he ever-changing circumstances of the moment?

Is it true that, with the elaborate apparatus of modern production, economic decisions are required only at long intervals, as when a new factory is to be erected or a new process to be introduced? Is it true that, once a plant has been built, the rest is all more or less mechanical, determined by the character of the plant, and leaving little to be changed in adapting to the ever-changing circumstances of the moment? The fairly widespread belief in the affirmative is not, as far as I can ascertain, borne out by the practical experience of the businessman. In a competitive industry at any rate—and such an industry alone can serve as a test—the task of keeping cost from rising requires constant struggle, absorbing a great part of the energy of the manager. How easy it is for an inefficient manager to dissipate the differentials on which profitability rests, and that it is possible, with the same technical facilities, to produce with a great variety of costs, are among the commonplaces of business experience which do not seem to be equally familiar in the study of the economist. The very strength of the desire, constantly voiced by producers and engineers, to be allowed to proceed untrammeled by considerations of money costs, is eloquent testimony to the extent to which these factors enter into their daily work. One reason why economists are increasingly apt to forget about the constant small changes which make up the whole economic picture is probably their growing preoccupation with statistical aggregates, which show a very much greater stability than the movements of the detail. The comparative stability of the aggregates cannot, however, be accounted for—as the statisticians occasionally seem to be inclined to do—by the “law of large numbers” or the mutual compensation of random changes. The number of elements with which we have to deal is not large enough for such accidental forces to produce stability. The continuous flow of goods and services is maintained by constant deliberate adjustments, by new dispositions made every day in the light of circumstances not known the day before, by B stepping in at once when A fails to deliver. Even the large and highly mechanized plant keeps going largely because of an environment upon which it can draw for all sorts of unexpected needs; tiles for its roof, stationery for its forms, and all the thousand and one kinds of equipment in which it cannot be self-contained and which the plans for the operation of the plant require to be readily available in the market.This is, perhaps, also the point where I should briefly mention the fact that the sort of knowledge with which I have been concerned is knowledge of the kind which by its nature cannot enter into statistics and therefore cannot be conveyed to any central authority in statistical form. The statistics which such a central authority would have to use would have to be arrived at precisely by abstracting from minor differences between the things, by lumping together, as resources of one kind, items which differ as regards location, quality, and other particulars, in a way which may be very significant for the specific decision. It follows from this that central planning based on statistical information by its nature cannot take direct account of these circumstances of time and place and that the central planner will have to find some way or other in which the decisions depending on them can be left to the “man on the spot.”

If it is fashionable today to minimize the importance

If it is fashionable today to minimize the importance of the knowledge of the particular circumstances of time and place, this is closely connected with the smaller importance which is now attached to change as such. Indeed, there are few points on which the assumptions made (usually only implicitly) by the “planners” differ from those of their opponents as much as with regard to the significance and frequency of changes which will make substantial alterations of production plans necessary. Of course, if detailed economic plans could be laid down for fairly long periods in advance and then closely adhered to, so that no further economic decisions of importance would be required, the task of drawing up a comprehensive plan governing all economic activity would be much less formidable. It is, perhaps, worth stressing that economic problems arise always and only in consequence of change. So long as things continue as before, or at least as they were expected to, there arise no new problems requiring a decision, no need to form a new plan. The belief that changes, or at least day-to-day adjustments, have become less important in modern times implies the contention that economic problems also have become less important. This belief in the decreasing importance of change is, for that reason, usually held by the same people who argue that the importance of economic considerations has been driven into the background by the growing importance of technological knowledge.

