Book #118 of 2017:
Seeing Like a State: How Certain Schemes to Improve the Human Condition Have Failed by James C. Scott
A dry but interesting book from Yale professor James C. Scott, about how centralized power tends to simplify on-the-ground complexity, imposing cookie-cutter paradigms to ensure legibility by the state. These simplifications are often motivated by the best intentions, and Scott does not hesitate to mention the great social good that some such projects have achieved. However, his main purpose is to detail particular failures, and to explore for each case how a simplifying vision from the center erased essential diversity (in life, social practices, or cultural knowledge) that weakened the overall system, as in the case of a forest reduced to only the most lumber-producing species of tree later falling victim to a parasite that a biodiverse natural ecosystem could have weathered. From planned cities to Soviet megafarms, Scott offers a whirlwind tour of examples from around the world of state improvement plans that backfired when planners relied too heavily on imposed ideals ill-suited to particularized conditions over contrary local knowledge.
I first came across this title on a list of books for (American) liberals to read in order to better understand the conservative mindset, and I have to admit, a certain skepticism of large government projects makes far more sense in the light of Scott’s examples. Although it was not a major focus of his book, I was also struck by an early passage in which he notes that it was an innocently-intentioned Dutch census project listing the location of every Jew in Amsterdam that later allowed Nazi occupiers to so easily round them up. I know liberals like myself tend to roll our eyes at what we see as the strawman of government confiscation of firearms through a national gun registry, but the example from the Netherlands is a chilling reminder that state legibility can bring about unforeseen consequences. All in all, this was a pretty dense book to get through, but it’s definitely made me think about certain matters in a way I never have before.
★★★☆☆
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