I’m a little puzzled that you don’t include such obvious examples of attempted long-term schemes as Soviet (and others’) five-year plans, or dirigisme more generally. Another class of human plans intended to have long-term effects is peace treaties and settlements; probably the diplomats at Versailles did not literally think they were making a peace for all time, but surely they expected to do better than having another shattering conflict in their own lifetimes. Conversely, at Vienna the Great Powers probably intended their settlement to last thirty or fifty years, but would likely have been surprised to learn that the next Great War would be almost 100 years later. And I doubt the negotiators at Westphalia thought they were creating a concept of statehood that we would still be using 350 years later; they may well have thought they were patching up yet another temporary truce to allow shattered armies and stripped economies to recover a bit.
I’m a little puzzled that you don’t include such obvious examples of attempted long-term schemes as Soviet (and others’) five-year plans, or dirigisme more generally. Another class of human plans intended to have long-term effects is peace treaties and settlements; probably the diplomats at Versailles did not literally think they were making a peace for all time, but surely they expected to do better than having another shattering conflict in their own lifetimes. Conversely, at Vienna the Great Powers probably intended their settlement to last thirty or fifty years, but would likely have been surprised to learn that the next Great War would be almost 100 years later. And I doubt the negotiators at Westphalia thought they were creating a concept of statehood that we would still be using 350 years later; they may well have thought they were patching up yet another temporary truce to allow shattered armies and stripped economies to recover a bit.