Abstract
Economic science would achieve an ideal success if it could sum up in one single index the whole reality of economic evolution. But a thorough study of the measurement of national income seems to exclude the possibility of our ever being able to arrive at this complete success. In addition to synthesis which is clearly inadequate despite its extent and its great practical utility, we are obliged to have recourse to studies of a more analytical, more particular kind; studies which are therefore a priori disparate, incoherent, and complex. But then the mind reels under the mass of innumerable series of figures, which are a priori unconnected, and we are unable to unravel either the causes, or the consequences, or the general tendencies. Our science is no sooner born than threatened with collapse into empiricism.
Translation by Elisabeth Henderson
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Notes
Cf. Pierre Vendryes, Vie et Probabilité, 1944; De la probabilité en histoire, 1952.
Pierre Augé, in L’homme microscopique (1951) has thrown new light, both surprising and stimulating, on the links between the forms of human thought and the physical structure of the brain. Work on cybernetics and psychology during the last five years has also produced results which economists cannot neglect.
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© 1987 The International Economic Association
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Fourastié, J. (1987). The Statistical Measurement of Various Material Aspects of Economic Progress. In: Dupriez, L.H., Robinson, A. (eds) Economic Progress. International Economic Association Series. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-08440-1_2
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-08440-1_2
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, London
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