The one-dimensionality of econometric data: the Frankfurt School and the critique of quantification
- 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.
Author: | Scott Timcke |
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URN: | urn:nbn:de:hebis:30:3-552772 |
DOI: | https://doi.org/10.31269/triplec.v18i1.1121 |
ISSN: | 1726-670X |
Parent Title (English): | tripleC |
Publisher: | University of Westminster |
Place of publication: | London |
Document Type: | Article |
Language: | English |
Date of Publication (online): | 2020/04/02 |
Date of first Publication: | 2020/04/02 |
Publishing Institution: | Universitätsbibliothek Johann Christian Senckenberg |
Release Date: | 2020/08/19 |
Tag: | data; econometrics; ideology; numbers; reification |
Volume: | 18 |
Issue: | 1 |
Page Number: | 15 |
First Page: | 429 |
Last Page: | 443 |
HeBIS-PPN: | 471032123 |
Institutes: | Philosophie und Geschichtswissenschaften / Philosophie |
Dewey Decimal Classification: | 1 Philosophie und Psychologie / 10 Philosophie / 100 Philosophie und Psychologie |
3 Sozialwissenschaften / 30 Sozialwissenschaften, Soziologie / 300 Sozialwissenschaften | |
Sammlungen: | Universitätspublikationen |
Licence (German): | Creative Commons - Namensnennung-Nicht kommerziell - Keine Bearbeitung 4.0 |