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The Tyranny of Metrics

Jerry Z. Muller

Metrics can sharpen judgment or quietly replace it. This book shows how targets distort schools, hospitals, businesses, and government, then offers practical tests for using measurement wisely.

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8 parts, about 20 minutes to read.

Why read it

  • Understand why useful measures become harmful when rewards, punishment, or reputation turn them into targets
  • See the same incentive failures unfold across education, medicine, policing, business, finance, government, and charities
  • Use a practical checklist to decide what to measure, who should interpret it, and when counting should stop

Who it is for

  • Leaders designing performance measures for complex organizations
  • Professionals whose work is judged through targets and rankings
  • Public officials balancing disclosure requirements with confidential deliberation

What the summary covers

  1. When Numbers Replace Judgment2 min
  2. How Measurement Became Management1 min
  3. Why Numbers Gain Authority3 min
  4. Education Under the Score4 min
  5. Measurement in Medicine3 min
  6. When Scores Govern Institutions4 min
  7. The Limits of Transparency1 min
  8. Judgment Must Remain in Charge2 min

Recommended by

  • Edward TennerHistorian of technology and distinguished Smithsonian scholar
    Quantification, once only a tool, has become a cult. I can think of no better deprogrammer than Jerry Muller, whose renowned skills in dissecting political and social doctrines are evident here. The Tyranny of Metrics should be essential reading for managers and the managed alike.
  • George A. AkerlofNobel laureate and Berkeley professor emeritus of economics
    In The Tyranny of Metrics, Jerry Muller has brought to life the many ways in which numerical evaluations result in deleterious performance: in our schools, our universities, our hospitals, our military, and our businesses. This book addresses a major problem.
  • David ChinitzProfessor of health policy and management at Hebrew University
    The Tyranny of Metrics is an important and accessible book about a growing problem. It comes as close as anything I’ve read to showing us how to break out of the dysfunctional cycle of measuring, finding out that measuring doesn’t get us where we want to go, but then measuring some more.
  • Mark SchlesingerYale professor of health policy
    Broad in scope and ambition, persuasively argued, and engagingly written, The Tyranny of Metrics is a very compelling book.

About the author

  • Jerry Z. MullerHistorian of capitalism and modern European intellectual history
    • Jerry Z. Muller has been professor emeritus of history at the Catholic University of America since June 2020.
    • He joined the university's history department in 1984 and retired in 2020.
    • He chaired the history department from 2009 to 2015.
    • He received his doctorate from Columbia University in 1984.
    • His research includes modern European intellectual history.
    • His research includes the history of capitalism.

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