Grunch of Giants

by R. Buckminster Fuller

Here Buckminster Fuller takes on the gigantic corporate megaliths that exert increasing control over every aspect of daily life. In the form of a modern allegory, he traces the evolution of these multinational giants from the post-World War II military-industrial complex to the current army of abstract legal entities known as the corporate world.

Genres: Economics, Finance, Business, Politics, Nonfiction, Philosophy, History

128 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1983

About the author

Richard Buckminster "Bucky" Fuller was an American architect, systems theorist, author, designer, and inventor.

Fuller published more than 30 books, coining or popularizing terms such as "Spaceship Earth", ephemeralization, and synergetic. He also developed numerous inventions, mainly architectural designs, and popularized the widely known geodesic dome. Carbon molecules known as fullerenes were later named by scientists for their structural and mathematical resemblance to geodesic spheres.

Buckminster Fuller was the second president of Mensa from 1974 to 1983.

Reviews

[Kimberly · Rating 1 out of 5]

After reading a "Rich Dad, Poor Dad" book du jour, I requested this book from the library and was on the waiting list for 10 months.

Now, allow me to give my review, Ahem:

This book is for those that enjoy David Icke, conspiracy theorists, those that hate governments and those that abhor corporations. However, within it's scope, Buckminster Fuller shoots himself in the foot with his hate of corporations and money. This book is a physical contradiction in itself. And, to recommend this book as the product of a "visionary" is rather laughable.

Why spend time reading a book that only focuses on how negative and all encompassing in power the 1% of powerful, rich controllers are? What's the point? Does it empower you? No. It makes you feel like a puppet in a mass controlled world. Yet, corporations created the computer that I'm typing this one (Apple), the internet that I'm using to connect to this website (Time Warner) and even the website that I'm writing this review on (Goodreads). I do understand the always relevant stance of RBF in the light of the 2008 economic fall out and the Anti-Wall Street Protests that are occurring now.

However, for me, this book failed in too many ways for me to give it anything other than one star. This is a book of paranoia and conspiracy theory at its finest. Boo hoo hoo - kick rocks and move on.

[Harry Roger Williams III · Rating 5 out of 5]

Buckminster Fuller has been gone for nearly 30 years and the planet and human survival cry out for minds like his. A poet and genius and inventor who makes me blush that I have claimed I became a Librarian so I could be a Renaissance Man. This book is such a challenge to politics and politicians because it advocates looking at life and humanity from an entirely different perspective than any of their ilk. I won't try to paraphrase the book. He is so succinct - in spite of "repetition" that I think of more as refrains in a song - that any attempt to summarize would be long than the book itself, which is a mere 98 pages including the index. I will only say that I get goose bumps reading some of the observations he made in this 1983 book about economic and political trends that are so much more apparent now. He invented a lot of words, including "livingry" to mean the opposite of weaponry, and he made it clear that if what we spent on weaponty were diverted to livingry then not only would no one starve, but every person on Spaceship Earth could live at a higher standard of living than ever conceived even by the rich. Wow!

[Ryan · Rating 3 out of 5]

In this book, Buckminster Fuller seeks to outline the present geo-political state of the world, through a brief historical analysis of modes of production and civil organization. He identifies the present state as massively and inefficiently controlled by "giants": systems of corporations that control the world's resources and production. His lifelong project of efficient, sustainable technology is at odds with the continued existence of this "grunch" of giants, so the book examines this conflict and the nature of control exerted by the grunch.

Buckminster Fuller's vision for the world could perhaps be described as a technocracy. It is a vision firmly rooted in his mindset as an engineer: rigorously logical (as opposed to political), considering the whole globe as a system. The problem? Sustaining the most people at the highest standard of living in the face of booming population. The solution? Technology. Cut, dried, efficient- and yet, admirable for how he simply cuts off considerations of the pragmatics of nation-states and class. Undoubtably, I agree with him in the sense that nations and politics are invented games that only hinder our true potential at this point in our development as a species. However, he risks sounding naievely utopian if he leaves the political sphere unadressed- this book, I believe, is his attempt to grapple with the pragmatics of the situation.

As you might gather, then, many of these ideas have been dealt with elsewhere and in greater detail. Much of this is tied up with personal details of how Fuller's inventions (presumably containing the key to global post-scarcity) were left by the wayside despite arousing much interest from the public and investors at the time. It should be clear from the outset that Fuller's vision of supplying everyone with everything they need in an efficient & ecological manner is fundamentally at odds with capitalist enterprise- he writes that one must decide to "make money or make sense." While certainly true, one cannot simply assume that by making enough sense the world will come around to one's vision.

