> Sorry if I sound intemperate. I find the intellectual evasions very
> frustrating and wish economists and statisticians would start
> to engage
> with the real issue -- how to conceptualise and measure what adequacy
> means before they talk about a poverty which their disciplines have no
> means of understanding. I am puzzled why sociologists and social
> policy people have let them get away with it for so long. JohnVW.
This is to overestimate the role that measurement and statistics could play.
Statistics cannot measure adequacy or poverty any more than they can measure
happiness, quality of life, standard of living, level of civilisation,
richness of culture, feelings of togetherness, social justice, or even
something that seems relatively unproblematic like the level of
unemployment.
This is not to defend statisticians or economists. [I would castigate both
groups - but for different reasons.] But simply to point to the nature of
statistics that are limited to arbitrary categorisations of bureacratically
produced facts. We are never going to get anything *substantially* better
than HBAI for investigation of levels of poverty.
Th function of statistics, as Ruth Levitas points out, is to support
governmental activity. I would go further and point to the ways in which
statistics support organisations and the interaction of organisations with
government. Social policy should not become a part of this organisational
interaction. If it does then poverty becomes something out there - to be
measures and talked about. Rather should social policy deconstruct those
HBAI statistics in terms of, for example, their significance for the lives
of individuals and households.
Maybe I'm actually agreeing with JVW! But I don't think this
deconstruction will be done by economists or statisticians. It belongs to
social policy people and sociologists - who tend to stand aloof from the
statistics.
Ray Thomas, Social Sciences, Open University
Tel: 01908 679081 Fax 01908 550401
Email: [log in to unmask]
35 Passmore, Milton Keynes MK6 3DY
|