David Graeber has two distinct strengths: an ability to overturn
common intuitions about everyday institutions and an extraordinarily affable rhetorical style.
This book trades out on the latter in order to produce something a little more
conceptually in depth. Accordingly, the book's primary thrusts are explicitly
anarchist, heavy in theory and come with a social theory orientation that
may make the books content too niche for Graeber's usual audience. Yet
despite the denser prose The Utopia of
Rules is a success that displays trenchant thoughtfulness on the topic
of bureaucracy; to be clear, I'm not certain whether he's correct all of the time but he certainly is interesting.
Graeber's reason for writing a book on such a dull subject is given by the way of a hypothesises for why right wing movements often sequester the anti-establishment ticket in the face of left wing opposition. Graeber's contention is that left wing movements rarely produce a critique of bureaucracy, despite leftism being, according to Graeber, an anti-bureaucratic project. Such a reading of modern politics stands in stark contrast to more orthodox understandings of the topic. Since the soviet era onwards, political economy has often been thought of in terms of competing left wing desires for social justice and right wing desires for freedom. The respective drawbacks being either the brutality of right wing policy or the stifling bureaucracy of left wing institutions.
Graeber's reason for writing a book on such a dull subject is given by the way of a hypothesises for why right wing movements often sequester the anti-establishment ticket in the face of left wing opposition. Graeber's contention is that left wing movements rarely produce a critique of bureaucracy, despite leftism being, according to Graeber, an anti-bureaucratic project. Such a reading of modern politics stands in stark contrast to more orthodox understandings of the topic. Since the soviet era onwards, political economy has often been thought of in terms of competing left wing desires for social justice and right wing desires for freedom. The respective drawbacks being either the brutality of right wing policy or the stifling bureaucracy of left wing institutions.
Advancing Graeber's account of leftism while overturning the above dichotomy he notes that bureaucracy has infested almost
all organisations (not just the governmental) and that the roots and realities
of bureaucracy run contrary to leftist ideals (humanism, pacifism, equality
etc). Further development of this account sees Graeber make use of feminist theory. The feminist reading being that the function of bureaucracy is to provide tools
for the powerful to monitor and control their subjects and that those in power
generally do not need to understand their subordinates as said subordinates are
often at the mercy of those in power. Ergo, the reason so much of our paperwork
and protocol bears no resemblance to reality is that it is often in service to
a power pre-occupied with controlling rather than assisting or
understanding.
Graeber argues that alongside an avalanche of pointless paperwork, bureaucracy
presents other more pernicious problems for the human race. In particular, it denies humans the possibility of organic social progress
thereby crushing our libratory potential. It is when the lawyers turn up that a
social movements death knell is properly wrung. In short, integrating social
movements into a bureaucracy provides the people in charge with the ability to
subsume anti-authoritarian movements; this little trick cajoles the group into
conforming to the legal constraints of the very system that they intend to
fight. For instance, a group of politically motivated squatters may
successfully defend themselves from eviction and get the local council to grant
them legal protection. But this legal protection requires the squatters to be
integrated into a number of bureaucratic systems (such as regulatory housing
bodies, land registries) which quickly force a hierarchy of signatories onto
the squatters - both negating their anti-hierarchical modus operandi and
leaving them at the behest of local governments and banks.
These restrictive outcomes of expanding bureaucracy are
sometimes intended. Graeber makes note of figures such as George Gilder and
Newt Gingrich: people who bureaucratised research projects with the aim of restricting
the radical potential latent in the emergent technologies of yore. It is
sections like these that leave me desiring a more forward and visible referencing style.
I'm sure there is plenty of truth to what Graeber says but these more conspiratorial
sections would benefit from references being cited and discussed in the body of
the text rather than just tacked on as annotations.
It is not all doom and gloom however, Graeber, as promised in the book's blurb, offers up an explanation for why we secretly love
bureaucracy. Articulating the idea that within bureaucracy is the romantic
promise of a world operating by principles of impartiality and reason he
concedes that there is something worth salvaging here. Graeber further
emphasises that this utopian vision can be pursued without abandoning anarchist
living arrangements. The often cited, and just as frequently misunderstood, essay "The Tyranny of
Structurelessness" is raised in aid of such a discussion.
It's hard for me to dislike almost anything that Graeber
does. The neutral tone that he presents his arguments in and its infusion with
his general warmth and good humour makes him a fantastic champion for
anarchism: a movement often associated with dour nihilism. Finding myself
soothed by the quality of his presentation I now question whether I can
honestly critique him. To my star struck eyes this book is intelligent, comprehensive
and novel: easily worth the money spent
and time passed book in hand. My only real criticism is that in the
aforementioned sections where "who did what" takes precedence over
abstract social theory he risks sounding off like Noam Chomsky- allow me to
elaborate. Chomsky, as a political writer, provides his audience with a
horrifying vision of contemporary politics. His downfall is making of bold
claims about U.S. foreign policy while supporting them with references that are
rarely explicitly discussed in the text. Graeber teeters close to falling into
the same trap of having his work appear a mite less credible than it would have
been if he had discussed his sources more openly.
In fairness this book hasn't really garnered the hype that
it deserves. The blurb of the book is dotted with quotes in praise of Graeber's
earlier work Debt and this is
generally not a good sign. I often hesitate to purchase books marketed in this
way, taking it as an indication that this is the authors "problem
child". Perhaps this is what has put others off the book but then again
the subject matter is ostensibly boring which would make for a more likely explanation. Regardless an interesting, if niche, read.