Fuller's take on the global situation is at least unique and personal. Perhaps this is due to his radically individual style- preferring to tackle every problem from his own perspective and by his own devices rather than by relying on inherited wisdom. His writing style also reflects this individuality. Liberally interspersed with neologisms and long strings of participle adjectives, it bears more than a passing resemblance to the writings of a schizophrenic. However, by insisting on his idiosyncratic vocabulary (world-around instead of worldwide, e.g.) he implicitly places the reader in a new mindset, one presumably more suited to world-around cooperation of global citizens.

Is it genius or madness? A combination of the two. I wouldn't exactly rank him with DaVinci, but the sentiment is there. Many of his ideas were indeed ahead of their time, and he insisted on a global systemic approach long before ecology made it the norm. A pretty fun book.

[Dina · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great book, mark to re-read it. Corporations or Giants are B. Fuller calls them are now endowed with the same legal rights and protection that humans used to have. Yet those corporations operate only with single purpose of profit irrelevantly whether their behavior is anti social as in environmental damage or enslavement of humans or destruction of the earth by the last nuclear war. The Grunch of Giants explains how those corporations came to existence and how unless stopped they might annihilate everything on earth. Ruled by few extremely selfish individuals devoid of any social conscience or perhaps not capable of understanding the consequences of their behavior - they run amok and eventually the "human experiment" on earth will have to decide whether to progress to interplanetary civilization or self destruct.

[Mathew · Rating 3 out of 5]

I wanted to enjoy this, I really did. I awarded three stars because Fuller is quite obviously an incredibly gifted and intelligent individual. The book is short, and very interesting in parts, however, the language used is just downright inaccessible. This is a common critique that I disregarded prior to reading the book, but honestly, it just makes for a bad read.

It is so frustrating at times that I am now forced to quote Wikipedia, an action that I would rather not undertake. Namely,

"Buckminster Fuller spoke and wrote in a unique style and said it was important to describe the world as accurately as possible. Fuller often created long run-on sentences and used unusual compound words (omniwell-informed, intertransformative, omni-interaccommodative, omniself-regenerative) as well as terms he himself invented"

I'm sorry, but no. The use confusing language and "long run-on sentences", alongside terms "he himself invented" is nothing other than bad grammar. Now, for an avid reader of philosophy, this is something which can be oft overlooked as anyone who has read Kant will understand. That said, at times, Grunch makes reading Kant feel like that first lick of a cool ice cream on a hot summers day. In contrast, the former is reminiscent of the Bloc Party lyric "Like drinking poison, it's like eating glass".

Unfortunately, if we are to affect the radical socioeconomic change, alongside the necessary shift in consciousness, required to save this combustion engine of a planet then we have to make the literature accessible, relatable, and relevant to the working classes. Spending a chapter talking about dymaxion houses, geometric domes, and a bunch of patents filed in the 50's and 60's will cause people to lose interest. Moreover, even if one does survive that 'at least the words make me feel smart' stage of the book, the language which subsequently cloaks the history of the post-war monopolisation of energy and technology will soon wear you out.

Aside from the domes, it's nothing Chomsky hasn't said better.

[Nathanael · Rating 1 out of 5]

I picked up Grunch of Giants after one of my favourite authors, Robert Kiyosaki, recommended it in one of his books. So I had high expectations of this book. I was disappointed. There were some interesting historical snippets here and there, but it was most of it was a somewhat incoherent rant against the corporations that control the world and how they had the means to solve humanity's problems but not the will.

[Jonnythrombosis · Rating 5 out of 5]

if you want a generalized understanding of human's history on spaceship earth then this will hit the spot - its an easy read if you are just coming into contact with bucky's work & will leave you wondering why you hadn't thought it of or figured it out before for yourself - bucky has an effect on my thinking like very few other authors - he is like a modern day leonardo da vinci but with a few hundred years human knowledge & experience at his disposal - i highly recommend that EVERYONE READ THIS BOOK!

[Andrew · Rating 5 out of 5]

Infinitely complicated and simple; unyielding comprehensive, and concise, all at once, "that" pours out of buckminster's sentences.

A representative quote
"You [Fuller] go around explaining in simple terms that which people have not been comprehending, when the first law of success is, 'Never make things simple when you can make them complicated.' "

if you're interested in the legal history of corporate bodies, this is a great companion to more traditional texts.

[Lewis Fiecke · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book is one of the most challenging I have ever read, lots of big words. The author is brilliant and I learned a great deal about the Grunch, and how the rich manipulate our government and money to legally steal from the working class.

[Bettie · Rating 1 out of 5]

zoikes - hard to listen to - computer voice is just too hard when the science, on its own, is hard enough for this here layman.

blurb from a colleague - Everybody should be able to read this book, but it's kind of hard to come by in print. The full text is available online (http://www.bfi.org/about-bucky/resour...) but this is difficult for many (including myself) to read. So, I downloaded festival (http://www.cstr.ed.ac.uk/projects/fes...) and used it to export the text to speech.

