| be sure before-hand how extensive the consequences of such questioning will be. I suggest then that we draw three conclusions. First, that the information and ideas which we store, transmit and create in universities are, despite the common usage of the word 'knowledge', hypothetical and provisional. Second, that research can only flourish where doubt and questioning are not only permitted, but encouraged as intellectual virtues, and thirdly, that such open-ended research is certain to have complex and unforeseeable consequences. RESEARCH IN THE SOCIAL SCIENCES Knowledge is a social product. It exists effectively only in relations between people; it has consequences only in so far as it is validated by its social acceptance within some group or community. Its effective use depends on an appropriate cultural climate, and on appropriate social and economic organisation. Once in use, it has real social consequences, always including some unforeseen by its discoverers and transmitters. To put the point differently, science and technology are not isolates, or ends in themselves, but are the products of specific social circumstances and processes; and have specific social purposes and social consequences. If these are truisms, then why is it that the study of the society is apparently such a minor part of university research programmes? Britain, as we have seen, spends only a fraction on the social sciences of what it spends for, say, developing Concorde alone. Spending on the sciences is an even smaller part of total research spending in less developed countries. The developing countries are attempting a social transformation without precedent. The social consequences of sustained rapid economic growth are quite bewildering in their complexity, are by no means predictable, but certainly involve serious disamenities and miseries for many citizens. At the same time, to a far greater degree than ever before, governments of all kinds are committed to the attempt to plan their futures. It might seem that a major effort to record accurately and in detail the changes that are taking place, |
| and to analyse them in the most sophisticated and profound ways possible, would almost certainly have direct benefits in framing more effective government action. Yet by and large this is far from happening. Social science is far from ignored. Above all, economists are in constant demand, and given considerable prestige and homage. Indeed, studies of development are dominated by economists, and economics. Of course, economists are necessary. We could obviously do with better economists in all countries, and more of them in some. But the assumption that economists are the main kind of social scientist is unfortunate and mistaken. (We are for example here organised by the Economic Division of CENTS). Lake technology, economics is dominated by the west. Relatively few western economists are mainly interested in developing economies, and their understanding of developing economies is an outsider's view. Moreover, economics deals with models,—quantitative models. The use of models for policy making implies confidence that the model fits the real situation at least in the main essentials. But even in strictly economic terms, the economists differ among themselves about the relative importance of various quantitative factors; the debate over the cause of inflation provides an excellent example. How then can we trust the economists' models? More serious and fundamental, economists imply, and often politicians and administrators accept, that what economists define as intellectually respectable and real, as 'economics', is indeed more real and more important than other social and political factors. Hence when their models fail to work, they talk of non-economic variables upsetting the economic processes. This kind of thinking is fallacious. It preserves the plausibility of economic models which do not fit the facts by the expedient of inventing and blaming 'non-economic' variables. I am I know on controversial ground. I argue that social and political factors are necessary conditions of the working of a market economy, and that the success of economics in |
| western industrialised societies is partly a result of the relative isolation of economic relations and institutions from other social and political relations and institutions. In fact, even in the industrialised countries, the degree to which economics is embedded in social and political relations is often seriously underestimated. Moreover, economics does not seem to me to be morally neutral, as for example, physics is morally neutral. It is based on simple assumptions about the nature of man which encourage acquisitiveness and self interest,—or, if you like, hard work, efficiency and rewards for the able. Even more important, economics assumes that the national growth of material wealth is an end in itself. May we not then be in danger of underestimating the disamenities and the political and social consequences of very rapid economic growth? The second main use of social sciences is in the training of administrators and lawyers. Turkey and British India founded colleges for this purpose in the nineteenth century. The assumption was basically platonic; that good laws made a good state, that is, a powerful and successful state. Thus it was believed that by importing the political philosophy and institutions, the laws and administrative procedures of the west, other nations would rapidly 'catch up’. But these colleges were not conceived as institutions for research, but for transferring and transmitting currently-received western legal political and administrative truth.(4) Thirdly, all governments and all administration need social information. How many teachers are there? How many children will reach school age in five years time? What is the distribution of the size of farming units? What is the rate of population changes in different parts of the country? What research is being done, in what subjects and how is it paid for? How relevant is it to national needs? The list is infinite. Such information gathering is usually done by government itself or by normal administrative staff through special units or institutions. But all counting of social cases of anything depend on definitions, and the usefulness and implications of the statistics in turns depends on these definitions. Very often, such statistics are much more inaccurate or more |
| seriously misleading than the administrators realise. What is needed is not more statistical sophistication, but more systematic thinking, and training in thinking, about the problems of making social classifications,—or fixing definitions and boundaries. In the last ten years in Britain, the recognition of the possible relevance of social sciences to government has increased greatly. This expansion has led to a serious debate, which still continues, on how government should make use of social scientists. Certainly, many attempts have not been unduly successful. Many of the points made in this debate are relevant to the development and use of social sciences, especially non-economic social sciences, in developing countries. I set out only a few main arguments. Administrators and politicians at all levels are necessarily committed to specific aims and to time-tables. As member organisations they are also committed to holding on to their jobs, to not displeasing their superiors, and normally to supporting, at least informally, their own group, section, division, company or ministry against its rivals. They need research for four basic purposes. First, they need information for making decisions; secondly, since all purposive action necessarily implies assumptions about causation, they need causal analyses; thirdly they need imaginative suggestions about the solutions to difficulties,— how to deal with the legal problems of ownership in shanty towns by squatters or how to improve modern language teaching in high schools; fourthly, they need,—or ought to need,—disinterested evaluation of projects programmes and policies to see how effective they have been. Yet when they turn to academic social scientists for help, misunderstandings very often arise. First, administrators and academics do not share purposes. The administrator's reputation depends on effective action; the academic's on publishing interesting data or on resolving theoretical puzzles. Secondly, the academic, quite genuinely, may see the situation differently from the administrator. He redefines the problem, and often includes the administrator and his organisation as a variable to be |