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So the last two or three years there are three books that I have gotten into and recommend to others. A lot. Honestly probably too much. So I figured why not write it up to get it out of my system and be insufferable in an organized, planned manner.
Anyway, here in 2026 a lot of us are asking “what happened?” and “what do we do?” about the age we live in. Things feel fractured, things feel broken, but also somehow we keep doing the thing that seems to make things worse. The three books – that my regular readers and friends may have heard of too much – that might give you an idea of how we got where we are and where we might go.
I recommend reading them, in this order, and keeping them. I’ve given copies as gifts, which says a lot about the books, and an equal amount about myself
The Unaccountability Machine by Dan Davies
Ever read a book that explains things and that you relate to? This book was both for me. It mostly asks why big business and our economies seem so insane and how we got there – and does so by a huge tour of cybernetics, business theories, and other things I’m interested in. It is, to paraphrase the author, a murder mystery that spends most of the time asking about the origins of the weapon.
It’s also incredibly compelling.
So the upshot of the book – to spoil – is that a lot of modern business policy (and thus financial and political policy) is focused growth and high stock prices (or related) to the extent of madness. “Number go up” may be an internet meme, but it accurately describes a lot of our economy. We’ve built huge amounts of theory and philosophy and policy to justify it as opposed to ask “hey, should our entire lives be about more than stock price?”
Davies notes it wasn’t a lot like this, and in fact business theory and management ideas didn’t used to be like that. We had ages of business cybernetics and modeling processes, of management as a way to make life better, of the idea of business obligation to community. This is not to idealize things decades in the past, but to note it was different and it was broad. The work of Stafford Beers figures prominently in this work, both in what things were, could be – and how they went wrong.
Ultimately we ended up with the idea that stock price is everything, and organizations and people went out of their way not to think about anything more. You get rich, sure, but you also get to stop thinking about it and deal with the suffering that follows. That trickles into politics and everything else, and madness gets institutionalized.
We exist in the madness of singular focus on a number and a cash count. But that’s just part of the larger dysfunction. For that, let’s get to the next book.
Hyperpolitics by Anton Jäger
This is one of those books that feels disturbingly obvious while leading one to ask “why didn’t see see this” even more than The Unaccountability Machine. Jäger asks why everything is political but nothing gets done or gets better, and he presents a simple model that explains that. It’s also done in a very short book that is refreshing in its focus and clarity. It’s really like two thick zines put together.
Jäger proposes a simple model, that our political culture can be placed on a four-part grid. One scale is Politicization, if people are or are not politically engaged and interested The other is Institutionalization, do people participate in enduring organizations or not. This grid allows you to lay out the politics of the last 120 years or so, then become extremely depressed.
We used to have Mass Politics, both Politicized and Institutionalized, where unions, churches, clubs, etc. were both engaging and worked on things. Somewhere after the 70’s we ended up with Post-politics, where people disengaged from politics and institutions while a more disconnected political elite solidified. People got frustrated, leading to “burn it down” Antipolitics somewhere in the 2000s, politicized times but without larger institutionalization and results. Finally we end up in our age of Hyperpolitics after 2010, which also heavy Politicization without the Institutionalization to solve things and engage people – an age of digital outbursts and performance but with little results.
Having been politically aware since the 80s if not earlier, Jäger’s model hit hard. I’d become politically aware around the time Post-politics manifested, and his timeline of the 80s onward was one I lived, and I saw a great deal of my experience in a new light. I had enough historical awareness to understand his ideas of the earlier Mass Politics period and why it mattered. Finally I understood why I felt like we lived in an age of supercharged tantrums – because that’s where we were.
(This also explained why I was so thrilled to run into people who were politically and socially engaged to improve things – it was too rare.)
It’s a book worth reading. It also ties to the issues of The Unaccountability Machine, of how we got distant and disconnected – the Post-political age – because the madness of “number go up” required disconnection. Jäger also makes some speculation on how to improve things, but I wish there was more.
Politics Without Politicians by Hélène Landemore
This book brings a lot of the above together – and in a surprisingly positive way. Landemore is a big advocate for citizenship and democracy – and for “sortition,” where people participate in government via basically lottery or draft. Imagine being informed your number came up and you’re a Senator or a City Council Member for six months.
Landemore’s ideas come from a mix of past democratic governments or semi-democratic practices, from Athens through use of juries to decide issues throughout various cultures. Landemore more than recognizes such past governments were not as inclusive or open-minded as us, but to her that’s just a reminder to think even more democratically. She is for citizen participation en masse, and avoiding creating new forms of aristocracy.
This may seem distant and ideal, but she explores many ways and modern efforts to create citizen referenda, draft-based leadership, and more. She proposes how societies based on heavy citizen participation may work. She also talks about the psychology of such efforts and why people seem to enjoy it when they try it.
A thing that stands out in her work, again and again, is a focus on what it would be like to have politics be more present along with citizenship and engagement. Being suddenly asked to join thirty random people to develop a sewer proposal is going to lead you to have to get along with twenty-nine other human beings. Having to work with people to do real things brings reality into focus and means you deal with people as people.
We may not have sortition like she wants, but we can get off our buts, get engaged, and work with people. All different kinds of people. It’s also a refreshing vision without overblown, posturing political campaigns and everyone trying to act like an internet Influencer.
Landemore is remarkably practical for something that seems idealist and utopian. It’s also a reminder that we can solve problems if we’re engaged with each other.
And there you go, three books that I have insufferably recommended to people, a good order to read them, and why they matter.
There. Now maybe I won’t be telling people to read these all the time.
Oh whom am I kidding. I just did. Again.
Steven Savage