Cover art for The Unaccountability Machine
Published
Profile Trade, July 2025
ISBN
9781788169554
Format
Softcover, 304 pages
Dimensions
19.6cm × 12.8cm × 2.4cm

The Unaccountability Machine Why Big Systems Make Terrible Decisions

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Due July 1, 2025.
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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.

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