![](https://www.londonreviewbookshop.co.uk/storage/300_filter/images/4/5/3/2/4192354-1-eng-GB/9781788169547.jpg 300w, https://www.londonreviewbookshop.co.uk/storage/400_filter/images/4/5/3/2/4192354-1-eng-GB/9781788169547.jpg 400w, https://www.londonreviewbookshop.co.uk/storage/800_filter/images/4/5/3/2/4192354-1-eng-GB/9781788169547.jpg 800w, https://www.londonreviewbookshop.co.uk/storage/1200_filter/images/4/5/3/2/4192354-1-eng-GB/9781788169547.jpg 1200w)
The Unaccountability Machine
Dan Davies
We send all orders via Royal Mail: within the UK, choose from 1st Class, 2nd Class or Special Delivery; for the rest of the world, International Standard or International Tracked. Delivery and packaging charges are calculated automatically at the checkout.
To collect orders in person from the Bookshop, choose Click and Collect at the checkout.
From the publisher
Part-biography, part-political thriller, The Unaccountability Machine is a rousing exposé of how management failures lead organisations to make catastrophic errors
'Entertaining, insightful ... compelling' Financial Times
'Clear and compelling ... it will make you look at the world differently' Stephen Bush
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.