[Lovinthe1320 · Rating 3 out of 5]

I did not understand the majority of the book. As short as the book is, there is a great deal on information about many different issues and how the author sees them relating to one another. I will need to read it again for futher understanding. It can be difficult to read as the author runs on at length with the ideas in his sentences which easily lost me throughout the whole book. However when it did make sense to me it was rather profound. Tough book, dont quit on it!

[Macfrickins · Rating 3 out of 5]

Buckminster critique of current socioeconomic systems (corporation, banking, politics), that in his synthetized world view are utterly illogical and from the humanistic point of view even counterproductive. In his book he gives peak of how to understand our current situation and look at the world (e.g. renaming our planet on the basis of closed ecosystem as Spaceship Earth).

[Erik Graff · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was one of many books loaned me by my roommate. Seeing my involvement in the eighty-year-old Socialist Party and probably pitying my antiquated sympathies, he recommended this, Fuller's last book, as a more modern and relevant diagnosis of social problems and potential solutions.

[Trilok Reddy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Got geared up after listening to Robert Kiyosaki. Just cant wait to read it. Will give my honest review once I am done. Till then Bye..

[Bob Mustin · Rating 5 out of 5]

What was our U.S. Constitution's most glaring omission, given the state of the country and world today? Spoiler alert: They never saw the possibility of the advent of mega-multinational corporations. Consequently, these corporation's effect on our economy and governmental makeup and doings has been untrammeled. They are, by law, afforded the same rights as a person, with none of the restrictions and limitations of a person. For instance, there's no law that will prevent a corporation from robbery, bribery, or soiling the environment. The government's only recourse is to sue or jail a person of the corporation. Meanwhile, that person is replaced by another who is liable to commit the same offenses.

Fuller's view is, however, that corporations endeavor to always do more from less with less labor and materials, and these savings aren't passed on to the consuming public. Hence the wealth disparity in the U.S. and the rest of the world – but this trait offers, in Fuller's view, its redemption.

Fuller knows whereof he speaks. He lays out his own battles with corporate entities in this book, even as he tried throughout his adult life to provide humanity with a strategy and products to bring us all to a higher, healthier, and richer mode of life. The geodesic dome. The dymaxion car and house, and many other devices meant to save expense, labor, and time for us all. It's a long list of inventions, cases, and outright robberies, and I won't delineate them here. He does mention some in this short book, but only in the context of depicting what an albatross the world's corporate structure is to our economy, our lives.

Fuller, however, is an optimist, and he believes that, while we will have to live with the corporate phenomenon, it will, in its desire to do ever more with less , eventually do the right thing for us, our society, and the world at large.

My rating: 17 of 20 stars

[Cheryl K · Rating 3 out of 5]

2.5-3* rating: Interesting read but was a tough (Dry) read for me, thus the 2.5-3*. Fuller was far ahead of his time & would likely roll over in his grave had he known in 1983 how right he was and how unfortunately worse and further from any resolution or economic progress made by humanity. "Never before in all history have the inequities and the momentums of unthinking money power been more glaringly evident to so vastly large a number of now literate, and constructively thinking all around the world humans." And interestingly enough during an era of as some call a "Great Awakening" the following statement could not be more fitting for our times 41 years later. i.e.: "the individual discovery of God by a vast majority of human individuals - not the discovery of religions, but the discovery that each and every individual hasn't always instantly open, no intermediary switchboard authority to contend with, no interference of any kind, direct "hotline to God": i.e., the waitlist, non-physical communication occurring teleologically between the differentially limited, weightless, non-physical, temporal, special case minds of the individual human and the comprehensively integrated, macro micro unlimited, weightless, eternal, generalized mind of God."

[Thibault Jacquot-Paratte · Rating 5 out of 5]

I could give a 4, for the following reasons:
The author mentions a lot of things, about which I'd like to know much more, but more information isn't given (e.g. his inventions summarized at the start).
The style is a bit choppy, like reading a technical document. At the same time, this very peculiar style, while being, perhaps, annoying for some people, can also give the book a lot of it's charm, and I found I could get into it.

The book is an essay, but without all the bullshit filler that a lot of essays have. It's a social essay of a scientific nature. The scientific nature of of the essay also contributes to its very interesting, original, politically objective stances.

This is a rich and concise, humanitarian, and we could say ecologist, work. The only way I could imagine someone aching against it, is if the reader is really brainwashed by business and\or military propaganda. For me, this book was great, and I recommend it. The perspective is U.S. focused (and, well, the author is american), and yet, it remains universal, or universally applicable.

