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

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.