Michael King

Author description

Michael King is Professor at the University of Reading, United Kingdom. He has practised as a lawyer and held university appointments both in Europe and the USA. He has published widely on issues concerning law and society. Much of Michael King's specialist writing offers a critique of the legitimations and justifications for policies and decisions which claim to protect children and promote their welfare.

Systems, Not People, Make Society Happen

Systems, not People, Make Society Happen reveals how new ideas about society can change our understanding of everything that happens in the world, from political decisions, such as the invasion of Iraq to the impact of technological innovations or even to common, daily events, such as falling in love or buying a faulty iPod. By questioning fundamental assumptions about what society and people are, it challenges claims that human beings are able to identify risks accurately and regulate behaviour to minimize the possibility of failure. This has enormous implications for issues such as the world economic crisis, global warming, population growth and mass immigration. Michael King takes recent academic debates concerning the nature of knowledge, the observation of reality and the relationship between social and conscious systems and, by reproducing them in the form of a highly readable narrative makes them applicable to contemporary social issues. Anyone who has an interest in the future of humanity and is concerned by claims that the future can be controlled by decisions made in the present will find this book fascinating and disturbing reading.