The Mechanics of Changing the World

'I have nominated this book as my Book of the Year. I read over 30 books a year in the course of my work, so this it is in a good field.'Prof Guy Standing, author of The Precariat 'A formidable effort... It has family resemblances to The Dawn of Everything by David Graeber and David Wengrow, Yuval Noah Harari's three volumes, and books by Steven Pinker and Jared Diamond.'Barry Jones, global best-selling author, former Minister for Science & president of the Australian Labor Party The Mechanics of Changing the World argues that war, tax havens and environmental overshoot are insoluble within the current political framework. That present-day politics is a 'displacement activity'-a substitute for the one thing that can end our crises: to rewrite the political system that generates them. This 'third draft' of the democratic ideal flows from the Athenian and Euro-American 'drafts': rewiring democracy, institution by institution, to match it to all we've learned about human nature since 1789. The last half-century has seen the antiwar movement, perestroika, Tiananmen, Occupy and the Arab Spring. Strong ideals, and strong popular support-yet none built anything lasting. One-off campaigns are fragile. Changing the world needs more than inspired troubleshooting: it needs architecture.