Observing public organizations through state-centric perspectives

Seeing Like a State

The first section of James C. Scott's (1998) Seeing Like a State spreads out the foundation of the book and clarifies its background data. Modern nation-states have accomplished hegemonic goals via a systematic process of legibility and simplification. In the introduction to Seeing Like a State, Scott (1998) uses the analogy of beekeeping to show how states have used geographic and social engineering projects to achieve governance goals. The details of this process are outlined in the first four chapters of the book. Chapter 8 delves deeper into the process of legibility and simplification by focusing on the specific role of agriculture in state development. Chapter 9, "Thin Simplifications and Practical Knowledge: Metis," hypothesizes about the sociological causes for the failure of social and geographic engineering projects. Taken together these sections of Scott's (1998) Seeing Like a State core issues of public administration. Of particular note include the author's analysis of nature and space in Chapter 1 and the explication of the high modernist city in Chapter 4.

Chapter 1 "Nature and Space" explores the fundamental issues of land use, even land use issues that predated the industrial age. Forests were being divided up long before the invention of the steam engine, as the different properties of different trees had been recognized for their use in industry. The utilitarian view of the forests that resulted has formed the underpinning of modern discourse on nature. In fact, Scott (1998) points out that the term nature is value-laden. Nature is that which is distinguishable from "natural resources." That which constitutes natural resources falls under the general rubric of "nature" but only "natural resources" are commodified.

The perceptive of nature that labels forests as plots of land on which money does grow on trees is a failing one. Scott points out later in Seeing Like a State that the schema of nature as a revenue-building plot has failed to improve the human condition at best. At worst, viewing nature as a means to acquire goods and services worsens the humanitarian and economic toll of natural disasters. Take the current situation in Haiti, in which earthquakes and hurricanes are far more devastating than they would be on the other side of the same island. Deforestation causes long-term disastrous consequences not just for the land itself but for the people living on the land. Extreme examples like that of Haiti can be viewed all over the world. When states retain the political or economic power to control how nature is used, the result is a utilitarian ethic that serves only the elite. Even land-owners within the upper strata of a society cannot contend with the mandates that emit from the state level. The interests of land owners often clashes with the state in developed nations, where government collusion with large business conglomerates make decisions that are not in the best interests of those who pay property taxes. Those who pay property taxes also hail from too diverse a political landscape to reach any consensus that might benefit the whole community.

Scott's argument can also be extended to the realm of genetic engineering of crops and the patenting of seeds. What science has offered is a potential disaster wrapped up as a gift. The state-level planning required to either embrace (as in the case of the United States and some developing nations) or reject (as in the case of most of Europe) genetically modified foods is the problem.

Part of the problem with poor state-level decision making is therefore political. In Chapter 4, Scott touches upon the hubris of urban planners and indeed all public administrators who undertake massive engineering projects. When combined with Scott's analysis of land use, the concept of high modernism and the high modernist city can provide blueprints for more effective urban planning. Likewise, in Chapter 2, "Cities, People, and Language," Scott touches upon the difference between hyper-planned cities and cities that grow organically.