My latest summary is for Seeing Like A State: How Certain Schemes to Improve the Human Condition Have Failed by James C Scott. The book explores how states simplify and standardize complex societies to make them “legible” to distant rulers. In doing so, the state ends up reshaping reality to fit its narrow view.

As usual, the key takeaways are below, and you can find the full summary by clicking the link above.

KEY TAKEAWAYS

• States try hard to make their subjects legible:
  • State power is usually exercised from a centralised position, by officials far removed from their subjects. These officials need to understand and “see” their subjects to exercise many forms of state power, such as taxation.
  • Legibility relies on facts that are standardised, static and written. This allows information to be aggregated, but it necessarily ends up “flattening” human complexity.
  • Legibility is also selective: the simplifications capture what authorities care about rather than what communities consider meaningful.
• High modernism is the belief that society can be designed from first principles using science and reason:
  • High modernism often views history and local knowledge as inconveniences that need to be cleared away, instead prioritising abstract, technical expertise.
  • Visual order is a key feature of high modernist ambitions. But the order that emerges organically can be more functional, even if it looks “messy”.
  • High modernism has led to disaster in the 20th century when paired with coercive state power.
• High modernism prioritises technical, universal knowledge (techne) over local, practical knowledge (mētis):
  • Techne is more accessible to the state, as it can be written down as a set of rules and principles and applied to many different places.
  • In contrast, many societies have developed mētis that is well-adapted to the real world, but involve too many variables to replicate in a lab.
  • Both forms of knowledge are valuable, but states have generally devalued mētis, leading to some grave mistakes.
• Over time, the state’s “view” can end up shaping reality:
  • Because officials govern according to their simplified legible facts, people end up adjusting their lives to fit the categories.
  • When states devalue local knowledge, they erode local power as well as the skills and adaptability of populations. The state can therefore end up creating the very dependent, unskilled populations that require the state.

You can find the full detailed summary on the website. If you found this summary useful, consider forwarding to a friend you think might enjoy it.

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​To Summarise​