The Utopia of Rules (David Graeber)
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.
Contrairement à Dette, 5000 ans d'histoire qui m'était tombé des mains, j'ai trouvé cet ouvrage de David Graeber absolument fascinant et stimulant.
A travers une longue introduction suivie de trois essais sur la violence, la technologie, et l'attrait des règles, l'auteur nous parle de la bureaucratie, de la place qu'elle occupe dans nos vies, des critiques que nous en faisons, et des raisons qui nous la font accepter malgré tout.
L'ouvrage s'achève par un dernier essai particulièrement brillant où l'auteur analyse l'idéologie sous-jacente dans les oeuvres de super-héros et dresse en particulier une critique féroce mais pertinente du film The Dark Knight Rises de Christopher Nolan.
Zéro Janvier – @zerojanvier@diaspodon.fr