Rationalism attempts to be the opposite of incrementalism. As an intellectual endeavor, rationalism tries to learn all the value preferences extant in a society, assign each value a relative weight, discover all the policy alternatives available, know all the consequences of each alternative, calculate how the selection of any one policy will affect the remaining alternatives in terms of opportunity costs, and ultimately select the most efficient policy alternative in terms of the costs and benefits of social values. Whether or not these goals can be realized, the point is that the rational model works toward their achievement and toward the reduction of incrementalism