It is only a small part of the wider problem

It will at once be evident that on this point the position will be different with respect to different kinds of knowledge; and the answer to our question will therefore largely turn on the relative importance of the different kinds of knowledge; those more likely to be at the disposal of particular individuals and those which we should with greater confidence expect to find in the possession of an authority made up of suitably chosen experts. If it is today so widely assumed that the latter will be in a better position, this is because one kind of knowledge, namely, scientific knowledge, occupies now so prominent a place in public imagination that we tend to forget that it is not the only kind that is relevant. It may be admitted that, as far as scientific knowledge is concerned, a body of suitably chosen experts may be in the best position to command all the best knowledge available—though this is of course merely shifting the difficulty to the problem of selecting the experts. What I wish to point out is that, even assuming that this problem can be readily solved, it is only a small part of the wider problem. Today it is almost heresy to suggest that scientific knowledge is not the sum of all knowledge. But a little reflection will show that there is beyond question a body of very important but unorganized knowledge which cannot possibly be called scientific in the sense of knowledge of general rules: the knowledge of the particular circumstances of time and place. It is with respect to this that practically every individual has some advantage over all others because he possesses unique information of which beneficial use might be made, but of which use can be made only if the decisions depending on it are left to him or are made with his active coöperation. We need to remember only how much we have to learn in any occupation after we have completed our theoretical training, how big a part of our working life we spend learning particular jobs, and how valuable an asset in all walks of life is knowledge of people, of local conditions, and of special circumstances. To know of and put to use a machine not fully employed, or somebody’s skill which could be better utilized, or to be aware of a surplus stock which can be drawn upon during an interruption of supplies, is socially quite as useful as the knowledge of better alternative techniques. And the shipper who earns his living from using otherwise empty or half-filled journeys of tramp-steamers, or the estate agent whose whole knowledge is almost exclusively one of temporary opportunities, or the arbitrageur who gains from local differences of commodity prices, are all performing eminently useful functions based on special knowledge of circumstances of the fleeting moment not known to others. It is a curious fact that this sort of knowledge should today be generally regarded with a kind of contempt and that anyone who by such knowledge gains an advantage over somebody better equipped with theoretical or technical knowledge is thought to have acted almost disreputably. To gain an advantage from better knowledge of facilities of communication or transport is sometimes regarded as almost dishonest, although it is quite as important that society make use of the best opportunities in this respect as in using the latest scientific discoveries. This prejudice has in a considerable measure affected the attitude toward commerce in general compared with that toward production. Even economists who regard themselves as definitely immune to the crude materialist fallacies of the past constantly commit the same mistake where activities directed toward the acquisition of such practical knowledge are concerned—apparently because in their scheme of things all such knowledge is supposed to be “given.” The common idea now seems to be that all such knowledge should as a matter of course be readily at the command of everybody, and the reproach of irrationality leveled against the existing economic order is frequently based on the fact that it is not so available. This view disregards the fact that the method by which such knowledge can be made as widely available as possible is precisely the problem to which we have to find an answer.

the word “planning”

In ordinary language we describe by the word “planning” the complex of interrelated decisions about the allocation of our available resources. All economic activity is in this sense planning; and in any society in which many people collaborate, this planning, whoever does it, will in some measure have to be based on knowledge which, in the first instance, is not given to the planner but to somebody else, which somehow will have to be conveyed to the planner. The various ways in which the knowledge on which people base their plans is communicated to them is the crucial problem for any theory explaining the economic process, and the problem of what is the best way of utilizing knowledge initially dispersed among all the people is at least one of the main problems of economic policy—or of designing an efficient economic system. The answer to this question is closely connected with that other question which arises here, that of who is to do the planning. It is about this question that all the dispute about “economic planning” centers. This is not a dispute about whether planning is to be done or not. It is a dispute as to whether planning is to be done centrally, by one authority for the whole economic system, or is to be divided among many individuals. Planning in the specific sense in which the term is used in contemporary controversy necessarily means central planning—direction of the whole economic system according to one unified plan. Competition, on the other hand, means decentralized planning by many separate persons. The halfway house between the two, about which many people talk but which few like when they see it, is the delegation of planning to organized industries, or, in other words, monopoly. Which of these systems is likely to be more efficient depends mainly on the question under which of them we can expect that fuller use will be made of the existing knowledge. And this, in turn, depends on whether we are more likely to succeed in putting at the disposal of a single central authority all the knowledge which ought to be used but which is initially dispersed among many different individuals, or in conveying to the individuals such additional knowledge as they need in order to enable them to fit their plans with those of others. 

