Free The Utopia Of Rules: On Technology, Stupidity, And The Secret Joys Of Bureaucracy Ebooks To Download
From the author of the international bestseller Debt: The First 5,000 Years comes a revelatory account of the way bureaucracy rules our lives 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? To answer these questions, the anthropologist David Graeber—one of our most important and provocative thinkers—traces the peculiar and unexpected ways we relate to bureaucracy today, and reveals how it shapes our lives in ways we may not even notice…though he also suggests that there may be something perversely appealing—even romantic—about bureaucracy. 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. An essential book for our times, The Utopia of Rules is sure to start a million conversations about the institutions that rule over us—and the better, freer world we should, perhaps, begin to imagine for ourselves.
Paperback: 272 pages
Publisher: Melville House; Reprint edition (February 23, 2016)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 1612195180
ISBN-13: 978-1612195186
Product Dimensions: 5.5 x 0.7 x 8.2 inches
Shipping Weight: 12.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (37 customer reviews)
Best Sellers Rank: #133,038 in Books (See Top 100 in Books) #26 in Books > Politics & Social Sciences > Politics & Government > Public Affairs & Policy > Communication Policy #84 in Books > Business & Money > Economics > Labor & Industrial Relations #84 in Books > Politics & Social Sciences > Politics & Government > Specific Topics > Labor & Industrial Relations
How has bureaucracy combined "financialization, violence, technology, the fusion of public and private" as all "knit together into a single self-sustaining web"? In these three essays, two already published but reworked somewhat, David Graeber turns to this question. In his "Debt: The First 5000 Years" (reviewed by me May Day 2014) he looked at how this single web expanded to tangle all of us, long ago. In "The Democracy Project" (reviewed by me June 2014), he extrapolated from his participation in Occupy Wall Street to examine how direct rather than representational democracy can work. An anarchist anthropologist, he writes in a lively style, even if his books can sprawl and scatter his ideas, for he keeps shifting his scrutiny, it seems on paper, as fast as another realm of investigation or application enters his perceptions.This quality, therefore, may dissuade readers demanding a more academically focused, and perhaps less personally engaged, study. But if you can handle the looser approach, Graeber again delivers a readable, if impatient at times, look at how an all-encompassing top-down structure bears down on everyday folks, and why you and I may oddly find "secret joys" in the predicaments we face when dealing with paperwork and red tape.In essay 1, the left, Graeber finds, tends to favor the conformity in the guise of equal access and lack of favoritism that bureaucracies were invented to carry out, in lieu of nepotism, bribes, or cronyism.Graeber peers into this and uncovers the threat of violence, however muffled or cloaked, for those who do not go along. The police, he alleges, are merely "bureaucrats with weapons," after all.
What intense pleasure this book gave me, despite the dull topic: bureaucracy. Anthropologist David Graeber is perhaps best known for "Debt: The First 5,000 Years" (2011), which became required reading for the Occupy Wall Street movement. In that book, Graeber showed that the standard explanation for the origins of money, rehearsed in dozens of economics textbooks, was a fairy tale. In "The Utopia of Rules," Graeber similarly claims that the conventional wisdom about bureaucracy is misleading; although strongly associated with the public sector, today’s bureaucracies can’t be understood apart from the rise of the modern corporation. Noting that the right’s critique of bureaucracy has been extraordinarily successful, Graeber maintains that the left needs to develop a new way of talking about it. This set of loosely connected essays is an attempt to begin that conversation.Graeber argues that we have entered the era of total (or predatory) bureaucratization. Characterized by advanced technology, a fusion of public and private power, and the state violence to maintain it, this new system is exceedingly wasteful, at least for the ordinary citizen. If you’ve ever retyped your entire resume into a potential employer’s database, you have some inkling of its extravagance. But total bureaucratization, Graeber argues, is remarkably efficient at one thing—extracting profit. Based on the notion that paperwork creates value, it begins with “the irritating case-worker determining whether you are really poor enough to merit a fee waiver for your children’s medicine,” and it ends with “men in suits engaged in high-speed trading of bets over how long it will take you to default on your mortgage.”To support his analysis, Graeber returns to familiar turf: banking.
The Utopia of Rules: On Technology, Stupidity, and the Secret Joys of Bureaucracy Smoking and Politics: Bureaucracy Centered Policymaking (6th Edition) Street-Level Bureaucracy: Dilemmas of the Individual in Public Service, 30th Anniversary Expanded Edition Mein Kampf - My Struggle: Unabridged edition of Hitlers original book - Four and a Half Years of Struggle against Lies, Stupidity, and Cowardice And Then the Roof Caved In: How Wall Street's Greed and Stupidity Brought Capitalism to Its Knees Novice to Master: An Ongoing Lesson in the Extent of My Own Stupidity Jimmy Hoffa Called My Mom a Bitch!: Profiles in Stupidity Blockchain: The Comprehensive Guide to Mastering the Hidden Economy: (Blockchain Technology, Fintech, Financial Technology, Smart Contracts, Internet Technology) Puppy Training for Kids: Teaching Children the Responsibilities and Joys of Puppy Care, Training, and Companionship The Ballet Companion: A Dancer's Guide to the Technique, Traditions, and Joys of Ballet Becoming Grandma: The Joys and Science of the New Grandparenting Seize the Day; Celebrate the Everyday Joys of Life 2015 Boxed Calendar Baking with Julia: Savor the Joys of Baking with America's Best Bakers Country Living Christmas Joys: Decorating * Crafts * Recipes Moods of Future Joys: Around the World by Bike Part One: From England to South Africa The Joys of Love The Real North Korea: Life and Politics in the Failed Stalinist Utopia An American Utopia: Dual Power and the Universal Army Anarchy, State, and Utopia Black Mass: Apocalyptic Religion and the Death of Utopia
