82,903
edits
Seeing Like a State: Difference between revisions
Jump to navigation
Jump to search
no edit summary
Amwelladmin (talk | contribs) No edit summary |
Amwelladmin (talk | contribs) No edit summary |
||
| Line 14: | Line 14: | ||
In any case, Scott does not say that top-down bureaucratic disaster is inevitable, but notes the same four conditions are present wherever we find it: a will to bend nature — and the polity — to the administrator’s agenda; a [[high modernism|“high modernist” ideology]] that holds that that all problems can be anticipated and solved in time with the necessary organisation, application and empirical rigour; an authoritarian state, with machinery to impose its ideological modernist vision; and a subjugated citizenry (or staff) without the means (or inclination) to resist the machinations of the administrator. | In any case, Scott does not say that top-down bureaucratic disaster is inevitable, but notes the same four conditions are present wherever we find it: a will to bend nature — and the polity — to the administrator’s agenda; a [[high modernism|“high modernist” ideology]] that holds that that all problems can be anticipated and solved in time with the necessary organisation, application and empirical rigour; an authoritarian state, with machinery to impose its ideological modernist vision; and a subjugated citizenry (or staff) without the means (or inclination) to resist the machinations of the administrator. | ||
These qualities, of course, pertain in any autocratic polity. | These qualities, of course, pertain in any autocratic polity. Stalinist Russia, Maoist China and latter-day North Korea fit the pattern exactly. But so do most modern multinational corporations. If you are interested in how ''not'' to run one, {{br|Seeing Like a State}} is worth a close read. | ||
===[[Legibility]]: the administrative ordering of nature and society === | ===[[Legibility]]: the administrative ordering of nature and society === | ||
Any government must be able to “read” and thus “get a handle on” — hence, “make [[legible]]” — and so ''administrate'' the vast sprawling ''detail'' and myriad of ''interconnections'' between its citizens, lands and resources. It does this by, in its “statey” way, [[Narrative|narratising]] a bafflingly [[complex system]] into a thin, idealistic model: it assigns its citizens permanent identities (in the middle ages, literally, by giving them surnames: now, identity cards and the chips that are shortly to be implanted in our foreheads); it decrees standard weights and measures for all times and places (we may have proceeded by local customs and conventions;<ref>It is said Chinese farmers gauged distance by “the time it takes to boil rice”, which provides a different, and more practical means of comprehending how far away you are</ref> commissions cadastral surveys of the land so it can collect taxes; it records land holdings, registers births, deaths and marriages, imposes conventions of language and legal discourse designs cities and transport networks: in effect, to create a standard grid that could be measured, monitored and understood from the bird’s eye view of city hall. A population that legible is ''manipulable''. | Any government must be able to “read” and thus “get a handle on” — hence, “make [[legible]]” — and so ''administrate'' the vast sprawling ''detail'' and myriad of ''interconnections'' between its citizens, lands and resources. It does this by, in its “statey” way, [[Narrative|narratising]] a bafflingly [[complex system]] into a thin, idealistic model: it assigns its citizens permanent identities (in the middle ages, literally, by giving them surnames: now, identity cards and the, er, chips that are shortly to be implanted in our foreheads); it decrees standard weights and measures for all times and places (we may have proceeded by local customs and conventions;<ref>It is said Chinese farmers gauged distance by “the time it takes to boil rice”, which provides a different, and more practical means of comprehending how far away you are</ref> commissions cadastral surveys of the land so it can collect taxes; it records land holdings, registers births, deaths and marriages, imposes conventions of language and legal discourse designs cities and transport networks: in effect, to create a standard grid that could be measured, monitored and understood from the bird’s eye view of city hall. A population that legible is ''manipulable''. | ||
This cost of this legibility is ''abridgement'': it represents only the slice of society that interests the administrator, which would be harmless enough those measures did not in turn permanently impact how citizens interact with each other and their environment. So, society came to be ''remade'' to suit the administrator. Thus, a reflexive feedback loop. | This cost of this legibility is ''abridgement'': it represents only the slice of society that interests the administrator, which would be harmless enough those measures did not in turn permanently impact how citizens interact with each other and their environment. So, society came to be ''remade'' to suit the administrator. Thus, a reflexive feedback loop. | ||