James C. Scott
American political scientist and anthropologist (1936 to 2024); author of Seeing Like a State (1998).
James C. Scott did not write this page. ppll compiled it from their own words, each linked to the source. Is this you? · Report a mistake
What they believe
-
Planners mistake visual order for efficiency and working order
In the course of writing Seeing Like a State, I was struck again and again by the mistaken assumption that visual order is synonymous with efficiency and working order.
persuasion.communitySaid c. 2021This on korrents
-
Legibility is a condition of manipulation
Legibility is a condition of manipulation.
archive.orgSaid c. 1998This on korrents
The bold line is korrents’ wording; the quote is theirs. These 2: what they wrote before what they said aloud, one per source, newest first.
Beliefs
Korrents What they believe 10 beliefs — each backed by an exact quote.
Each is a — compiled by korrents.com, not by them: the one-line wordings are korrents', the quotes are theirs.
Recent
Planners mistake visual order for efficiency and working order
In the course of writing Seeing Like a State, I was struck again and again by the mistaken assumption that visual order is synonymous with efficiency and working order.
James C. Scott on the Perils of State Power (The Good Fight with Yascha Mounk, Persuasion transcript) Said c. 2021
Extreme high modernism needs the absence of democratic resistance
The modernist vision requires for its high modernism, for its most extreme examples, the absence of the restraining factors of democratic social organization—resistance.
James C. Scott on the Perils of State Power (The Good Fight with Yascha Mounk, Persuasion transcript) Said c. 2021
The state will not be abolished: anarchism deserves two cheers, not three
I call myself a sort of “half-assed anarchist,” and that's why the book that I wrote was called Two Cheers for Anarchism, not three cheers. I don't think we're going to abolish the state.
James C. Scott on the Perils of State Power (The Good Fight with Yascha Mounk, Persuasion transcript) Said c. 2021
Show 7 more
The welfare state has done emancipatory things only with a pistol at its temple
the thing to remember about the welfare state and the emancipatory things it does is that it has only done that with the pistol at its temple.
James C. Scott on the Perils of State Power (The Good Fight with Yascha Mounk, Persuasion transcript) Said c. 2021
Life was better for hunter-gatherers than for subjects of the early state
Life was better for hunters and gatherers than it was for subjects in the early state.
James C. Scott on the Perils of State Power (The Good Fight with Yascha Mounk, Persuasion transcript) Said c. 2021
If we must have states, they should be social-democratic welfare states
If we've got to have states, let's have social-democratic states with functioning democracies and a welfare state.
James C. Scott on the Perils of State Power (The Good Fight with Yascha Mounk, Persuasion transcript) Said c. 2021
Legibility is a condition of manipulation
Legibility is a condition of manipulation.
Seeing Like a State (Yale University Press, 1998) Said c. 1998
Any large social process is far more complex than the schemes we devise to map it
Any large social process or event will inevitably be far more complex than the schemata we can devise, prospectively or retrospectively, to map it.
Seeing Like a State (Yale University Press, 1998) Said c. 1998
Formal order always depends on informal processes it does not recognize and cannot create
Formal order, to be more explicit, is always and to some considerable degree parasitic on informal processes, which the formal scheme does not recognize, without which it could not exist, and which it alone cannot create or maintain.
Seeing Like a State (Yale University Press, 1998) Said c. 1998
Planned social order is schematic and always ignores essential features of real social order
Designed or planned social order is necessarily schematic; it always ignores essential features of any real, functioning social order.
Seeing Like a State (Yale University Press, 1998) Said c. 1998
What is a korrent?
A korrent is a belief a person has stated in their own words: one sentence stating the claim, backed by a quote and a source, kept at korrents.com.
Under a name here, the quoted block is what they actually said. The korrent beneath it is the claim those words support, in korrents' wording — tap it to see the record, its source, and who else holds it.
Nobody here wrote their own korrents. They are compiled from public statements, and a person can change their mind, which is recorded too.
About the English under a post
Some people here publish in a language other than English. Where they do, this site shows a machine translation beneath the post, in this typeface — the site's own, not theirs.
The post itself is never changed, moved or hidden: what is set in the serif above is exactly what the person published, and it is what to quote them on. A translation can be wrong in ways that matter, especially about tone.
Only the post's own words are translated. A quoted post, a linked article and a belief on korrents.com are left in their original language.