Review: Seeing Like a State

Reviewed Work(s): Seeing Like a State: How Certain Schemes to Improve the Human
Condition Have Failed by James C. Scott
Review by: Michael Adas
Source: Journal of Social History, Vol. 33, No. 4 (Summer, 2000), pp. 959-963
Published by: Oxford University Press
Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/3789172
Accessed: 24-10-2018 14:27 UTC

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 Cases:
 Soviet Russia
 Nazi Germany
 Authoritarian Tanzania
 Post-colonial &
post-command economy
countries
 Peoples ? Le Corbuiser!!!

REVIEW ESSAY:

SEEINQ LIKE A STATE

By Michael Adas Rutgers University

Seeing Like a State: How Certain Schemes to Imp

tion Have Failed. By James C. Scott (New H
University Press, 1998. xiv plus 445pp.).

It does not require a very thorough examination of

twentieth century for one to conclude that political
and rightist varieties, has been a major, if not the m
dented levels of human suffering unleashed in the
since European imperialist domination encompassed t
mainly on case examples that explore massive project
rected by those who have claimed to be inspired by le
James Scott argues that these exercises in bureaucrat
commitment to tenets of what he terms "high mode
that the ideas and urges, organizational strategies, an
that informed Soviet schemes for collectivization, "
and agricultural modernization in accordance with W
colonial and post-colonial eras were all constructed t
ends. Detailed analyses of these grand schemes for p
transformation, which form the core case studies for
that they originated in a constellation of seemingly d
these can be traced back to early modern times, part
ment; others are products of twentieth-century sens
breakthroughs.
In the early chapters of Seeing Like a State, Scott exp
limited, earlier high modernist projects, from Germ
and urban planning to cadastral surveys and languag
these he argues persuasively shared a common goal o
the legibility of urban and rural landscapes and hum
as Scott employs the term in demonstrating the co
processes, includes standardization, simplification, co
the valorization of procedures deemed to be scientific
and universally valid) at the expense of local knowled
projects generally with the imperatives of state bure
doggedly implement them, often in the face of consi
evidence that their actual effects are rather different
charge intend.
Beginning with the Russian revolution and the dr
under Stalin to collectivize (hence modernize) agricul
antry that had made its own revolution in 1917 and

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960 journal of social history summer 2000
Scott employs an impressive array of secondary sources and k
uments to demonstrate the dehumanization, destruction, an
degradation that have very often been the main products of t
to remake the world according to high modernist ideals. Bru
a central feature of the Soviet regime even before collectiviz
uidation of the Kulaks were launched, and for reasons that we
or peripheral to high modernism. But Scott argues that eve
benign leaders, such as Julius Nyerere in Tanzania, modernizin
variably resulted in widespread bureaucratic bullying and sta
its citizens, the destruction of viable communities and patterns
environmental devastation. As Scott demonstrates in each case
priate that the ideologues and bureaucrats who create and dire
projects have frequently resorted to military imagery and tec
regimentation, chains of command, discipline, drill, and un
and intimidate the populations who are the objects of their a
In the general introduction to his case and thematic studies
three key processes whose convergence he sees as responsible
society-wide social engineering projects in the past century.
is levelled by severe traumatic shocks, such as defeat in war,
revolution. In its prostrate condition, the society is vulnerab
power by political factions determined to build an authoritari
the ideologues of the extreme factions are committed to som
modernism as a grand blueprint for societal transformation.
of forces corresponds perfectly with those that gave rise to t
the forced modernization of the Stalinist era. Though Scott d
either case in any depth, this convergence of forces and simi
also occurred in China and Cambodia in recent decades.
This configuration of historical processes fits in equal measu
Germany in the decades after World War I, which might have p
case from the right side of the political spectrum. For reason
elucidate, Scott has little to say about the potential for lethal
by rightist regimes, such as the Nazis or the Fascists in Italy.
cases could certainly be employed to expand the applicability
concerning high modernism. As studies such as Jeffrey Herf's
ernism (Cambridge, 1984) demonstrate, they would also com
considerably. For the Nazis and Fascists, and many other prop
militarism, the high modernist agenda was diluted significantly
ticized revivals (or inventions) of ancient myths and rituals a
ization ofthe agrarian past. Recall the striking sequences in "T
Will" of German peasants?male and female, adults and ch
exuberantly to pay their respects to Der Fiihrer. Or, consider
with what he declared was the eternal struggle between Arya
the ways in which that conviction contributed to the massi
their extermination, which exceeded even the horrors of Sta
example of high modernist regimentation and technologizing
These references to important examples from the right is not
that Scott ought to have written a different book from the o
but rather to suggest that high modernism and social engin

