decent urban housing would still be blocked.

The enemy is the persistent racial prejudice which has prevented substantial construction of low-income housing in the suburbs and confined growing numbers of Negroes and Puerto Ricans to central city ghettos.

Important social changes are far more likely to occur when the interests of the politically potent are allied to the changes that when the techniques which make change easy have been developed.

Indeed, I would add here that if there is a strong enough desire to make social change, then the techniques probably will be developed which will lend effect to the wish.

A third illustration concerns tax equity in local-State circumstances. Last year, Mayor Lindsay proposed to tax the incomes of both commuters and New York City residents at similar rates. What the State legislature finally gave him was the authority to impose one set of rates upon residents and a very much lower set of charges upon the commuters to the city.

Imagine, contrary to the fact, that the mayor had had available a cost-benefit analysis of commuter tax payments and the value of city services to commuters. Would the clear conclusion of such a study that the commuters pay less than their fair share (which everybody suspects already, and possibly even the commuters) really persuade commuters to accept with good grace a new tax which their political power and personal influence might enable them to avoid?

LOCAL IMPROVEMENTS

As a final example of the fluidity of actual political issues, let me cite a trio of controversies currently agitating the residents of Suffolk County where my own university is located.

The State road department has proposed to widen Route 25A, a picturesque but narrow and winding road which currently bears a heavy traffic burden. Robert Moses, among others, projects a bridge to connect Long Island with Connecticut. One of the possible sites of the long-disputed fourth jetport for the New York metropolitan area is located in Suffolk County.

How shall we decide whether to make these improvements? Certainly the most careful calculation of benefits and costs should be made. But after they are made the argument has only begun. Inevitably the experts will value homes and business properties less highly than will their owners. Even if this were not the case, the experts are unlikely to agree with the partisans of scenic beauty, space, trees, foliage, and sanctuaries for wildlife.

In the computer age politics is still about power and influence. It may be entirely rational for powerful persons to conclude that their own interest, their own influence, and their own profit fail to coincide with a decision which rational social analysis demonstrates to be beneficial to the community.

What I have said permits of easy summary. It is an American temptation to substitute technique and method for open argument about values and priorities. Overemphasis upon technique and neglect of genuine conflicts of interest and valuation is a sin to which social scientists in particular are subject.

I reiterate my support of the legislation before this committee, but I must add at the same time that undue emphasis upon systems analysis or any other technique of social choice is likely to produce complacency about such issues as the distribution of income and wealth in our society, the crippling effects of racial prejudice, the equity of our tax system, the capacity of powerful, special interests to have their way, and the limitations of human sympathy which combine to defeat the most rational of social calculations.

Thank you very much.

Senator NELSON. I think you make several important points. In particular that if there is not acceptance by the decisionmakers at the political level of a solution to some problem, it is not going to happen.

I would make the point that sometimes, frequently or always, perhaps, if you have the analysis of a problem, with a demonstration of its cost, its need, and it is a compelling analysis it may not be politically acceptable today, but it has influence over a period of time.

In a number of instances in my own State on issues which were unacceptable to settlement 10 or 12 years ago, suddenly are being widely discussed and will shortly be acceptable.

So I think even though a solution to a problem is not acceptable immediately, if all the facts are presented to the public, I do think it has its impact over a period of time in causing changes.

Wouldn't you agree with that?

Mr. LEKACHMAN. I certainly would agree with that, Senator. If I were being cheerful about a proposal which I personally support, some form of negative income tax, or income maintenance, I would have hoped that over a period of years this particular approach is going to gain support, not only because it appeals to human altruism, but because it may be demonstrated that it is a less expensive way of providing for social welfare needs.

Yet I suppose that what runs through my mind is partly a questionI am far from an expert on systems analysis-about whether this is a technique that is as neutral as it appears to be.

I caught just the final minutes of Mr. Ramo's testimony, so I should not comment upon that. But let me say just generally that I think it is going to make a significant difference whether the practitioners of this new technique are primarily trained as engineers, or whether they are primarily trained as social scientists.

I don't mean by that to suggest anything as unfair, by way of comment, as a bias on the part of either group. But what I am suggesting is that it is a bias of an intellectual type which is imparted by the training.

I think very broadly, and perhaps I am saying this somewhat rationally, the engineering approach does place very, very heavy emphasis upon what is already immediately measurable, and social scientists, although they have certainly yielded to some of the same temptations, are at least by training more likely to try to measure some things which are currently very difficult of measurement, indeed.

