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Designing Organisations That Work

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Dan Davies' book 'The Unaccountability Machine' is a detective mystery about cybernetics. It explores the structure of modern organisations, managerial cybernetics from the '50s to '70s, Staffor Beer's Viable System Model, shareholder value model failures, and information theory overlooked by economics. The book is critical of corporate speeches and seeks solutions for system viability, using viable and non-viable system analysis, including the global financial crisis and climate emergency.

  • Stafford Beer developed the Viable System Model.
  • Management cybernetics was an applied approach.
  • Neo-classical economics has influenced policy.
  • Viable systems require matching external 'variety'.
  • The book critiques economic growth's purpose.