000			02039nam a2200217Ia 4500
999			_c34799 _d34799
003			OSt
005			20210416153010.0
008			160316s1998 xxu||||| |||| 00| 0 eng d
020			_a9780300070163
040			_cn
082			_a338.900000 _bSCO
100			_aScott James C
245			_aSeeing like a state : How certain schemes to improve the human condition have failed
260			_aLondon _bYale University Press _c1998
300			_a445p _cix
365			_bRs. 1,589
505			_aCompulsory "ujamaa" villages in Tanzania, collectivization in Russia, Le Corbusier's urban planning theory realized in Brasilia, the Great Leap Forward in China, agricultural "modernization" in the Tropics - the 20th century has been racked by grand utopian schemes that have inadvertently brought death and disruption to millions. Why do well-intentioned plans for improving the human condition go tragically awry? In this wide-ranging 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 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 human life; a willingness to use authoritarian state power to effect large-scale interventions; and a prostate civil society that cannot effectively resist such plans.
650			_a1. Central Planning - Social Aspects2. Social Engineering 3. Authoritarianism
700			_a _a
942			_2ddc _cBK