The Utopia of Rules: On Technology, Stupidity, and the Secret

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

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

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 is it really a cipher for state violence?
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To answer these questions, the anthropologist David Graeberâ€”one of our most important and provocative thinkersâ€”traces the peculiar and unexpected ways we relate to bureaucracy today, and reveals how it shapes our lives in ways we may not even noticeâ€¦though he also suggests that there may be something perversely appealingâ€”even romanticâ€”about bureaucracy.
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Leaping from the ascendance of right-wing economics to the hidden meanings behind Sherlock Holmes and Batman, The Utopia of Rules is at once a powerful work of social theory in the tradition of Foucault and Marx, and an entertaining reckoning with popular culture that calls to mind Slavoj Zizek at his most accessible.
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An essential book for our times,Â The Utopia of RulesÂ is sure to start a million conversations about the institutions that rule over usâ€”and the better, freer world we should, perhaps, begin to imagine for ourselves.
Country USA
Manufacturer Melville House
Binding Kindle Edition
ReleaseDate 2015-02-24
Format Kindle eBook

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