How Numbers Rule the World: The Use and Abuse of Statistics in Global Politics

by Lorenzo Fioramonti

Numbers dominate global politics and, as a result, our everyday lives. Credit ratings steer financial markets and can make or break the future of entire nations. GDP drives our economies. Stock market indices flood our media and national debates. Statistical calculations define how we deal with climate change, poverty and sustainability. But what is behind these numbers?

In How Numbers Rule the World, Lorenzo Fioramonti reveals the hidden agendas underpinning the use of statistics and those who control them. Most worryingly, he shows how numbers have been used as a means to reinforce the grip of markets on our social and political life, curtailing public participation and rational debate.

An innovative and timely exposé of the politics, power and contestation of numbers.

Genres: Nonfiction, Mathematics, Politics, Economics

280 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2014

Reviews

[Sue Lyle · Rating 4 out of 5]

I heard Lorenzo Fioramonti on the radio talking about this book and was intrigued. I'm really glad to have read his book. It confirmed many of my musings that Oscar Wilde was right, 'we know the price of everything and the value of nothing'. Is there any one who doesn’t believe that the most important things cannot be measured? Firamonti believes that measurement, expressed as numbers have become the driving force behind our social, economic and political decisions. It is numbers that influence our behaviour and that of the people around us. We measure and compare every day. We continually assess ourselves based on scales of beauty, intelligence and success. We are surrounded by numbers that quantify everything we do. As an educator I am particularly interested in the fact that education has become dominated by the production of numbers to assess the quality of our children, our teachers, our schools. Numbers drive school policy-making and guide development plans. As Fioramonti says there is no field in which numbers have not been able to exert dominance. This has undermined the public sphere in which educational ideas are no longer discussed, debated and promoted, numbers shut down the voices of civil society as they purport to tell the truth - and what is most worrying - people believe the numbers and shut up. Standardised tests are increasingly being seen as the only measure of education and whilst performance assessments have their uses, they can hide more than they reveal. Through numbers society isolates everyone, the better to dominate them, it divides everything to weaken it. I realise that numbers have their place, but when they are the sole determiner of quality- as Einstein said, 'not everything that counts can be counted and not everything that can be counted counts.' This is a very important voice that needs to be heard, debated and discussed.

[Siddhi Patel · Rating 2 out of 5]

read 50 pages, got bored (not what i expected it to be about)

[Dennis · Rating 1 out of 5]

http://pro-libertate.net/20161206/308...

[Alberto Tebaldi · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great book. gives many mind opening tips.