Seeing like a state : how certain schemes to improve the human condition have failed / James C. Scott.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Scott, James C.

Series:

Yale agrarian studies.

Yale ISPS series.

Yale agrarian studies

Yale ISPS series

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Central planning--Social aspects.

Central planning.

Social engineering.

Authoritarianism.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (462 p.)

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

New Haven : Yale University Press, c1998.

Language Note:

English

Summary:

Compulsory ujamaa villages in Tanzania, collectivization in Russia, Le Corbusier's urban planning theory realized in Brasilia, the Great Leap Forward in China, agricultural "modernization" in the Tropics-the twentieth century has been racked by grand utopian schemes that have inadvertently brought death and disruption to millions. Why do well-intentioned plans for improving the human condition go tragically awry?In this wide-ranging and original book, James C. Scott analyzes failed cases of large-scale authoritarian plans in a variety of fields. Centrally managed social plans misfire, Scott argues, when they impose schematic visions that do violence to complex interdependencies that are not-and cannot-be fully understood. Further, the success of designs for social organization depends upon the recognition that local, practical knowledge is as important as formal, epistemic knowledge. The author builds a persuasive case against "development theory" and imperialistic state planning that disregards the values, desires, and objections of its subjects. He identifies and discusses four conditions common to all planning disasters: administrative ordering of nature and society by the state; a "high-modernist ideology" that places confidence in the ability of science to improve every aspect of human life; a willingness to use authoritarian state power to effect large- scale interventions; and a prostrate civil society that cannot effectively resist such plans.

Contents:

pt. 1. State projects of legibility and simplification

pt. 2. Transforming visions

pt. 3. The social engineering of rural settlement and production

pt. 4. The missing link.

Notes:

Description based upon print version of record.

Includes bibliographical references (p. 359-434) and index.

ISBN:

9786611729134

9781281729132

1281729132

9780300128789

0300128789

OCLC:

923592507