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Failures usually have at least one positive result: they enrich ex-perience with new perceptions. It would be worthwhile for us to make use of the experiences of the last decade, so that we do not repeat, the same mistakes a third time. That means first of all that the reform, which in 1961 was called a new economic system, and which to all appearances now will be called a stabilization program, cannot be improvised. Creation of committees and sub-committees, or groups and sub-ęroups composed of people from the administration and political forums and individuals outside of these bodies who particip-ate as some sort of paid consultants, with deadlines of one, two or three months is not the wav to carry out such serious work as the halting of negative trends which are harrying the Yugoslav economy. Naturally, committees and sub-committees cannot be avoided. But these are only operative palliatives and not a basie way of solving problems.

The elaboration and implementation of a stabilization program obviously has two aspects: political and technical. Where the former is concerned, the government should come before the Parliament with its own stabilization program, for which it bears fuli responsibility, by which it stands or falls. In so far as that program, with essential sup-plements and corrections as the result of public debate, is accepted, the govemment should receive free rein and fuli support to carry it out. In so far as implementation is shown to be a failure, through whoever’s fault - the government’s, the Parliament’s or someone clse’s - the government has the right and responsibility to resign and let the whole procedurę be renewed.

Where the technical aspect is concerned, it is obviously high time to mobilize the total scientific potential of the country in long-term solu-tion of the country’s economic problems. This cannot be carried out by having the Federal (still less the republic’s) Council for Coordina-tion of Scientific Activities conduct competitions for research projects, for which the administrative procedurę lasts on the average two years and the problems which evoked the project have long sińce changed before the project has begun to be carried out, while in the meantime the State administration has to lean on itself. Neither can this be carried out by ministries engaging research institutions, for Ministers do not wish to hear criticism of their work, and the directors of research institutions do not wish to remain without personal incomes for their colleagues. Neither can this be done by including individual scholars in consultative bodies, such as the former Economic Council, who ac-quaint themselves with the materials during a piane flight to Belgrade and return home the same day after they have given their first im-pressions at some meeting and taken care of of the formalities over consulting fees and travel expenses. All these methods can, of course, be still, utilized, but in our present situation they are of an entirely peripheral importance. What we need is a coordinated program of economic (and not only economic) research in the entire country and a staff of top and independent scholars who would be institutionally

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