Summary of James C. Scott's Seeing Like a State

Please note: This is a companion version & not the original book.

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#1 The state has always been an enemy of nomads and pastoralists, as it has always sought to sedentarize them and make them legible. The more I examined these efforts at sedentarization, the more I realized that legibility is a fundamental problem in statecraft.

#2 The state has always been an enemy of nomads and pastoralists, as it has sought to sedentarize them and make them legible. The more I examined these efforts at sedentarization, the more I realized that legibility is a fundamental problem in statecraft.

#3 In his book Back to the Soil, AC Grayling describes the history of utopian projects, from the French Revolution to the Spanish Revolution, that tried to reshape the face of society through social engineering. The most tragic episodes of these projects originate in a pernicious combination of four elements: administrative ordering of nature and society, high-modernist ideology, transformative state simplifications, and a high level of administrative corruption.

#4 If you want to change the face of a society, you need to first seize power, then use it to bring about utopian plans. The most fertile soil for this combination is usually found during times of war, revolution, depression, and struggle for national liberation.

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Release date

Ebook: 4 October 2022