A parable of two princes: An effective approach to national development

The paper compares two opposite strategies for national development: (1) initially optimum policies in the absence of a strong feedback system and (2) initially poor policies with a strong feedback system. The strong feedback system is essentially a real-time information system designed to support national development. A number of principles or guidelines for implementing such a real-time information system are presented. The entire approach is based upon the viable system model of Stafford Beer.