Seeing Like a State

No cover — James C. Scott: Seeing Like a State (2020, Yale University Press)

464 pages

English language

Published Nov. 20, 2020 by Yale University Press.

ISBN:: 978-0-300-24675-9

(1 review)

Examines how (sometimes quasi-) authoritarian central planning fails to deliver the goods, be they increased resources for the state or a better life for the people.

8 editions

callan reviewed Seeing like a state by James C. Scott (Yale agrarian studies)

legibility, high modernism, metis

4 stars

I enjoyed this greatly and I am dyingggg to know about criticisms of big tech and surveillance capitalism that utilize the concepts in this book—particularly around legibility and the mechanization of people/minds. If you see this and you know of any, plz share! Such a good read for those of us in the interstitial spaces between the provably known and the experientially felt, and for those thinking about the pain and problems of objectivity.