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Seeing Like a State
Seeing Like a State: How Certain Schemes to Improve the Human Condition Have Failed is a book by James C. Scott critical of a system of beliefs he calls high modernism, that centers on governments' overconfidence in the ability to design and operate society in accordance with purported scientific laws.
The book makes an argument that states seek to force administrative legibility on their subjects by homogenizing them and creating standards that simplify pre-existing, natural, diverse social arrangements. Examples include the introduction of family names, censuses, uniform languages, and standard units of measurement. While such innovations aim to facilitate state control and economies of scale, Scott argues that the eradication of local differences and silencing of local expertise can have adverse effects.
The book was first published in March 1998, with a paperback version appearing in February 1999.
Scott shows how central governments attempt to force (administrative) legibility on their subjects, and fail to see complex, valuable forms of local social order and knowledge. A main theme of this book, illustrated by his historic examples, is that states operate systems of power toward 'legibility' in order to see their subjects correctly in a top-down, modernist, model that is flawed, problematic, and often ends poorly for subjects. The goal of local legibility by the state is transparency from the top down, from the top of the tower or the center/seat of the government, so the state can effectively operate upon their subjects.
The book uses examples like the introduction of permanent last names in Great Britain, cadastral surveys in France, and standard units of measure across Europe to argue that a reconfiguration of social order is necessary for state scrutiny, and requires the simplification of pre-existing, natural arrangements. While, in earlier times, a field could be measured in the amount of cows it could sustain or the types of plants it could grow, post centralization, its size is measured in hectares. This allows governors who have little to no local knowledge to immediately understand the outline of the area but simultaneously blinds the state to the complex interactions which happen within nature and society. In agriculture and forestry, for example, it led to monoculture, or the sole focus on cultivating a single crop or tree at the cost of all others. While monoculture is easy to measure, manage, and understand, it is also less resilient to ecological crises than polyculture is.
In the case of last names, Scott cites a Welsh man who appeared in court and identified himself with a long string of patronyms: "John, ap Thomas ap William" etc. In his local village, this naming system carried a lot of information, because people could identify him as the son of Thomas and grandson of William, and thus distinguish him from the other Johns, the other children of Thomas, and the other grandchildren of William. Yet it was of less use to the central government, which did not know Thomas or William. The court demanded that John take a permanent last name (in this case, the name of his village). This helped the central government keep track of its subjects, at the cost of a more nuanced yet fuzzy and less legible understanding of local conditions.
Schemes that successfully improve human lives, Scott argues, must take into account local conditions, and that the high-modernist ideologies of the 20th century have prevented this. He highlights collective farms in the Soviet Union, the building of Brasília, and forced villagization in 1970s Tanzania as examples of failed schemes which were led by top-down bureaucratic efforts and where officials ignored or silenced local expertise.
Scott takes great effort to highlight that he is not necessarily anti-state. At times, the central role played by the state is necessary for programs such as disaster response or vaccinations. The flattening of knowledge which goes hand-in-hand with state centralization can have disastrous consequences when officials see centralised knowledge as the only legitimate information that they should consider, ignoring more specialised but less clearly defined indigenous and local expertise.
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Seeing Like a State
Seeing Like a State: How Certain Schemes to Improve the Human Condition Have Failed is a book by James C. Scott critical of a system of beliefs he calls high modernism, that centers on governments' overconfidence in the ability to design and operate society in accordance with purported scientific laws.
The book makes an argument that states seek to force administrative legibility on their subjects by homogenizing them and creating standards that simplify pre-existing, natural, diverse social arrangements. Examples include the introduction of family names, censuses, uniform languages, and standard units of measurement. While such innovations aim to facilitate state control and economies of scale, Scott argues that the eradication of local differences and silencing of local expertise can have adverse effects.
The book was first published in March 1998, with a paperback version appearing in February 1999.
Scott shows how central governments attempt to force (administrative) legibility on their subjects, and fail to see complex, valuable forms of local social order and knowledge. A main theme of this book, illustrated by his historic examples, is that states operate systems of power toward 'legibility' in order to see their subjects correctly in a top-down, modernist, model that is flawed, problematic, and often ends poorly for subjects. The goal of local legibility by the state is transparency from the top down, from the top of the tower or the center/seat of the government, so the state can effectively operate upon their subjects.
The book uses examples like the introduction of permanent last names in Great Britain, cadastral surveys in France, and standard units of measure across Europe to argue that a reconfiguration of social order is necessary for state scrutiny, and requires the simplification of pre-existing, natural arrangements. While, in earlier times, a field could be measured in the amount of cows it could sustain or the types of plants it could grow, post centralization, its size is measured in hectares. This allows governors who have little to no local knowledge to immediately understand the outline of the area but simultaneously blinds the state to the complex interactions which happen within nature and society. In agriculture and forestry, for example, it led to monoculture, or the sole focus on cultivating a single crop or tree at the cost of all others. While monoculture is easy to measure, manage, and understand, it is also less resilient to ecological crises than polyculture is.
In the case of last names, Scott cites a Welsh man who appeared in court and identified himself with a long string of patronyms: "John, ap Thomas ap William" etc. In his local village, this naming system carried a lot of information, because people could identify him as the son of Thomas and grandson of William, and thus distinguish him from the other Johns, the other children of Thomas, and the other grandchildren of William. Yet it was of less use to the central government, which did not know Thomas or William. The court demanded that John take a permanent last name (in this case, the name of his village). This helped the central government keep track of its subjects, at the cost of a more nuanced yet fuzzy and less legible understanding of local conditions.
Schemes that successfully improve human lives, Scott argues, must take into account local conditions, and that the high-modernist ideologies of the 20th century have prevented this. He highlights collective farms in the Soviet Union, the building of Brasília, and forced villagization in 1970s Tanzania as examples of failed schemes which were led by top-down bureaucratic efforts and where officials ignored or silenced local expertise.
Scott takes great effort to highlight that he is not necessarily anti-state. At times, the central role played by the state is necessary for programs such as disaster response or vaccinations. The flattening of knowledge which goes hand-in-hand with state centralization can have disastrous consequences when officials see centralised knowledge as the only legitimate information that they should consider, ignoring more specialised but less clearly defined indigenous and local expertise.