Seeing Like a State : How Certain Schemes to

Why do well-intentioned plans for improving the human condition go tragically awry? In a wide-ranging and original study, James C. Scott analyzes failed cases of large-scale authoritarian plans in a variety of fields. He argues that centrally managed social plans derail when schematic visions are imposed on long-established structures without taking into account preexisting interdependencies.

Acknowledgments

ix

Introduction

1

(8)

Part 1. State Projects of Legibility and Simplification

9

(76)

Chapter 1. Nature and Space

11

(42)

Chapter 2. Cities, People, and Language

53

(32)

Part 2. Transforming Visions

85

(96)

Chapter 3. Authoritarian High Modernism

87

(16)

Chapter 4. The High-Modernist City: An Experiment and a Critique

103

(44)

Chapter 5. The Revolutionary Party: A Plan and a Diagnosis

147

(34)

Part 3. The Social Engineering of Rural Settlement and Production

181

(126)

Chapter 6. Soviet Collectivization, Capitalist Dreams

193

(30)

Chapter 7. Compulsory Villagization in Tanzania: Aesthetics and Miniaturization

223

(39)

Chapter 8. Taming Nature: An Agriculture of Legibility and Simplicity

262

(45)

Part 4. The Missing Link

307

(52)

Chapter 9. Thin Simplifications and Practical Knowledge: Metis

309

(33)

Chapter 10. Conclusion

342

(17)

Notes

359

(74)

Sources for Illustrations

433

(2)

Index

435

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

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Table of Contents

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