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Peter Herrmann Social Quality – Moving Forward 1. Abstract The present contribution takes up some issues evolving from recent confrontations of the European work on developing the Social Quality Approach on the one hand with work undertaken in Asia on the other hand, both being very much employed by the search for indicators. With this, the following debate has to look also at the wider developments in the field of indicator research, since recently (again) claiming the need for acting as alternative to traditional GDP-oriented measurement of societal development. The major stance of the present argument is that indicators are not measurement instruments but instruments for developing an understanding of complex issues and their trends. Second, this requires to elaborate within the social quality approach more the interaction and relation between conditional, constitutional and normative factors. The central moment is the need to draw attention on ontological relationality – this is the third ambition of the article and it is in particular linked with a fourth moment, namely the plea for taking economics seriously within social quality thinking. An important point of reference for discussing these issues is the work of Commission on the Measurement of Economic Performance and Social Progress, chaired by Joseph Stiglitz, in particular their view on the qualit y of life issues. The contribution will first introduce the need to focus on political-economy and the search for the basis as focus for looking for the way of moving forward. This will be followed by looking at similarities and differences between different approaches that are all aiming on overcoming traditional (GDP) growth models, in particular juxtaposing the work of the ‘Stiglitz-Commission’ and the Social Quality Approach. Section 4 then will take up the Social Quality issues and develop further the challenge of elaborating ontological relationality as core concept of the methodology. This, in conjunction with the earlier critique of the eclecticism of many current debates, provides the ground for clarifying the relation of the Social Quality Approach and economy. It says that it is not about ‘rejecting’ the economic question but about looking for another economy (and also another approach towards economics). From
