The Utopia of Rules

On Technology, Stupidity, and the Secret Joys of Bureaucracy

By: David Graeber

Narrated by: Mike Chamberlain

From the author of the international best-seller Debt: The First 5,000 Years comes a revelatory account of the way bureaucracy rules our lives.

From where does the desire for endless rules, regulations, and bureaucracy come? 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 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 work 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.

©2015 David Graeber (P)2018 Tantor

Grabers best book imo

This book is so funny and informative!
Having a hyper intelligent person break down why the DMV is a horrible experience is so satisfying.

Great content

Overall very dry, would have loved to see him compose this content in individual books. For example his book ‘Bullshit Jobs’ was well thought/written, had me wanting to read the next chapter.

Spectacular!

It was amazing from start to finish. The narration was perfect as well which is rare for any audiobook. I haven't read a Graeber book I didn't like.

Useful analysis of modern society

useful lens for viewing American society and it's many illusions of self that appear real.

Very Insightful

I love when an author is able to show you the world from a different perspective then what is taught in schools. His thought provoking insights will become classics in the next generation. Thank you David!

Hate forms and lines? read this book!!

Explains complex theories of societal relations and perhaps how to change them, through something we experience (and get irritated by) everyday: forms, lines, rules. The range of essays are both entertaining and thoughtfully accessible in good plain language. I feel like this writer has the reader's learning and best interests in mind, not merely to show off his intellectual aptitude.

Always a Pleasure to..

Always a pleasure to read a David Graeber book. He really has a great way of making you question your surroundings and critically think about them under different rays. I'm off to the next David Graeber book! lol for anyone reading. If you havent already, ready Bullshit Jobs as well!

Incredible

The courage and insight of Mr Graeber, for me at least, produced an almost disorienting stream of revelation.

An indispensable work for anyone choosing to look upon the world as it is.

Dense but approachable

Very Interesting and there’s a fair amount of overlap with Mark Fisher’s Capitalist Realism in how an economic apparatus of social control creates a situation where imagination is restricted as a means of preserving the power of the status quo.

Excellent, mind-expanding

Not just about bureaucracy!! I particularly enjoyed the final chapter on the Nolan Batman films - what a ridiculous reactionary mess they were - and how Graeber is able to link these to the overall assumptions of the comic book genre and associated political implications. In each chapter Graeber is able to illuminate aspects of culture and the underpinnings of law. This book is above all else just plain fun to read.