The Unaccountability Machine

Why Big Systems Make Terrible Decisions - and How The World Lost its Mind

By:

Dan Davies

Format:

Paperback / softback

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Releases 2 Jan 2025

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This product will be released on 2nd January, 2025

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It should arrive:

9-16 January using International Courier

Description

When we avoid taking a decision, what happens to it? In The Unaccountability Machine, Dan Davies examines why markets, institutions and even governments systematically generate outcomes that everyone involved claims not to want. He casts new light on the writing of Stafford Beer, a legendary economist who argued in the 1950s that we should regard organisations as artificial intelligences, capable of taking decisions that are distinct from the intentions of their members. Management cybernetics was Beer's science of applying self-regulation in organisational settings, but it was largely ignored - with the result being the political and economic crises that that we see today. With his signature blend of cynicism and journalistic rigour, Davies looks at what's gone wrong, and what might have been, had the world listened to Stafford Beer when it had the chance.

Author Biography:

Dan Davies is a former Bank of England economist and investment bank analyst. As a journalist he has tackled the LIBOR and FX scandals, the collapse of Anglo Irish Bank and the Swiss Nazi gold scandal. He has written for the Financial Times and the New Yorker, and is the author of Lying For Money.

Release date NZ

January 2nd, 2025

Author