How Certain Schemes to Improve the Human Condition Have Failed (The Institution for Social and Policy St)
Paperback, 464 pages
English language
Published Feb. 8, 1999 by Yale University Press.
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 confidence in the ability to design and operate society in accordance with scientific laws. It was released in March 1998, with a paperback version in February 1999. The book catalogues schemes which states impose upon populaces that are convenient for the state since they make societies "legible" but are not necessarily good for the people; census data, standardized weights and measures, and uniform languages make it easier to tax and control the population.
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 confidence in the ability to design and operate society in accordance with scientific laws. It was released in March 1998, with a paperback version in February 1999. The book catalogues schemes which states impose upon populaces that are convenient for the state since they make societies "legible" but are not necessarily good for the people; census data, standardized weights and measures, and uniform languages make it easier to tax and control the population.
às vezes gosto muito que o James repita a mesma coisa mil vezes mas às vezes não
como marxista, o que mais gostei foi da crítica a Lenine
So what you're telling me is that the scourge of society is a bunch of nerds trying to design away all of life's problems and their solutions always seem to involve lower classes working to solve the politburo's problems? And their plans fuck up the environment and destroy community knowledge of how to, y'know, live self-sufficiently and otherwise? And that by now many of us discontents are kinda just doomed because the network we need to survive is actively recuperated and destroyed by the state?
Fucking nerds, I swear to God. The meek will destroy the Earth.
The collection of historical narratives was quite interesting, and the overarching message was essentially archetypical. It's a basic point extremely well-explained even if I simply could not retain anything in my head from the final part. Metis entered my mind. I got that. And then I seemed physically incapable of maintaining …
So what you're telling me is that the scourge of society is a bunch of nerds trying to design away all of life's problems and their solutions always seem to involve lower classes working to solve the politburo's problems? And their plans fuck up the environment and destroy community knowledge of how to, y'know, live self-sufficiently and otherwise? And that by now many of us discontents are kinda just doomed because the network we need to survive is actively recuperated and destroyed by the state?
Fucking nerds, I swear to God. The meek will destroy the Earth.
The collection of historical narratives was quite interesting, and the overarching message was essentially archetypical. It's a basic point extremely well-explained even if I simply could not retain anything in my head from the final part. Metis entered my mind. I got that. And then I seemed physically incapable of maintaining my attention.
Content warning spoilers ahead!
It will change the way you see states, maybe.
I liked this as a rejoinder to most of what I read, which is primarily a celebration of technocracy and expertise. Most of these case studies warned against going too far without listening to feedback of those whose lives you are purporting to help. Worth remembering these days.
(maybe I extend it later) Easy to read classic with anarchist leaning. Some connections to Akrich’s “Key to success in innovation” and Llach’s “Builders of the vision”.
I finally got a good idea why so much architecture and city planning is done in a birds-eye perspective that most people never see in real life.
If you want an unsubstantiated critique of any more or less left wing political project that does not at all come to the grips with why they happen, how and why they fail this is the book for you. Instead of analysis of how state power develops and how it relates to capital you get a theory of how the aesthetic of high modernism, think straight lines, cause all sorts of trouble. While many of the projects he discusses indeed were tragedies attributing them to aesthetics seem extraordinary reductive and idiotic. The rise of capitalism and capital adjacent regimes (really existing socialism, developmental states) is more or less completely forgotten. The high points are either when he touches on the realities of politico economic constraints and when he seemingly unwittingly acknowledges the deep conservatism of the unacknowledged political project he sketches between the lines.
I enjoyed this greatly and I am dyingggg to know about criticisms of big tech and surveillance capitalism that utilize the concepts in this book—particularly around legibility and the mechanization of people/minds. If you see this and you know of any, plz share! Such a good read for those of us in the interstitial spaces between the provably known and the experientially felt, and for those thinking about the pain and problems of objectivity.
Excellent collection of case studies, but falls short in the last couple of chapters.
I read this because it was heavily cited in a few different blog posts/essays that I found thought-provoking. This took me a really long time to get through, but has similarly been really thought-provoking, and has influenced how I think about a lot of different things.
In a very small nutshell (maybe a pistachio?): abstraction can be very useful but it's very easy to overlook the value of all the concrete details along the way; blind faith in it combined with a way to impose the abstraction on others can be pretty dangerous.
For what it's worth, I think you can basically read the introduction and then read Part IV: The Missing Link. At the beginning of that part he summarizes the salient points of Parts II and III. If you find any of those stories particularly interesting, there's nothing stopping you from going back and actually reading them. I …
I read this because it was heavily cited in a few different blog posts/essays that I found thought-provoking. This took me a really long time to get through, but has similarly been really thought-provoking, and has influenced how I think about a lot of different things.
In a very small nutshell (maybe a pistachio?): abstraction can be very useful but it's very easy to overlook the value of all the concrete details along the way; blind faith in it combined with a way to impose the abstraction on others can be pretty dangerous.
For what it's worth, I think you can basically read the introduction and then read Part IV: The Missing Link. At the beginning of that part he summarizes the salient points of Parts II and III. If you find any of those stories particularly interesting, there's nothing stopping you from going back and actually reading them. I found them enjoyable reading but non-essential to the central point of the book.
Anyways, while reading the book I thought about how it applied to: mismanagement at my workplace; the perils of 'data-driven decision-making'; the practice of software engineering; the relationship between playing music and studying music theory; my relationship to climate change. If you'd like to think about any of those things I highly recommend this book!
Full of good insights, but I could have used less explanation of why Soviet collectivization was wrong on every level and more than the passing reference that was made to the properties that make certain problems amenable to large-scale planning.
