Social Indicators, Reports, and Accounts: Toward the Management of Society

Michael Springer

The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, 1970, vol. 388, issue 1, 1-13

Abstract: To many scholars and public officials, proposals for systems of social indicators and accounts, and for annual presidential social reports, point toward what can be viewed as an ultimate instrument of societal management. This instrument would eventually provide a macroscopic assessment of the current and future state and performance of the social order, along with an indication of control mechanisms and guidelines for the production of social knowledge. Rooted in a "social science of managerial rationality," it would draw upon the techniques of social-trend analysis, the analysis of national goals, futurism, systems theory, and "the new political economy." In this regard, the two most fully developed discussions of social accounting differ primarily in their notion of what would be a rationally managed social order. It is argued that this instrument should be developed with models of democracy, as well as rational management, and based on a social science developed to serve the needs of the poor and unorganized as well as the rich and powerful.

Date: 1970
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/000271627038800102 (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:sae:anname:v:388:y:1970:i:1:p:1-13

DOI: 10.1177/000271627038800102

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science
Bibliographic data for series maintained by SAGE Publications ().