The Specific Gravity of Decisionism

IN all the contemporary fuss about decision making and the mountains of paper devoted to the topic there is, alas, as in so much social research, a preoccupation with methodology and a paucity of conclusions. Persons whose lives are dedicated to the cause of never arriving at a conclusion of any kind are producing more and more words on how to study the decision making process but are largely avoiding the question of what decisions are or how to make them. The works of certain senior thinkers and doers are exceptions to the rule, for they at least arrive at some conclusions about the magic and mystique of decision making. T. V. Smith used to say that the top policy questions of public life cannot be decided and therefore must be resolved by compromise. Louis Brownlow often observed that when a specialist is promoted to a general post he may learn to make good decisions in every field except the one of his previous specialty. John Pfiffner recently told us in these pages that social research needs to become operational. The prevailing school seems to be in favor of decision making by counting things by machinery. This process may give us a better basis for decision making but surely does not replace the need for a conscious choice by human beings after all the returns have been counted. Before we can really improve the decision making business by, for instance, seeing to it that important decisions are considered at important levels, we must examine the natural laws of administratics. The time has probably come to share with readers of this review the revelation of the Law of The Specific Gravity of Decisionism. This law was evolved out of a lifetime of actual participation in the making of decisions, and unusual opportunities for observing others make decisions interspersed with occasional brief periods of thought. > A new and immutable law of decision making is here propounded

Geodesy · Geography · Complex Systems and Decision Making · Economic Theory and Institutions · Economic, financial, and policy analysis