I suppose I have in mind when I say that such things as local road improvements which, from an engineering standpoint, may look entirely feasible, and where the opposing interest may be indeed the proponents of trees, natural beauty, and some residential graciousness in the area.

I don't know how you quantify this sort of thing. All I am airing, I suppose, is the suspicion that if a heavily engineering approach becomes the dominant one in systems analysis, there will be variables which will be either ignored or neglected.

The universe of a physical planner is a great deal more tidy than the emphasis of the social planner. The emphasis on tidiness is one which I mistrust in this analysis.

I am suggesting, in fact, something like this, as I was saying in my formal paper, that where there really isn't very much social conflict I can see great and immediate possibilities for systems analysis.

But where there is real social argument I have a suspicion that the technique, itself, is going to become a part of the argument rather than a resolving force.

Senator NELSON. The example you gave of the highway happens to be one in which you and I couldn't lose. The engineers, who have had the responsibility for the highways, if they were subjected to a systems analysis technique would probably be required then to give some value to environmental quality, whereas what they do now is draw very straight lines and are not so concerned about such matters.

Here is where with the systems analysis technique you would come up with environmental and scenic beauty values which would have to be given consideration by the highway engineers who have traditionally not given consideration to such factors.

I think any system we use has whatever bias in it the people of the system themselves have. We may not be able to avoid being influenced by that. But I would consider it a poor systems analysis team that did not have representatives on that team of people who were authorities on all aspects of the problem that they were analyzing.

If they do that, I think it provides some protection. I agree with you, that you certainly can become an exponent of a system to the point that it is such an infallible technique in the engineering field, in the defense field, and so on, that whatever results that technique produces in the social field may find more acceptance in the community than it ought to have. I would agree with that.

I thank you very much for your very fine presentation and appreciate your taking the time to come before the committee and give us the benefit of your advice.

Mr. LEKACHMAN. Thank you, sir.

Senator NELSON. The committee will resume hearings tomorrow morning at 9:30.

(Whereupon, at 11:20 a.m., the subcommittee recessed, to reconvene at 9:30 a.m., Thursday, January 26, 1967.)

SCIENTIFIC MANPOWER UTILIZATION, 1967

THURSDAY, JANUARY 26, 1967

U.S. SENATE,

SPECIAL SUBCOMMITTEE ON SCIENTIFIC MANPOWER

UTILIZATION OF THE COMMITTEE ON

LABOR AND PUBLIC WELFARE,

Washington, D.C.

The special subcommittee met at 9:30 a.m., pursuant to recess, in room 4232, Senate Office Building, Senator Gaylord Nelson (chairman of the special subcommittee) presiding.

Present: Senator Nelson (presiding).

Committee staff members present: Stewart E. McClure, chief clerk, and William Spring, special counsel to the subcommittee.

Senator NELSON. We will continue the hearings this morning on S. 430, Scientific Manpower Utilization Act of 1967, and S. 467, National Commission on Public Management.

Our first witness is Dr. Charles Kimball, president of the Midwest Research Institute, Kansas City, Mo.

We are pleased to have you appearing before us this morning. You have testified at other hearings before us and we have found your contributions very valuable.

You may proceed however you wish.

STATEMENT OF DR. CHARLES N. KIMBALL, PRESIDENT, MIDWEST RESEARCH INSTITUTE, KANSAS CITY, MO.

Dr. KIMBALL. Thank you, Senator.

Senator NELSON. I unfortunately did not get a chance to see your testimony in advance, so perhaps you better read it so I can interject any question I may have.

Dr. KIMBALL. Fine, I have a prepared statement here, Senator, that is 20 pages. It is really too long to read. I will just abstract from this.

Senator NELSON. The full text of Dr. Kimball's testimony will be printed in full in the record.

(The prepared statement of Dr. Kimball follows:)

PREPARED STATEMENT OF DR. CHARLES N. KIMBALL, PRESIDENT, MIDWEST

INSTITUTE, KANSAS CITY, Mo.

I am pleased to have this opportunity to enter into your discussions about the systems approach, and in its application to many problems of national concern. Because these issues do invlove a multidiscipline point of view with a strong mission orientation, I want to say a few words about the independent not-forprofit research institutes and their role-present and potential-in the enormous task of resolving social problems and building stronger cities and regions across the country. As I understand them, your discussions and your legislative con