Seduction of the Social Sciences

A Full Opportunity and Social Accounting bill has been introduced in the Senate. It enunciates lofty goals. Federal responsibility “to promote and encourage such conditions as will give every American the opportunity to live in decency and dignity” is asserted. (Naturally, such responsibility must be “consistent with the primary responsibilities of state and local governments and the private sector.”) Health, education, and training, rehabilitation, housing, vocational opportunities, the arts and humanities, and special assistance for the mentally ill and retarded, the deprived, the abandoned, and the criminal. … It sings and sings.

What on earth is new here? What would the bill really do? It would: a) require the President to transmit to Congress each year a Social Report analyzing progress in securing decency and dignity and plans to secure more thereof, prepared by b) a three-man Council of Social Advisers appointed by the President, aided by innumerable consultants and bureaucrats, and generally held in check by c) a Congressional Joint Committee on the Social Report, which would conduct hearings, hire innumerable consultants and bureaucrats of its own, and report on the Report.

MW

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Michael A. Weinstein

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A Full Opportunity and Social Accounting bill has been introduced in the Senate. It enunciates lofty goals. Federal responsibility “to promote and encourage such conditions as will give every American the opportunity to live in decency and dignity” is asserted. (Naturally, such responsibility must be “consistent with the primary responsibilities of state and local governments and the private sector.”) Health, education, and training, rehabilitation, housing, vocational opportunities, the arts and humanities, and special assistance for the mentally ill and retarded, the deprived, the abandoned, and the criminal. … It sings and sings.

What on earth is new here? What would the bill really do? It would: a) require the President to transmit to Congress each year a Social Report analyzing progress in securing decency and dignity and plans to secure more thereof, prepared by b) a three-man Council of Social Advisers appointed by the President, aided by innumerable consultants and bureaucrats, and generally held in check by c) a Congressional Joint Committee on the Social Report, which would conduct hearings, hire innumerable consultants and bureaucrats of its own, and report on the Report.