Thought du Jour

Über active Tyler Cowen reports that Yale University anthropologist James C. Scott has a new book out, titled The art of not being governed: an anarchist history of Upland Southeast Asia (Yale University Press, 2009).

Years ago I read with great pleasure Scott’s earlier book, Seeing like a State. Here is a short excerpt that I circulated at that time to the Thought du Jour list:

If the state’s goals are minimal, it may not need to know much about the society. Just as a woodsman who takes only an occasional load of firewood from a large forest need have no detailed knowledge of that forest, so a state whose demands are confined to grabbing a few carts of grain and the odd conscript may not require a very accurate or detailed map of the society. If, however, the state is ambitious–if it wants to extract as much grain and manpower as it can, short of provoking a famine or a rebellion, if it wants to create a literate, skilled, and healthy population, if it wants everyone to speak the same language or worship the same god– then it will have to become both far more knowledgeable and far more intrusive.

James C. Scott, Seeing like a State: how certain schemes to improve the human condition have failed (Yale University Press, 1998), p. 184.

Recycled from the Thought du Jour 2003 archive.

Seeing like a State is one of the best social science books I have ever read. The book is as enjoyable as it is informative. I look forward to reading also Professor Scott’s latest book.

This entry was posted on Sunday, November 8th, 2009 at 18:25 and is filed under Political Economy. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.