What is the problem we wish to solve when we try to construct a rational economic order?

On certain familiar assumptions the answer is simple enough. If we possess all the relevant information, if we can start out from a given system of preferences, and if we command complete knowledge of available means, the problem which remains is purely one of logic. That is, the answer to the question of what is the best use of the available means is implicit in our assumptions. The conditions which the solution of this optimum problem must satisfy have been fully worked out and can be stated best in mathematical form: put at their briefest, they are that the marginal rates of substitution between any two commodities or factors must be the same in all their different uses.This,  however, is emphatically not the economic problem which society faces. And the economic calculus which we have developed to solve this logical problem, though an important step toward the solution of the economic problem of society, does not yet provide an answer to it. The reason for this is that the “data” from which the economic calculus starts are never for the whole society “given” to a single mind which could work out the implications and can never be so given. The peculiar character of the problem of a rational economic order is determined precisely by the fact that the knowledge of the circumstances of which we must make use never exists in concentrated or integrated form but solely as the dispersed bits of incomplete and frequently contradictory knowledge which all the separate individuals possess. The economic problem of society is thus not merely a problem of how to allocate “given” resources—if “given” is taken to mean given to a single mind which deliberately solves the problem set by these “data.” It is rather a problem of how to secure the best use of resources known to any of the members of society, for ends whose relative importance only these individuals know. Or, to put it briefly, it is a problem of the utilization of knowledge which is not given to anyone in its totality. This character of the fundamental problem has, I am afraid, been obscured rather than illuminated by many of the recent refinements of economic theory, particularly by many of the uses made of mathematics. Though the problem with which I want primarily to deal in this paper is the problem of a rational economic organization, I shall in its course be led again and again to point to its close connections with certain methodological questions. Many of the points I wish to make are indeed conclusions toward which diverse paths of reasoning have unexpectedly converged. But, as I now see these problems, this is no accident. It seems to me that many of the current disputes with regard to both economic theory and economic policy have their common origin in a misconception about the nature of the economic problem of society. This misconception in turn is due to an erroneous transfer to social phenomena of the habits of thought we have developed in dealing with the phenomena of nature. In ordinary language we describe by the word “planning” the complex of interrelated decisions about the allocation of our available resources. All economic activity is in this sense planning; and in any society in which many people collaborate, this planning, whoever does it, will in some measure have to be based on knowledge which, in the first instance, is not given to the planner but to somebody else, which somehow will have to be conveyed to the planner. The various ways in which the knowledge on which people base their plans is communicated to them is the crucial problem for any theory explaining the economic process, and the problem of what is the best way of utilizing knowledge initially dispersed among all the people is at least one of the main problems of economic policy—or of designing an efficient economic system. The answer to this question is closely connected with that other question which arises here, that of who is to do the planning. It is about this question that all the dispute about “economic planning” centers. This is not a dispute about whether planning is to be done or not. It is a dispute as to whether planning is to be done centrally, by one authority for the whole economic system, or is to be divided among many individuals. Planning in the specific sense in which the term is used in contemporary controversy necessarily means central planning—direction of the whole economic system according to one unified plan. Competition, on the other hand, means decentralized planning by many separate persons. The halfway house between the two, about which many people talk but which few like when they see it, is the delegation of planning to organized industries, or, in other words, monopoly. Which of these systems is likely to be more efficient depends mainly on the question under which of them we can expect that fuller use will be made of the existing knowledge. And this, in turn, depends on whether we are more likely to succeed in putting at the disposal of a single central authority all the knowledge which ought to be used but which is initially dispersed among many different individuals, or in conveying to the individuals such additional knowledge as they need in order to enable them to fit their plans with those of others.

