James Scott’s “Seeing Like a State” is perhaps the best introduction to a sub-genre of books on how the best laid plans can founder. Jane Jacobs had earlier applied that sort of analysis to city planning, William Easterly does to international development and Chris Coyne does to reconstruction & occupation following war. Robin Hanson ought to apply his “near/far” theory to those ideas some day. The introductory example Scott uses is Prussian forestry, so it only makes sense that there should be an example specifically dealing with forest management*. Someone commenting on one of Arnold Kling’s half-formed arguments/metaphors**/dichotomies mentioned Alston Chases Playing God in Yellowstone, which gets a rather favorable review (despite its bashing of the environmental movement) from IndyBay here. The reviewer states that part of his argument is a critique of a “hands off” approach involving “natural regulation” but his own recommendations aren’t that different in general approach (maybe “be more pragmatic and use good science”?), so it might be hard to slot him in as a Hayekian/Polanyian***.
*Randal “The Antiplanner” O’Toole is actually has his degree in forest management. But he seems to devote most of his time these days discussing roads & rails. And he’s not a fan of Jane Jacobs. I told him some day I’d send a copy of Donald Shoup’s “The High Cost of Free Parking” to review.
**Karl Smith complicates the ranger/curator dichotomy with is metaphor of the arborist, though he could have simply pointed out that the actual curators seem to do a decent enough job in managing a pleasing park. He earlier tried to add nuance to Kling’s hydraulic macro economist type with a hydrodynamic metaphor.
***I actually read “The Great Transformation” months ago, procrastinated and ran out of library renewals while writing a review around the time I moved to Chicago. I do plan on eventually finishing & posting it.
November 29, 2010 at 12:03 pm
Others have an interestingly different take on James Scott’s book.
November 29, 2010 at 10:42 pm
You live in Chicago? Awesome!
Dierdre McCloskey has an interesting take on Polanyi:
Click to access Article_303.pdf
She takes him to task for his idea that everything is subject to market exchange in the modern world, pointing out that far more was for sale – including people – in the medieval world he (apparently?) prefers.
November 29, 2010 at 11:38 pm
Kevembuangga, the link was interesting but not different.
Dain, I must have overlooked her pointing out that people were for sale on the medieval world. The pedant in me would insist that serfdom involved being owned by the land rather than transferable like chattel slaves. I don’t think Polanyi preferred the medieval world either, he was a modern socialist attacking what he saw as mistaken laissez-fairre ideology. James Scott has some misgivings about the traditional systems he writes about as well (though I believe he actually does identify as an anarchist).
Also, what’s so awesome about Chicago?
November 29, 2010 at 11:52 pm
Chicago is a major city, in the non-California sense of a metropolis with high rises that extend for block upon block.
I’m kind of a liberal in the lifestyle sense of the word. Chicago gets major points.
November 29, 2010 at 11:55 pm
Explain more about California.
November 30, 2010 at 10:08 pm
Car culture. The first big city I actually considered to be what I imagined as a legitimate “big city” was Chicago. Metropolis. San Francisco has that kind of density but it’s very, very small in comparison.
I’m attracted to that kind of landscape, or should I say buildingscape.
December 1, 2010 at 12:16 am
So in California some cities are dense but not wide, while other cities are wide but not dense?
I miss driving.
December 28, 2010 at 11:34 pm
[…] I certainly enjoyed “Seeing Like a State”, perhaps having a predisposition towards its genre. Because of my predisposition toward that narrative, I look out for contrary ones. I’m […]
December 3, 2022 at 6:58 pm
[…] Scott (not cited by LeBlanc, nor is Ostrom, although the late Henry Harpending is) whose “Seeing Like a State” documented multiple instances of “authoritarian high-modernism” embodied in said […]