In his new book “The Unaccountability Machine: Why Big Systems Make Terrible Decisions – And How The World Lost Its Mind” author Dan Davies describes how as the world has grown more complex, people have created systems, such as policy systems or decision making frameworks, to deal with this complexity. However, building a system to make decisions, removes human accountability, creating accountability sinks – entities that exist just to be blamed for things that go wrong.
So what?
There are several problems with this. Firstly if systems are put in place to govern and make sustainability related decisions, they are not always fail proof, they might make decisions very different from human beings. Secondly, accountability sinks remove agency and accountability. If people do not know where to turn to get answers and to hold people accountable, they feel as if it is impossible to change the system.
Join discussion