The Utopia of Rules: On Technology, Stupidity, and the Secret Joys of Bureaucracy
David Graeber
Oct 2018 · Tantor Media Inc · Narrated by Mike Chamberlain
star
2 reviews
headphones
Audiobook
8 hr
Unabridged
family_home
Eligible
info
Want a free 48 min sample? Listen anytime, even offline.Â
Add
About this audiobook
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.
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.
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 ...
Discover more
Ratings and reviews
2 reviews
Joshua Salles (omghax)
- Flag inappropriate
July 3, 2025
🔥
About the author
David Rolfe Graeber was born February 12, 1961 in New York. He was an anthropologist, anarchist, author, and a professor at the London School of Economics. He was an outspoken critic of economic and social inequality. He coined the phrase "We are the 99 Percent,' the slogan of the Occupy Wall Street movement." He earned his BA in anthropology from State University of New York at Purchase in 1984. He earned his masters and doctorate from the University of Chicago. He did ethnographic research in central Madagascar which he used for his PhD thesis (1997). He was a prolific author. His books included Debt: The First 5000 Years (2011), The Democracy Project: A History, a Crisis, a Movement (2013), The Utopia of Rules (2015), Bullshit Jobs: A Theory (2018), and in fall 2021, Farrar, Straus & Giroux will publish The Dawn of Everything: A New History of Humanity, written with David Wengrow. David Graeber died on September 2, 2020 at the age of 59.
Mike Chamberlain is an actor and voice-over performer, as well as an AudioFile Earphones Award-winning audiobook narrator. Along with animation and video game characters, Mike performs narration and voices promos for television. He lives with his wife and daughter in Southern California.
David Rolfe Graeber was born February 12, 1961 in New York. He was an anthropologist, anarchist, author, and a professor at the London School of Economics. He was an outspoken critic of economic and social inequality. He coined the phrase "We are the 99 Percent,' the slogan of the Occupy Wall Str...
Rate this audiobook
Tell us what you think.
Listening information
Smartphones and tablets
Install the Google Play Books app for Android and iPad/iPhone. It syncs automatically with your account and allows you to read online or offline wherever you are.
Laptops and computers
You can read books purchased on Google Play using your computer's web browser.
