The first tendency is paradoxical. Although an impression of genuine change is conveyed by official declarations, regulations, and campaigns, the classical system in fact remains unaffected in any of its basic features.

The initiators of the events making up this tendency are influenced by the motives presented in section 16.1 : they realize the classical system has encountered some serious inherent contradictions. They see that something has to be done to remedy the ills. Yet they remain convinced of the correctness of the classical system's basic principles and of its superiority. So they argue that all the difficulties are solely (or at least mainly) caused by a failure to apply the correct principles consistently enough. The system would operate substantially better if a few secondary principles, legal measures, and institutions were replaced by more effective ones and resolutions applied more consistently, while the primary principles were kept unchanged.

Many official resolutions and economic studies suggesting that line of argument contain calls like “let us perfect our system of planning, ” “let us perfect the organization of work, ” and so on. They convey the impression that the phenomenon they are discussing is very good as it is, and a few finishing touches will suffice to make it perfect. ¹ Formulas like these have induced several authors to christen the whole trend the strategy

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