Book cover of The Utopia of Rules: On Technology, Stupidity, and the Secret Joys of Bureaucracy

Book description

From the author of the international bestseller Debt: The First 5,000 Years comes a revelatory account of the way bureaucracy rules our lives Ā 

Where does the desire for endless rules, regulations, and bureaucracy come from? How did we come to spend so much of our time filling out forms? And…

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Why read it?

1 author picked The Utopia of Rules as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?

Everyone hates bureaucracy. But no one hated it quite like the late David Graeber. Amongst all of Graeber’s intoxicating books, this is my favourite. Utopia of Rules finally made me understand what exactly was so pernicious about bureaucracy. (Short version: it does the opposite of what it promises.) Graeber also sets out, with typical lucid prose, how new technologies, particularly digital technologies, are making everything even worse.

If you love The Utopia of Rules...

Book cover of The Next Rung

The Next Rung by Chris Simmance,

Every previous wave of automation had a next rung. Factory workers moved into services. Service workers moved into knowledge work. There was always somewhere to go.

This time the next rung is being automated at the same time as the current one, and the people most exposed are the ones…

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