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Resumo

This chapter examines how quantitative methods in social and economic fields, like those in natural science, function most effectively when the world they describe is reshaped to fit their model. Porter argues that numbers alone are insufficient for detailed decision-making, but instead serve to instill an ethic. Metrics like profitability become "technologies of the soul," legitimizing administrative actions by providing standards for self-assessment. The effectiveness of grades, test scores, and financial statements relies on the acceptance of their validity by those being measured. When accepted, these measures shape the very activities they quantify, fostering governability and what Foucault termed "governmentality." Numbers create and facilitate comparison with norms, representing a subtle yet pervasive form of power in modern democracies.

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