This statement is an excerpt from Karl Marx's "The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Napoleon." In this text, Marx argues that the new form of political rule under Louis Napoleon was rooted in the domination of statistics and that the past was being used to control the present.
In this context, the statement can be seen as accurate in that it reflects the idea that the past is being used to shape the present, through the use of data and statistics. This is especially relevant in the current era of big data, where vast amounts of data are being collected, analyzed, and used to inform business and policy decisions.