#5 in Technology & IT
The Utopia of Rules
- 272
- Pages
- about 5 h
- Reading time
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About the book
The Utopia of Rules: On Technology, Stupidity, and the Secret Joys of Bureaucracy is a 2015 book by anthropologist David Graeber about how people "relate to" and are influenced by bureaucracies. Graeber previously wrote Debt: The First 5000 Years and The Democracy Project, and was an organizer behind Occupy Wall Street. Graeber signed a book deal with Melville House toward the end of 2014, and The Utopia of Rules was released on February 24, 2015.
Where the score comes from
The sources average 8.0 across 61 ratings — not yet many, so the reader vote carries 29% of the weight and the rest pulls toward the Technology & IT average of 8.0. That is how 8.0 comes out.
| Source | Average | Ratings | Weight |
|---|---|---|---|
| Open Library | 8.6 | 13 | 21% |
| Hardcover | 7.9 | 48 | 79% |
Reader voices
The most-liked reviews on Hardcover (credited to their authors).
“2.5. Graeber rails against bureaucracy in this three-essay collection in an attempt to provide a left-wing critique of it. He contrasts bureaucracy against imagination and creativity and uses it to form the basis of his critique. He posits that bureaucracy is a byproduct of capitalism…”
“I've always found Graeber's arguments to lack finality, finding Pirate Enlightenment and Bullshit Jobs to end not with any grand argument or uniting conclusion but mostly just sort of by going "so, yeah! Neat!". The Utopia of Rules also ends "so yeah! Neat!" (actually end…”
Frequently asked
How long is The Utopia of Rules?
It has 272 pages — longer than 50% of the ranked books in Technology & IT.
In this book
Themes this book shares with others — each leads to the best books on it.
If you liked this
Same shelf — Technology & IT — with scores between 7.5 and 8.4, closest to this book.
