Throughout the book I make the case for the indispensable role of practical knowledge, informal processes, and improvisation in the face of unpredictability. From the Introduction to Seeing Like a State, May 2020
From the summary of the same book, on the Lies are Unbekoming website:
James C. Scott’s “Seeing Like a State” offers a penetrating analysis of how modern states attempt to make complex societies legible and controllable, often with catastrophic consequences for the people they claim to help. Scott examines the fundamental tension between the state’s need for simplified, standardized information—cadastral maps, census data, permanent surnames, geometric city plans—and the intricate, locally adapted practices that actually sustain human communities. These “state simplifications” are not inherently evil; they enable taxation, public services, and citizenship itself. The danger emerges when states...attempt to impose their simplified maps onto reality, destroying the complex social and ecological relationships that make life possible. Unbekoming, 26 March 2026
All this points to the need for diverse, adaptive approaches, and a policymaking system that encourages them. The legibility that Professor Scott discussed is a self-entrenching way of looking at the world, and it applies at all levels of government. There are many aspects to it, but one is that it takes existing institutions as a given: what they cannot see or do not wish to see, is ignored or regarded as a threat. Government bodies have their own agendas, primarily self perpetuation, and the practical knowledge, informal process and improvisation that Professor Scott mentions do not fit in with them.
A Social Policy Bond regime would be different. Taking a long-term view, it would target the outcomes that we wish to see and encourage diverse, adaptive approaches to achieving them. Any institutions that would arise from a bond regime would have as their one over-arching goal that of achieving social and environmental goals as quickly and efficiently as possible. In such a way, we'd combine the better aspects of 'state simplifications' with the practical, diverse and adaptive knowledge of the people actually working to achieve society's goals. The best of both worlds.
