Social Information for What?

Proposals for using “social indicators” and “social accounting” and for initiating “social reports” by governments have been put forth in the United States and certain European countries. These proposals are closely related to the emergence of explosive social problems in the economically developed countries. But, at the same time, there has been also growing dissatisfaction in economically developing countries with planning based on narrowly construed economic models and with the conspicuous absence of the adjective “social” in the definition of “development.” If both developed and developing countries are now more concerned with the social aspects of life, then perhaps social information can be useful in both cases. A cluster of ideas deeply rooted in a certain situation cannot be easily transplanted. The differences between the social problems of a “developed” and a “developing” situation are so great that entirely different kinds of social information are needed in each. Nevertheless, certain ideas contained in the various social information proposals could prove to be extremely useful for the specific problems of developing countries.