Seeing Like a State: How Certain Schemes to Improve the Human Condition Have Failed

Description

Why have large-scale schemes to improve the human condition in the twentieth century so often gone awry? James C. Scott analyzes diverse failures in high-modernist, authoritarian state planning-collectivization in Russia, the building of Brasilia, compulsory ujamaa villages in Tanzania, and others-and uncovers conditions common to all such planning disasters. What these failures teach us, he argues, is that any centrally managed social plan must recognize the importance of local customs and practical knowledge if it hopes to succeed. Contents Acknowledgments Introduction Part 1. State Projects of Legibility and Simplification Chapter 1. Nature and Space Chapter 2 . Cities, People, and Language Part 2. Transforming Visions Chapter 3. Authoritarian High Modernism Chapter 4. The High-Modernist City: An Experiment and a Critique Chapter 5. The Revolutionary Party: A Plan and a Diagnosis Part 3. The Social Engineering of Rural Settlement and Production Chapter 6. Soviet Collectivization, Capitalist Dreams Chapter 7. Compulsory Villagization in Tanzania: Aesthetics and Miniaturization Chapter 8. Taming Nature: An Agriculture of Legibility and Simplicity Part 4. The Missing Link Chapter 9. Thin Simplifications and Practical Knowledge: Metis Chapter 10. Conclusion Notes Sources for Illustrations Index