TY  - JOUR
A1  - Timcke, Scott
T1  - The one-dimensionality of econometric data: the Frankfurt School and the critique of quantification
T2  - tripleC
N2  - Econometric data are used to produce authoritative facts about the world. Yet, as numbers enjoy a central place in modern reasoning (particularly in government as their presumed objectivity and neutrality assist impartial decision-making), it is important that they receive scrutiny. Using methodological techniques from Western Marxism, with special reference to the work of Lukács, Horkheimer and Adorno, and Marcuse to inform a critique of Acemoglu and Robinson, I argue that the historical emergence of econometrics as a mode of mediated knowledge is a reified practice within the broader technical administration of social life, a practice that is not a transparent representation of social phenomena. This is because when econometrics transforms the thing being measured into a statistical indicator it eclipses political disputes with technical disputes, sidestepping good faith democratic deliberation about what goods are worth pursuing. Effectively, one-dimensional thought cannot perceive the origins of items put into circulation and so ideology is produced – what seems value-free is value-laden.
KW  - econometrics
KW  - data
KW  - reification
KW  - ideology
KW  - numbers
Y1  - 2020
UR  - http://publikationen.ub.uni-frankfurt.de/frontdoor/index/index/docId/55277
UR  - https://nbn-resolving.org/urn:nbn:de:hebis:30:3-552772
SN  - 1726-670X
VL  - 18
IS  - 1
SP  - 429
EP  - 443
PB  - University of Westminster
CY  - London
ER  -