[Charles Fuller · Rating 4 out of 5]

As an ancestor of Bucky, I continue to engineer, design, and build regenerative production systems for the benefit of humanity. To make the world work for 100% of humanity in the shortest time possible without ecological offense or the disadvantage of anyone starts with one person, one relationship, one neighbor, one village, one community, one city, one state, one nation at a time, simultaneously. -Charles Fuller

As an ancestor of Bucky, I continue to engineer, design, and build regenerative production systems for the benefit of humanity. To make the world work for 100% of humanity in the shortest time possible without ecological offense or the disadvantage of anyone starts with one person, one relationship, one neighbor, one village, one community, one city, one state, one nation at a time, simultaneously. -Charles Fuller

[Murf Reeves · Rating 5 out of 5]

Holy amazing man! Grunch of Giants was the second part to Critical Path, which I have not read, after this read, I am in. The book illuminates the scam perpetrated by supracolossalcorporations, and the greed and selfishness of the few humans running essentially legal creations, nothing more, are keeping the human race from attaining our place as stewards of the section of the ever regenerating universe we inhabit. Fuller spent his life designing life enhancing inventions for all of humanity while abandoning the notion of making money as a life ambition and believed we are destined for much greater existence than a for profit, weapons driven lifestyle.

[Venky Khanna · Rating 2 out of 5]

Bucky.. seems to be a guy who is pissed of with Industries and governments in general. Complicated use of words and some heavy vocabulary has been used, to overall present a dissatisfaction with the way Heavy Weight industries and Governments are fleesing the general population.
Boring book, cant help but finish what I have started. Hence still reading it. Else would have shelved this long time back.
It does give some insight about how the mass population has been cheated and kept poor over the ages, BUT, I fail to understand why there's such a hype about this book!!!

[Jonathan · Rating 2 out of 5]

I’ll save you some time and explain the points so you don’t have to read this one.

1) Corporations are bad
2) Taking the dollar off of the gold standard was bad
3) Stop building nukes and use that money on raising the living standard of everyone
4) Fuller loved using the prefix “omni” at any opportunity
5) Fuller enjoyed using pedantic terms when a simple word would suffice

Brilliant in thinking outside of the box yet unable to communicate his utopian views without unnecessarily flowery language. I like the guy and many of his ideas but this book didn’t do it for me.

[Cedric Crumbley · Rating 5 out of 5]

Found a new favorite author—> R. Buckminster Fuller. His book, Grunch of Giants, has been on my bookshelf for a year. Finally finished reading it. This dude is on a whole new level. He passed away 30 years ago but his concepts are just as relevant today as in the 1980s.

*If you’ve read Rich Dad Poor Dad by Robert Kiyosaki, you’ll recognize the concepts taught by Buckminster Fuller. Worth checking out.

Grunch = Gross Universe Cash Heist

[Banksy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fuller talks about humanity morphing economy through business without regard for the environmental impacts of industry. He explains the butterfly effect of quantitative easing and the toxicity that can not be undone. The black hole will not only debilitate business but it will wipe out humanity in one, unexpected, foul-swoop. Nonetheless, the author has hope that we can wake up and transition to preservation of non renewable resources on a global scale before it’s too late.

[Oleksandr · Rating 5 out of 5]

Recommend read by Robert Kiyosaki

I read this book once I read rich dad poor dad by Robert Kiyosaki. Interesting book though it been written over 30 years ago it predicting many things that are going in time due to mistakes the government did many years prior. Though this book can be very academical it makes the points reasonable to understand.

[Mark Clackum · Rating 3 out of 5]

X-ray vision locating our hidden & corrupt financial structures

Brilliant systems thinker Buckminster Fuller shares his X-ray vision locating our hidden & corrupt financial structures & the bought & paid for politicians in 1981 as a warning to prevent what has now already happened since & is happening, now.

[Alex · Rating 4 out of 5]

A (justifiably) cynical examination of national and supranational power structures that still bears a lot of relevance for the world nearly four decades after it was written. Much of what is discussed here is covered in greater detail in "Critical Path," which I preferred overall, but this is perhaps more approachable given its substantially shorter length.

[Jason · Rating 2 out of 5]

The style of writing was not my cup of tea, but the ideas resonate. Felt like listening to an eccentric genius and required effort to follow. Unfortunately, the path for humanity RBF laid out should have been followed but wasn't.

[Alok · Rating 4 out of 5]

Amazing insight into the mind of a visionary. Bucky comes off as a techno-utopian hippy who believe that corporations were evil and the individual, empowered by technology, could save us. It's like Ayn Rand but without the anti-community bias. I can't say I agree with it all, but it's worth a read.

[Daniel Branski · Rating 4 out of 5]

Not sure what to really say... feels like I need to read this 2-3 times to fully understand what Fuller is trying to communicate. Feel like I understood about 20% of the books context.
It has a very long sentence writing style which can make it difficult to follow.

[Adrian Sutton · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a brilliant book written approximately 40 years ago and could have been written yesterday for it’s acute depiction of the current geopolitical and economic crisis currently unfolding. A giant of a man