the study of vital social problems

We are an interdisciplinary community of scholars, practitioners, advocates, and students interested in the application of critical, scientific, and humanistic perspectives to the study of vital social problems. My arif with SSSP began with a serendipitous invitation in 1988 to serve on the Editorial Board of Social Problems.  Numerous invitations followed including the privilege of serving SSSP as President during this upcoming year. What has continued to draw me over the past 25 years is SSSP’s commitment to supporting scholars, activists, practitioners and students who are interested in research, teaching or service aimed at building a more just society.  In SSSP, I found support to engage in research that was rigorous as well as socially meaningful.  I am proud to belong to an organization that has served as the primary professional vehicle expanding the study of social problems for more than 60 years.  SSSP and its members have done this by affirming the relevance of applied research and praxis, by encouraging critical scholarship and debate on a constantly evolving array of social issues, and through the inclusion of diverse, interdisciplinary and international voices on these issues.  Through our annual meetings, special problems divisions, and networking with members, SSSP offers numerous opportunities for scholar-activists to meet like-minded colleagues; to be encouraged in their pursuit of scholarship that makes a difference; to actively shape the scholarly discourse on social issues; to participate in the organization in a variety of roles; and to receive ongoing mentoring that supports professional development.

Social problem is an unexpected

Social problem is an unexpected situation which hinders to lead normal life in a society. Social problem is a multidimensional problem. Social problem are created by various reasons.

Definition
Sociologists usually consider a social problem to be an alleged situation that is incompatible with the values of a significant number of people who agree that action is needed to alter the situation.

Social problems of Bangladesh and its remedies
Bangladesh is attacked by various social problems. The main problems are over population, poverty, unemployment, crime, juvenile delinquency, corruption, lack of nutrition, prostitution, beggary and vagabond problem, dowry and women repression, lack of proper distribution of wealth, divorce, mental illness, mentally disability problem, lack of security, drug addition, lack of sound health, etc. we will briefly discuss these problems.

1) Population problems
Overpopulation is not simply a function of the number or density o the individuals but rather the number of individuals compared to the resources (i.e. food production ) they need to survive. In other words, it is the ratio of population divided by resources. If a given environment has a population of ten, but there is food and drinking water enough for only nine, then that environment is overpopulated while if the population is 100 individuals but there are food and water enough for 900, it is not overpopulation.

Remedies:
To solve the problem of overpopulation, the measures the are mentioned below can be accepted:

a. Formulating population policy : Realistic population policy should be made on the basis of various reaches arch related to population control and family planning.

b. Family planning : it is possible to control the population of this country without family planning and planned family is very much important in this regard.

c. Expansion of education : Education is an important tool for controlling over population growth. Particularly female education can play an important role regarding population problem.

d. Employment of education : if we can increase the participation of women in economic activities, the fertility rate will obviously increase.

e. expansion of recreation facilities : the population growth will be decreased. If we can expand the decent and welfare created oriental recreational facilities. For this purpose TV and cinema etc. should be expended at the village level.

f. Early marriage: early marriage must be controlled though law and minimum marriage age for boys and girls should be 20 and 25 years respectively. …… action should be taken if anyone breaks the law.

2 Poverty:
Poverty as a social problem is a deeply embedded wound that permeates every dimension of culture and society . IT includes sustained low levels of income for members of a community .it includes lack of access to services like education, markets, health care, lack of decision- making ability, traditional agricultural system, lack of industrialization, unproductive education system, over population, less production, unemployment, natural disaster, lack of employment for woman, illiteracy and communal facilities like water, sanitation, roads, transportation, and communication.

Remedies:
Ø Formulating and implementing plan at national level for crediting poverty.
Ø Increasing agricultural and industrial production.
Ø Population control.
Ø Proper distribution of wealth and decreasing misuse of wealth.
Ø Minimizing social discrimination.
Ø Employment generation.