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REVIEW ESSAY 961

together in a multiplic
to their convergence h
as generalizable from t
second major case exam
to high modernism and
general formulation. T
were conducted had kn
poorer for decades of
groups and local comm
point Scott convincing
gone the divisive proce
of the forced union of
occurrences compares
Russia. And Russia had
cies poured into Tanza
modernization. In fact
buffering the impact
plenty of bureaucrati
in Tanzania. But none
and destruction unleas
in the Staiinist drive f
high modernist archit
ing the forces that ga
provides a study in con
This divergence point
thoritarian experimen
State. As the later cha
neering projects have
the name of liberal ma
state socialism. Though
falloffs in agrarian pr
that which occurred i
of these setbacks was m
than the Soviet or Ch
These contrasts also ra
tween high modernism
examples of high mod
concedes?censuses, ma
of police surveillance,
not these techniques o
the vibrant street life
the world's other grea
scale and geometric ab
ization and alienation.
explores with sensitiv
city that New York ha
arrogant and communi
Moses as to how that

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962 journal of social history summer 2000
agents?and here grasping and insensitive bureaucrats, both
states and international lending agencies, have a lot to answ
formed the elements of high modernism into instruments
destruction. They have done so in circumstances that have v
from what have to be seen as the exceptional calamities and
of social disintegration that made the Stalinist (or Nazi) ab
a full assessment of the impact of high modernism requir
verse and representative set of case examples than those Sco
as an approach to causation that allows for factors less ext
implicitly generalizes from the Soviet experience.
As was the case in his earlier and highly influential work
state control and tactics of peasant resistance from The Mor
Peasant (1976) to Domination and the Arts of Resistance (1990
impressive aptitude for synthesis in exploring the case exam
building a larger argument. He ranges across a vast literatur
tory, economies, anthropology, literature, urban planning,
cartography and, of course, political science. Reflecting a signi
phasis from much of his earlier work, which was centered on
responses of peasants and other subaltern groups, in the earl
Like a State, Scott's main concerns are states, bureaucrats, m
and the sorry legacy of their convergence in varying locale
But it is in the two final chapters ofthe study where Scott tur
purpose: a measured and ultimately sobering critique of high
on local knowledge and indigenous agricultural
(Metis) systems.
Drawing heavily on recent anthropological work on these
iled survivals from the pre-industrial, pre-scientific era, Sco
cogent case for their social resonance and ecological sustain
contrasted with the monocultural, large-scale, environmen
community destructive approaches of both capitalist and co
industrial agriculture. Here a barely disguised current of ho
trism that borders on anarchism, which runs through all but
Scott's work, informs his defense of local diversity and time
well as his assault on the hubristic schemes of modernizatio
proclivities are evident in Scott's defense of peoples on the
rent reflections on the determination of modern states to forc
down or eliminate them.
His defense of shifting agriculturalists is particularly noteworthy in this regard,
and he draws on a wealth of recent ethnographic research to argue for the
decided ecological advantages of this once-maligned approach to subsistence
production. But over the past couple of centuries, population increase, more
intensive forest cutting, ethnic clashes, and the spread of sedentary agriculture
have had as much or more to do with the decline of societies based on shifting
agriculture?or for that matter those relying on pastoral nomadism?as state
planning or military assaults in the name of high modernism. And, as Scott is
well aware, whatever its virtues, shifting agriculture is not a viable alternative to
intensive sedentary agriculture, whether industrial or not. The very low ratio of
population to land that is essential to all systems of slash-and-burn or swidden
patterns of food production means that they cannot, in an overcrowded world,

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REVIEW ESSAY 963

present viable alterna

rural organization that
These critiques are fo
repositories of what Sc
out over centuries, som
ingly little to say about
of agricultural product
his concessions to the s
his thorough critiques
colonial tropical and s
on Culture and Agricul
Farming Systems (New
creases in yields per ac
States in the past cent
Schusky argues that
terms of the energy n
manufacture and run
outputs. This imbalanc
draw energy and other
domestically. But, if S
is not sustainable for
Schusky's findings are
wrongheaded approach
chronicles in the colon
alternatives to the hig
and environmentally
that Scott's well-found
relevance to planetary
period when high mod
its rivals appear to hav

Department of History
New Brunswick, NJ 08

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