Early Reviewers

The Mechanics of Changing the World argues that war, tax havens and climate change are insoluble within the current political framework. That present-day politics is a 'displacement activity'—a substitute for the thing that can end our crises: to rewrite the political system that generates them.

The book argues that the complexity of the risks we face should not be addressed by another ‘monolithic blueprint’—but by governance that can ‘evolve into’ them. It capitalizes on the egalitarian character of humanity’s evolutionary past, via a suite of democratic tools that decontaminate politics, decentralize information, cleanse the electoral process, and raise ‘civic IQ’.

This ‘third draft’ of the democratic ideal flows from the Athenian and Euro-American ‘drafts’: rewiring democracy, institution by institution, to match it to the many things we’ve learned about human nature—and human society—since 1789.

The last half-century has seen the antiwar movement, Perestroika, Tiananmen, Occupy, & the Arab Spring. All had strong ideals, and strong popular support—yet none built anything lasting.

One-off campaigns—whether against lopsided trade deals, poverty or surveillance—are fragile. Changing the world needs more than inspired troubleshooting. It needs architecture.