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

Book by James C. Scott · 4 quotes · Society, Authority, Delusion

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

“There may, of course, be no alternative to planning, especially when the urgency of a single goal, such as winning a war, seems to require the subordination of every other goal. The immanent logic of such an exercise, however, implies a degree of certainty about the future, about means-ends calculations, and about the meaning of human welfare that is truly heroic. That such plans have often had to be adjusted or abandoned is an indication of just how heroic are the assumptions behind them.”

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Book:Seeing Like a State: How Certain Schemes to Improve the Human Condition Have Failed
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“The more static, standardized, and uniform a population or social space is, the more legible it is, and the more amenable it is to the techniques of state officials. I am suggesting that many state activities aim at transforming the population, space, and nature under their jurisdiction into the closed systems that offer no surprises and that can best be observed and controlled.”

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Book:Seeing Like a State: How Certain Schemes to Improve the Human Condition Have Failed
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“Where the utopian vision goes wrong is when it is held by ruling elites with no commitment to democracy or civil rights and who are therefore likely to use unbridled state power for its achievement. Where it goes brutally wrong is when the society subjected to such utopian experiments lacks the capacity to mount a determined resistance.”

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