The Time Horizon of Planned Social Change: II. How the Advocates of Social Reform May Expedite Their Purpose Through Temporal Calibration

Richard Noyes

American Journal of Economics and Sociology, 1980, vol. 39, issue 3, 261-272

Abstract: Abstract. Recent recognition of time horizon as a variable in human cerebration opens a window on the question of how worthwhile social reform might be expedited. The careers of three prophets in this millennium—Bartolomé de Las Casas, John Eliot and Jonathan Edwards—support the premise that unusually long time horizons needed for prophecy create an inherent differential between the prophet's horizon and the time frame of his contemporaries. The resulting discalibration is an impediment to communication. Rudimentary measurement of the time horizons of modern‐day proponents of land value taxation, followers of Henry George, indicated horizons longer than the current social time frame. It follows that some calibration of that difference is advisable. Adjustments in an individual's own time horizon are apt to be more productive than efforts to shift the time frame as a whole.

Date: 1980
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