A WEEKLY COMMENTARY
Year Nineteen ... Number Forty-Nine ... December 8, 1972
PROOFS OF A CONSPIRACY TO BUILD
A TOTAL, MANAGED GLOBAL SOCIETY
PART FOURTEEN
THE TOTALITY OF THE TAKEOVER
In The American Nightmare (Macmillan Co.) author Sidney J. Slomich, who calls himself an "expert," warns that America should beware of experts.
"I have been an expert," writes Slomich, "and I can tell you that experts gone wild -- and they have -- are like cancer. They know only one thing: more, more, more of the same. Nothing is more expert than cancer, nothing is a better example of power without purpose. Cancer is ignorant, but, oh, it works, it grows . . . .
"An expert sees his small piece of reality and little else. He confuses understanding with control and makes of the latter his single virtue. One of our leading social scientists has said that the chief accomplishment of this age is to have changed so many political problems into technical ones. We see in Vietnam, as at Auschwitz, the result of technical solutions to political problems."
Slomich certainly qualifies as an "expert's expert." Bachelor's, master's and Ph.D. from Harvard University where he studied federal and municipal government in America, political philosophy, international law, Russian history, the Soviet economy, and international relations. He did research work for the Army of Czechoslovakia, spent a number of years as an officer of the CIA, worked on strategic problems, including Vietnam, in Army think tanks -- among them the Research Analysis Corporation, was with that Arms Controls and Disarmament Study Group at Caltech which was mentioned in our proceding letter (No. 13) in this series. In short, Sidney J. Slomich knows just about all there is for an insider to know about the subject of this series: Planning, Programming, Budgeting System (PPBS). He has published advanced technological studies on its application to urban affairs, served as a consultant to groups installing PPBS, etc.
"In 1964," writes Slomich, "I sat in disbelief in a Washington think tank, listening to a very well-financed Army proposal to develop a computerized electronic warning system to alert the Pentagon when a Latin American country was likely to go "Red," and -- the system having been perfected on paper -- to rent a whole Latin American country and army to test it out. This stupid and unbelievably naive project was the product of Ph.D.s, men who call themselves and are called scientists. When this project was discovered by Chileans who observed some strangely behaving researchers, it hit the press and was investigated by Congress (Project Camelot -Ed.) . . . This is a particuarly apt, yet typical, example of the allegedly scientific thinking that lies behind Vietnam and all the horrors it has brought to roost in this country and all over the world."
Now, please read carefully the following warning given by "retired PPBS expert" Sidney Slomich:
". . . over the last generation, especially the last 15 years, the United States -- at home and abroad -- has been preoccupied, not with human life and its purpose, but with ignorant power and control -- that is to say with death -- and has become, along with the Soviet Union, as a colleague in mindless adversity, the planet's greatest polluter, an agent of potentially total repression, and the greatest threat to continued human life the world has ever faced. I do not like to say these things, but one must speak plainly. There is a monster on our chest. . . ."
In a previous letter in this series we indicated that governmental use of PPBS really began with the post-war Marshall Plan and its extension to include foreign aid to Western Europe and then to practically the whole world, which we volunteered to rebuild. And in this connection, we have been referred to an article by Melchoir Palyi -- a bona fide rather than an alleged expert in his field, which is finance and economics -- that appeared in the Commercial and Financial Chronicle, May 7, 1970. His explanation and description of the workings of PPBS is post-war France, and its essential "input-output-model" will help to clarify some points in this difficult-to-describe PPBS complexity.
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Centralized Planning was the fashionable thing in Western Europe at the end of World War II (except in Germany that "needed" it most, but became the greatest success without Planners). France was in the grips of what was called Programming -- the Russian Planned Economy without Communism. Presently France still has a Planning Ministry which is in the process of elaborating the Sixth Plan. France did not abolish central planning as Communist Yugoslavia did, but the French enthusiasm evaporated; business shrugs it off; the public pays scant attention to the whole thing; Labor virtually ignores it.
The French System
Planning, or Programming, must be based on forecasts. The forecasts of the French experts invariably turned out to be wide of the mark. This was true, especially also, of what became known as the "input-output-models," which were essential for their blueprints. The principle underlying these forecasting devices is very simple: the "input" of one industry corresponds to the "output" of another industry. If we know the former, the problem of how much the latter should produce is resolved automatically.
