Statistics as an Indicator of Maturity of the Authority

Abstract

The author explores the nature of criticism levelled against official Russian statistics. The article reveals the objective reasons behind specific problems associated with collecting primary data. It also demonstrates that cheap political chicanery of some members of the opposition or individual members of the scientific community who bash to attract attention to themselves and with that detriment of the objective need to understand the questions that the general public has for authority.

Another aspect of this issue is that often unsubstantiated and unsupported statements referring to Rosstat’s almost deliberate falsifications and misstatements of the real situation deflect attention away from actual problems of statistics’ independence, its organizational and financial support from the state. The author concludes that any allegations against the current system of state statistics severely dent the credibility of the government, that with its own hands preordain financial capacity of statistics and its limits of independence. Therefore, the way authority treat statistics serves as an indicator of its maturity, whereas statistics with its assessments and evaluations should come as close to the truth no matter how unpleasant. So, the heading is a refrain of the whole paper: statistics as amarkof maturity of the authority.