3)Crime:
Crime is doing something forbidden by low. That could mean stealing a mobile phone, vandalism, graffiti mugging, stealing or taking and selling drugs. Antisocial behaviour is criminalised and treated as offences against society which justifies punishment by the government. A series of distinctions are made depending on the passive subject of the crime ( the victim ) or on the offended interest(s), in crimes against:
Ø Poverty
Ø Personality of the states
Ø Rights of the citizen
Ø Public administration.
Ø Administration of justice.
Ø Religious sentiment and faith.
Ø Public order.
Ø Public economy, industry and commerce.
Ø Public morality.
Ø Person and honour.
Ø Patrimony.

Bangladesh government Problem

The Bangladesh government and the Bangladesh Aid Group have taken seriously the idea that Bangladesh is the test case for development. In the late 1980s, it was possible to say, in the somewhat patronizing tone sometimes adopted by representatives of donor organizations, that Bangladesh had generally been a “good performer.” Even in straitened times for the industrialized countries, Bangladesh remained a favored country for substantial commitments of new aid resources from a strikingly broad range of donors. The total estimated disbursement for FY 1988 was estimated at US$1.7 billion, an impressive total but just US$16 per capita. Half of that total was for food aid and other commodities of limited significance for economic growth. Even with the greatest imaginable efficiency in planning and administration, resource-poor and overpopulated Bangladesh cannot achieve significant economic improvements on the basis of that level of assistance.

small country with growing problems

Bangladesh is a small country with growing problems. Among all problems, unemployment problem is a great one. The problem has spread its evil clutch all over the country. It is going from bad to worse. All are getting concerned with this problems. There are many cause behind it. The first and for most cause is over population. Her population is growing very rabidly. After independence, the population has been doubled. In respect of population, it is eighth largest country in the world. The country cannot provide this huge population with employment opportunities. So, many people fall into this problem. There are plenty of natural resources in our country. They are not properly used. This also create the problem. There are few mills and factories in this country. A small number of people are engaged there.Besides, every year two or three mills are closed due o economic loss. Thus the scope of employment is narrowing. Most people are illiterate. They are not involved in productive work. This another cause. Our educational system is defective. The present educational system is not fit for practical life. Professional and vocational training is absent in this system. Beside our students nourish a false sense of self dignity. They are not keen to do manual labor. Rather they like to remain unemployed . There is no distribution of national wealth. It is also responsible for the problem. Some people think that everything is predestined by God. So, there is use of try. They like remain idle. The effects of unemployment problem are many. Drug addiction, kidnapping, snatching, traffic jam and various types of social crime result in unemployment. Economic depression is going to throughout the country. In the word, the country is lagging behind from all quarters for it. No prosperity is possible for it.
The following measure can be prescribed to solve the problem. Firstly all should be educated. Secondly, more and more mills and factories should be established. Thirdly, vocational training should be introduced in education. Fourthly national wealth should be equally distributed. Fifthly, we have to change our outlook to our fate. Sixthly, natural resources should be used properly. Last of all, the Government should take massive programmes to make an unemployment free Bangladesh.In fine we can say that unemployment problem is a great problem. It should be solved at any cost. It is high time to solve the problem. Conscious people should work together with the government in the regard. Otherwise, we all fall into a great danger.

What are Social and political problems in Bangladesh?

Social problems: Corruption, inequality of income, unemployment, illegal toll collection in the name of political parties, traffic accidents, law and order, politicization of government organs, corruption in the judiciary, price hike of commodity.

Political: Absence of tolerance among the parties, party in power do not allow opposition parties’ activities, disappearance of opposition political activists, influence at all government offices, position student front engagement in illegal toll collection and extortion, saying no to all government efforts by opposition party, forceful strike by oppositions etc..