The French planning bureacracy would call in, say, the country's car producers; each of them would estimate the number of cars of each make and size it would produce the next year (and beyond). Given these data, the steel requirement of the automobile industry can be calculated. Do the same for construction, machine tool, transportation equipment and all other major industries. The total is the steel "input" which should be equaled by the steel "output" -- provided that the steel-consumers did not misjudge the prospects. But it is a virtual certainty that they will make serious miscalculations. In some under-developed countries, India in particular, such errors of judgment led to very serious wasting of capital, their scarcest resource.
How, indeed, could the experts foresee unexpected chantges in consumer tastes, shifts in the channels of foreign trade, or new developments in technology? Such changes may annul in short order all advance input-output calculations. The greatest weakness of these ambitious calculations is, however, that they refer to physical quantities, not to values. But in reality, unit costs, prices, dollar volume of sales and profit margins are the overriding considerations. French programming tried to combine the best of both worlds: of centralized Soviet planning and of decentralized competitive American enterprise. It went on the rocks of the French inflation that has upset costs, and everything else.
Input/output constructions belong in the category of econometric models (econometrics is "the application of statistical methods to the study of economic data and problems -- Ed.); and scarcely anyone is more critical of the validity of such models than the econometrics themselves.
Generally, they believe that no better than 50 per cent accuracy can be expected, a modest ambition indeed. If it is correct, the usefulness of the method for practical purposes is restricted to special cases.
Nevertheless, input-output analysis has a place of its own, if on a limited scale only, especially so within individual firms -- whereever sudden and frequent changes in the underlying conditions are not expected. . . .
(End of quotation)
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Note what Dr. Palyi refers to as the greatest weakness of the French Plannning, Programming System: It tried to combine centralized Soviet Planning with decentralized competitive free enterprise. The Soviet system is concerned with physical quantity; but the free enterprise system also must consider quality and consumer approval. When the French Planners tried to institute Planned Economy without coercive Communism, they brought on runaway inflation, and their plans ended with chaos.
Here in the United States, the Planners added to Planned Programming, the new concept of Performance Budgeting; but the Planners arrived at the same dead end: runaway inflation. And --
Unable to revoke and rescind the PPBS control methods which already had been made applicable to every federal department and agency, President Nixon was forced to do the one thing he swore he would never do: set up a system of price and wage controls!
PPBS must be based on forecasts; for it is a system devised to control the future. But forecasts are inaccurate unless all elements are constant and unless unexpected changes can be prevented. In other words, if PPBS is applied to the production of automobiles, not only must the building of the cars be "predestinated" by the Planners, but so must their price, their quality and their scalability be "predestinated," and all of these with reasonable accuracy. Otherwise, the result is an "Edsel."
Conclusion: Since the Planners have determined that the Planning, Programming, Budgeting System is the method of the future, and since PPBS and free enterprise are not compatible, therefore controlled economy is the New Order for the New Society.
However, we shall not have a Planned Economy with Communism; for the United States the Planners have "predestinated" that we shall have a Planned Economy with Corporate Socialism, commonly called Fascism.
Now, let us note Dr. Palyi's last quoted paragraph: "Nevertheless, input-output analysis has a place of its own, if on a limited scale only, especially so within individual firms -- wherever sudden and frequent changes are not expected."
In other words, PPBS might work within an individual firm, but it is impractical and inefficient when applied on a universal basis. And this is where PPBS carries the seed of its own destruction, because the Planners have ordered the application of PPBS to anything and everything: not only to every area of government, but to every aspect of the private sector as well. Using their own source material in proof of this:
In "A Rand Corporation-Sponsored Research Study" entitled Program Budgeting . . . , and edited by David Novack, on Page XII, 5th paragraph from the top, we read:
"This book concentrates on the program aspects of the budget. It purposefully avoids problems of fiscal policy, revenue and related issues in order to explain in greater detail than would otherwise be possible the theory of program budgeting; and it presents a limited number of illustrative examples of how this concept, now applied in the Department of Defense, might be adapted to other areas of the Federal Government. (Implicitly, the concpet is also proposed for state and local government and for private business.)
"Thus, when such special subjects are education and transportation are considered in terms of program budgeting, the treatment is intended to be suggestive only and to stimulate research rather than to report on a completed study." (Italics added -- Ed.)
On page 70 of the same book:
"Increased emphasis in the Department of Defense on systematic planning and programming will undoubtedly have a profound effect on industry."
