On more than a few occasions, these injuries have been grave and irreversible, and they have afflicted large numbers of people. This peculiar and modern form of political abuse is not solely the misfortune of benighted peoples in distant lands who strain under the rule of unaccountable despots. Similar if less extreme problems burden citizens in affluent and open societies with freely elected governments. This is an unpublicized but real consequence and cost of the political arrangements that we have selected for ourselves. Although he may not always recognize his bondage, modern man lives under a tyranny of numbers.
Statistics can injure human beings once that data are invested with political power.
Modern governments imbue statistics with political power by charting their policies against them. And the power accorded to these mute and inanimate numbers today can be felt around the world. This should not surprise us, for what makes a state modern, in an important sense, is its use of numbers as a basis for its actions. Yet many government actions extend beyond the limits of knowledge that available data can provide. Ambitious Governance Ever since the Enlightenment, exponents of liberal politics have assigned the state responsibility not only for protecting its citizens but also for improving their lot.