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This paper argues that there are no insuperable obstacles to making quantitative science-aided comparisons of the welfare effects of economic policies on different people. This contradicts the belief commonly held by economists that in principle meaningful interpersonal utility comparisons cannot be made.
The paper is intended as a contribution to the theory of governmental decision-making with respect to social redistribution problems. Examples of such problems include a) taxation and welfare transfers, i.e., who among the citizens should retain which portions of the national product; and b) population policy, i.e., how many people should be allowed to become claimants to the national wealth. The paper is not intended to cast any light whatsoever on positive consumer choice theory or the psychological study of decision-making. The approach described here is generally consistent with the recent discussion of 'social indicators'. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper reviews the current state of knowledge about the effects of industrialization upon systems of social stratification. Taking societies as the unit of observation, we consider the relationships between level of industrialization and (I) the distribution of status characteristics in the population (the structure of stratification) ; (2) the pattern of interrelations among status characteristics (the process of stratification); and (3) the form of linkages between status characteristics and other aspects of social behavior (the consequences of stratification). A set of propositions is specified, a few of which are empirically well established but most of which yet require empirical testing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]