Page 71 indicates the necessity for the destruction of the present Congressional System because the Constitutional limitation on appropriation (two years only) interferes with PPBS long-range budgeting:
"Through accepting the new process as an essential tool of planning, and even claiming some credit for its adoption, the House Appropriation Committee still wanted the budget format left unchanged. It is of course, a virtue of the new process that it does not require a change in budget format. Planning and programming are simply superimposed on the budget, and govern its substance, although not its form. The relationship is explicitly stated in the House Appropriations Committee report: 'Basically, each annual appropriations bill is simply an additional annual increment to the longer range Defense program.'
"The need for an extended budgetary time horizon was recognized in a study of the federal budget by the staff of the Subcommittee on Economic Statistics of the Joint Economic Committee. The generalized use of cost-benefit relationships was advocated as a means of achieving better budgets.
"In the Executive establishment, the Bureau of the Budget is encouraging the Departments and Agencies to plan, program, and budget on a longer range basis. The Bureau of the Budget, the Department of the Treasury, and the Council of Economic Advisors are cooperating in preparing longer term economic projections."
Explanation: The House of Representatives is charged with the responsibility of initiating all appropriations bills. Since the life of a Congress is but two years, the power of a Congress to appropriate money is also limited (Constitutionally, that is) to a two-year period. Otherwise, the new incoming Congress (and the people it represents) would lose control over federal spending. Thus, Article I, Section 8 of the Constitution of the United States reads: "The Congress shall have power . . . to raise and support armies: but no appropriation of money to that shall be for a longer term than two years:"
PPBS requires long-term appropriations; and for that reason the Congress and the people it represents lose all control over federal spending.
We call your attention to another publication entitled "The Computer in American Education," edited by Don D. Bushnell of the Brooks Foundation, Dwight W. Allen of Stanford University, with Sara S.Miller as Editorial Associate; commissioned by The Association for Educational Data Systems; and published by John Wiley and Sons, Inc.
On page 5 of this document, in reference to the use of PPBS (and the computer) in social engineering, we are told:
"Another factor that is extraordinarily and radically important to this set of relationships will be the increasing effectiveness and utilization of what we call social engineering: the systematic application of knowledge in economics and social and behavioral sciences to the design, planning and manipulation of the society and its parts in order to attain efficiently specified goals. The stimulus is there, especially with the development of such nationwide activities as the poverty program, the extended education legislation, and -- while we don't talk about it -- the area of counterinsurgency. In all these instances we must be able to plan exceedingly complex programs far enough in advance to phrase and operate them effectively. . . ." (Italics added -- Ed.)
Please note that "what we call social engineering" in the United States is called "psychopolitics" in Soviet Russia. It has to do with mind control and suppression of dissent; and for these purposes, Russia recently purchased some 15,000 computers. The publication from which we have just quoted, states that in "social engineering" the computer "provides an unprecedently powerful tool for better understanding men and their institutions, and hence for planning and for implementation of these plans."
Just as the constantly recurring "Five Year Plans" have been the absolute controlling factor of life in the Soviet Union, the more sophisticated Planning, Programming, Budgeting System is to control all factors of life in the New Society, in the new United Socialist States of America. How PPBS is insinuated into state and local government is explained in a research report on "The Application of State and Local Government," by Robert L. Johnson of the Stanford Research Institute, Menlo Park, California. We are told (page 10) that:
"The increasing and accelerating centralization of executive, legislative and judicial authority in Washington has created new and complex problems at the other levels of government. These impacts are especially critical at the local government level, where the demands for federal program supervision, monitoring, or documentation often exceed staff capabilities; and where significant and revolutionary changes must be made in local fiscal management systems (both budgeting and accounting) to satisfy federal program participation standards.
"Mandatory implementation of the Defense Department's Planning, Programming, and Budgeting System (PPBS) in all federal agencies and of the military Program Evaluation and Review Technique (PERT) as a requirement for other agencies' major industrial contracts, as well as the voluntary participation of a number of state governments in the Federal Information Exchange System (FIXS) have had a waterfall effect on local governments. These activities have imposed new information requirements (for local management of federally-financed programs, as well as for reporting program progress and status).
"(Therefore) the federal pattern (PPBS) is becoming the standard for management systems design throughout the government structure." (PPBS has become mandatory with the passage of the so-called Revenue Sharing Act).
PPBS, the monster with the computer for a brain, is the Big Brother who will be watching your every move.
(To Be Continued)
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For information concerning this letter, write: DON BELL REPORTS, P.O. Box 2223, Palm Beach, Florida 33480