The Unaccountability Machine (eBook)

Funny, fascinating and compelling - this is a book to make you chuckle, to make you angry, and above all to make you think

There's never been a better rebuttal of the neoliberal assumption that clever systems can run themselves without continuous human engagement and oversight. This book shows that humane results need human inputs: science will help us, but we have to help it too. There's no such thing as a free hunch

Davies explains the basic logic of an accountability sink: decision-making power is removed from individuals you might want to shout at, and made instead by an algorithm or some distant committee both ignorant of and immune to your objections

Mischievous and fiercely intelligent

Interesting, unpredictable, and thought-provoking ... If you have ever worked in an organisation, let alone a large or badly managed one, you will have moments of recognition in reading this, a sense that [Stafford] Beer has rigorously theorised what you encounter every day

Really worthwhile. Dan Davies' concept of accountability sinks is a great example of what Edwin Schlossberg meant when he noted that "The skill of writing is to create a context in which other people can think

Not just a glorious tour of a neglected piece of intellectual history, though it is that, in passing. Really, a demonstration with unexpected tools that the world since the 1970s, far from being governed by steely economic rationality, has actually been in the grip of an ideologised greed that has systematically undermined our ability to manage and organise

Everybody wonders why nobody is ever to blame for a crisis. Diving into cybernetics, economics and management, Dan Davies explains why it's always the fault of the system not the people, how this lack of accountability has come about - and even what to do about it

A fascinating exploration

The most hope-inducing, game-changing book I've read recently ... The kind of book from which you look up to find the world suddenly more comprehensible. Also, it's about ten times funnier than any book about management has the right to be

A clear and compelling account of how decision-making works, or rather doesn't, in the twenty-first century. It will make you look at the world differently

An extraordinary book ... we all blame 'The System' for numerous woes, but what is The System? Dan Davies' immensely readable book tells us how there actually isn't one - it's far far weirder than that. I have come away a wiser man

A great book ... a wonderful way of talking about our current world

Wonderful ... fascinating ... tackles very contemporary problems by reviving the discipline of cybernetics and the work of Stafford Beer, with passing discursions involving squirrels, Brian Eno, Milton Friedman and a well-deserved kicking delivered to the discipline of modern economics.

Drawing on the work of economist Stafford Beer, Davies explores why big systems often make flawed decisions or duck out of them altogether - and the damaging consequences that can follow.