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Chargement... Seeing Like a State: How Certain Schemes to Improve the Human Condition Have Failedpar James C. Scott
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Inscrivez-vous à LibraryThing pour découvrir si vous aimerez ce livre Actuellement, il n'y a pas de discussions au sujet de ce livre. This is a fascinating book on the perils of "high modernist" aspirations. The book focuses on the processes that lead to failures in megaprojects. Many of us have an instinctive knee-jerk reaction to large-scale projects. Yet it's hard to put into words why. At the outset, it sometimes just seems like blind resistance to change. Scott not only provides an explanation for understanding these reactions, but also a framework for thinking about when those reactions are actually justified and when they might be overreactions. High modernists come in all shapes and sizes. They range from autocrats to revolutionaries, bureaucrats to visionaries, socialists to capitalists. What unites them are their top-down visions that seek to reorganize life, production, or work. High modernism is a form of tyranny of "experts" over others, symptomized by: -Top-down visions with little interest, or appreciation of the local context or stakeholders. -Over-rationalization and standardization leading to ignoring, rejecting, and wiping out local knowledge. -The consequences of failed high modernist projects range from catastrophic to wasteful. Going through diverse cases, the book also paints an interesting historical backdrop to trending topics in society, politics, and business. I.e. Systems thinking, user-centered design, and business anthropology all aim to better understand and integrate local knowledge into solutions big and small. Therefore it's also a book on the mistakes that have brought us to this point. Heard about this book in an article by Cass Sunstein ( https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2016-10-11/five-books-to-change-liberals... ). Liked the book a lot, although it could have been trimmed a bit - some of the points were made many times, although they were already convincing and well written the first time. A counter-blast against high modernism in all its guises. Fascinating start and first 7 chapters - surnames, planning cities to stop social conflict, the continuity between dumb colonial development plans and Nyerere’s utopian dreams; all with excellent notes and wide, interesting references…But then the author becomes plodding and repetitive and guilty of the same boxed thinking he lays on all the thin planners he pillories. Technology and AI have made some of his criticisms of scientific agriculture and scientific forestry very particular. He comes to …rules of thumb that, if observed, could make development planning less prone to disaster: take small steps, favour reversibility, plan on surprises, plan on human inventiveness (p. 345). One might be reminded of Chen Yun’s remark about crossing the river by feeling the stones. But Scott is very down on pilot programmes - all of which fail when the pilot support is withdrawn. “Without denying the incontestable benefits either of the division of labor or of hierarchical coordination for some tasks, I want to make a case for institutions that are instead multifunctional, plastic, diverse, and adaptable—“ aucune critique | ajouter une critique
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Pourquoi, malgré des intentions parfois sincères et orientées vers le bien-être de leurs populations, les États modernes les ont-ils si souvent malmenées, voire meurtries ? Pourquoi, malgré les moyens colossaux mis en œuvre, les grands projets de développement ont-ils si tragiquement échoué et ravagé l'environnement ? Dans cette recherche foisonnante, James Scott démonte les logiques bureaucratiques et scientifiques au fondement de ces projets " haut-modernistes ", poussant à toujours plus de lisibilité et de contrôle sur la nature et les sociétés humaines. À partir d'une large palette d'études de cas allant de la foresterie scientifique à la création des premiers recensements et des noms propres, de la doctrine révolutionnaire de Lénine à celle de Le Corbusier en matière d'urbanisme, et de la collectivisation de l'agriculture soviétique aux politiques de villagisation en Tanzanie et ailleurs, Scott dénonce ces entreprises de planification autoritaire qui finissent par appauvrir et étouffer le monde physique et social. En appuyant leur pouvoir sur des formes de classification, de standardisation et d'abstraction, ces projets tendent tous à négliger les mécanismes et les processus informels d'ajustement pourtant essentiels à la préservation d'ordres sociaux viables. Ils échouent aussi car ils marginalisent les savoirs locaux de celles et ceux qu'ils ciblent. À l'encontre de ces approches autoritaires centralisées et surplombantes, Scott défend le rôle de formes de savoirs plus modestes, étroitement liées à l'expérience pratique et davantage capables d'adaptation au gré des circonstances. Aucune description trouvée dans une bibliothèque |
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Google Books — Chargement... GenresClassification décimale de Melvil (CDD)338.9Social sciences Economics Production Economic Development And GrowthClassification de la Bibliothèque du CongrèsÉvaluationMoyenne:
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Another interesting point: the “high modernism” he criticizes focuses on visual order—neatly laid out rows of plants, streets, etc. But, as he points out, visual disorder can also mean high-functioning complexity—the intestines of a rabbit, in his striking example, are not visually orderly but do a great job at their actual job.
I also found it notable that, at the end, Scott acknowledges that non-state actors can do the same thing. Capitalists are interested in control and appropriability; they will adopt less efficient rules if they can appropriate more of the outputs. Scott described what’s now known as “chickenization” as a capitalist, high-modernist project, offloading risk onto individual farmers who would be easy to surveil precisely because their practices were so rigidly dictated by the chicken processor. ( )