Explore
In this wide-ranging and original book, James C. Scott analyzes failed cases of large-scale authoritarian plans in a variety of fields. Centrally managed social plans misfire, Scott argues, when they impose schematic visions that do violence to complex interdependencies that are not -- and cannot -- be fully understood. Further, the success of designs for social organization depends upon the recognition that local, practical knowledge is as important as formal, epistemic knowledge. The author builds a persuasive case against "development theory" and imperialistic state planning that disregards the values, desires, and objections of its subjects. He identifies and discusses four conditions common to all planning disasters: administrative ordering of nature and society by the state; a "high-modernist ideology" that places confidence in the ability of science to improve every aspect of human life; a willingness to use authoritarian state power to effect large-scale interventions; and a prostrate civil society that cannot effectively resist such plans.
"A broad-ranging, theoretically important, and empirically grounded treatment of the modern state and its propensity to simplify and make legible a society which by nature is complex and opaque. For anyone interested inlearning about this fundamental tension of modernity and about the destruction wrought in the twentieth century as a consequence of the dominant development ideology of the simplifying state, this is a must-read". -- Daniel Jonah Goldhagen, author of Hitler's Willing Executioners
L'oeil de l'Etat is a translation of this work.
Why unglue this book? Have your say.
You must be logged in to comment.
CharlesR
Rights Information
Are you the author or publisher of this work? If so, you can claim it as yours by registering as an Unglue.it rights holder.Keywords
- ANTROPOLOGIA CULTURAL E SOCIAL
- Aspect social
- aspects sociaux
- Authoritarianism
- autoritarisme
- AUTORITARISMO (SISTEMAS DE GOVERNO)
- Business & Economics
- Business Development
- Central planning
- Development
- Economic assistance, Domestic
- Economic development
- Economic policy
- Economie dirigée
- General
- Government & Business
- Human services
- Ingénierie sociale
- Long Now Manual for Civilization
- Maatschappijverbetering
- Pays de l'Est
- pays en développement
- Planeconomie
- PLANEJAMENTO ECONÔMICO (ASPECTOS SOCIAIS)
- PLANEJAMENTO TERRITORIAL (AVALIAÇÃO)
- Planification économique
- Political Science
- Public Policy
- Régimes totalitaires
- Social aspects
- Social aspects of Central planning
- Social engineering
- Social problems
- State, The
- Structural Adjustment
- Utopieën