The unaccountability machine : why big systems make terrible decisions--and how the world lost its mind / Dan Davies.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Davies, Dan (Economist), author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Beer, Stafford.

Industrial management.

Managerial economics.

Cybernetics.

Social responsibility of business.

cybernetics.

Management.

Decision making.

Operations research.

Physical Description:

ix, 294 pages ; 24 cm

Place of Publication:

London : Profile Books, 2024.

Summary:

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.

Contents:

Part One: The nature of crisis. 'Something's up'

Stafford Beer

Aliens among us

Intermission: Computing ponds and rabbit holes

Part Two: Pathologies of the system. How to psychoanalyse a non-human intelligence

Cybernetics without diagrams

Intermission: Decerebrate cats

Part Three: The blind spots. Economics and how it got that way

If you're rich, why aren't you smart?

Intermission: Meanwhile, in Chile

Part Four: What happened next? Enter Friedman

The morbid symptoms

What is to be done?

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

9781788169547

1788169549

OCLC:

1433659185