Promotional Information

Part-biography, part-political thriller, The Unaccountability Machine is a rousing exposé of how management failures lead organisations to make catastrophic errors

About the Author

Dan Davies is a former Bank of England economist and investment bank analyst. As a journalist he has tackled the LIBOR and FX scandals, the collapse of Anglo Irish Bank and the Swiss Nazi gold scandal. He has written for the Financial Times and the New Yorker, and is the author of Lying For Money.

Reviews

'A clear and compelling account of how decision-making works, or rather doesn't, in the twenty-first century. It will make you look at the world differently' - Stephen Bush

'Funny, fascinating and compelling - this is a book to make you chuckle, to make you angry, and above all to make you think' - Tim Harford, author

'An extraordinary book ... we all blame 'The System' for numerous woes, but what is The System? Dan Davies' immensely readable book tells us how there actually isn't one - it's far far weirder than that. I have come away a wiser man' - Patrick Alley, author

'Not just a glorious tour of a neglected piece of intellectual history, though it is that, in passing. Really, a demonstration with unexpected tools that the world since the 1970s, far from being governed by steely economic rationality, has actually been in the grip of an ideologised greed that has systematically undermined our ability to manage and organise' - Francis Spufford, author

'Everybody wonders why nobody is ever to blame for a crisis. Diving into cybernetics, economics and management, Dan Davies explains why it's always the fault of the system not the people, how this lack of accountability has come about - and even what to do about it' - Diane Coyle, Bennett Professor of Public Policy at the University of Cambridge