clearly providing evidence that the adjustment procedure is inadequate. A test of the independ-

ence of the irregular component is usually used for this. A related test on the trend/cycle com- ponent can also signify model misspecification. Finally, the stability of the estimated seasonal model when new data are encountered is an important practical test. Estimated seasonal ef- fects over different, but overlapping, sample periods, using summary measures of stability- such as the average change in seasonal effects over a given interval-are an important guide to the properties of a given adjustment procedure.

Conclusions

Den Butter and Fase have written a thorough and readable account of the many issues of modelling, evaluating. and using seasonal mod- els. Throughout there is a wealth of applications which makes the book especially useful. The brief summary contained here does not do jus- tice to the altcrnativc methods they cover, and only a selection of the principal ones have been noted here. Also. there is an admirable concen- tration upon actual empirical examples. mainly drawn from monetary data which arc liberally used to illustrate the properties of the different methods.

As the authors themselves note, “seasonal adjustment will often form part of policy diag- nosis, and will therefore frequently involve some degree of subjectivity”. They go on, *‘this mono- graph. offers the reader some guidance in forming his own judgement in this technical sub- ject”. It is my judgement that the authors have achieved this objective admirably. They have written a short book which manages to cover the main elements of the subject in a lucid and objective way.

Brian Henry Bank of England. UK

References

Dagum, E.D.. 1978, “Modelling. forecasting and aeasonnlly adjusting timeserie< with the X-l I ARIMA method”. 771e S/ari,sticictrl. 27. ‘K-2 16.

H:irvey, A.C.. 1981, Tim-Swim Modds (Philip Allen. Oxford).

Frank W. Elwell, The Evolution of the Future (Praeger Publishers, New York, NY, 1991), pp. 144. $37.95.

This is, for me. a disappointing book, one that does not deliver on the promise of its first chap- ter. Elwell starts out in fine style, attacking most futurists for their reliance on trend cxtrapola- tion, the absence of any explicit theory, and their lack of any sense of history. As a result, he charges, futurists have failed to live up to the promise that ‘foresight will allow us to change society either to achieve a potential out- come .,. or to avoid it. .‘. To make up for these deficiencies’. Elwell introduces us to cultural materialism with its emphasis on two key asser- tions:

(1) ‘The various parts of society are inter- related,’ and

(2) ‘The entire structure of the sociocultural system rests on the way a society exploits its environment to meet the biopsychological needs of its population.’

Perhaps naively, and with my innate bias to- ward scenario planning as the preferred tool for defining alternative possible futures. I had hoped (and expected) that Elwell would use the theoretical base of cultural materialism as a framework for exploring ways in which the fu- ture might evolve. Instead, I found myself con- fronted (as early as the second chapter) with what seemed to me to be virtually an ‘iron law’ of social evolution paraphrased below:

Under the modern idea of progress, there is an inevitable intensification of production and reproduction, leading to bureaucratization, rationalization and the growth of secondary groups [governments, corporations, media, labor organizations, etc.] at the expense of primary groups [family, community, friend- ships, etc.], with resultant increases in aliena- tion and powerlessness as individuals become victims of their own institutions.

Book reviews 27.5

Elwell himself does not propound this as an iron law (the term is Robert Michel’s apropos organi- zation and oligarchy), but his subsequent argu- ments allow for little, if any, deviation from this inevitability.

To buttress his case, Elwell devotes much of the rest of his book to summarizing, with explicit or implicit favorable commentary, the arguments of Max Weber on bureaucracy; C. Wright Mills, Thomas Dye and William Domhoff on the na- ture and extent of ‘power elites’; Jeremy Rifkin on entropy; Aldous Huxley on the ‘new to- talitarianism’ of Brave New World; and Michael Harrington on the evils of the corporate state. The trouble here is that there is so little that is new: while the book has a certain polemic value, it contributes nothing to the art of forecasting. The fresh perspective that 1 had thought cultural materialism would provide failed, for me, to develop.

There is even a sterility and lack of novelty in Elwell’s central thesis: that the future of industri- al society will be decided in the resolution of the struggle between two competing worldviews - the technological and the ecological. This is certainly an important, and probably true, obser- vation. However, even here the bulk of the argumentation (over the better part of two chap- ters) covers a summary of the work and conflict- ing findings of two groups- MIT’s System Dynamics Group and the Club of Rome on the one hand, and the Policy Research Unit at Sus- sex University on the other. In fact, this section often takes on the connotations of a play-by-play description of a basketball game - Rome vs. Sus- sex. I searched in vain for some new insight, some fresh perspective.

In the final, eponymous chapter 1 thought I might find this Holy Grail. Elwell obviously knows that readers will share this expectation. “Books of this sort”, he writes, “commonly called ‘gloom and doom’ in the literature. typi- cally offer some last-minute ray of hope in the concluding chapter, something of the sort that claims that if we act now to change current trends we can avoid our fate”. However. even here he is determined to thwart us. A page later, hc announces that “in this chapter I would like to summarize briefly the impact that further industrial intensification will have on our natural environment; on institutional structures. ; and finally, on individual personality”. A summary of summaries‘?!

What is particularly tantalizing is that Elwell asserts that “cultural materialism is amenable to such hope; integral to the theory is that we are both creatures and creators of society”. But of how we might create a better society or a differ- ent fate, there is not an inkling. So we are left with the impression that we are all. inextricably, in the grip of that iron law of social evolution. Whether that was Elwell’s intention all along, I am not certain; but I do know that this is the outcome.

As a collecting-point for summarized versions of seminal thinking by past and present social theorists and commentators. this book has some value for those who have not read the originals. As a contribution to new ways of thinking about

the future. however, it is singularly disappointing in its lack of novelty.

Ian Wilson SRI International, USA