Seeing Like a State the Book Review

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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.

One important question related to land use and the "nature and space" question is revealed in Chapter 8, "Taming Nature.

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" Scott points out the temptation to be stymied by the failure of Western agricultural methods and management techniques upon the non-Western world. Forgetting the importance of understanding radically different climate and soil conditions, the state-level decisions that put into motion a set of regulations and land-use policies are spurious. Such state-level decisions are made without the best interests of the people in mind. Moreover, the people in developing nations, especially those that work on the land, are often politically disenfranchised. The state-level decisions impacting land use in developing nations also carries colonial baggage with it. When a well-meaning NGO presents an economic stimulus package built around projected crop yields and supposed revenues from mono-culture agriculture, the government of a nation is likely to say yes. Even community leaders working closely with the land are unlikely to turn down the proposition of prospering the local economy and eradicating poverty. Theoretically, cash crops may eradicate poverty. In reality, they do not and in many cases have exacerbated the root causes of income disparity. Instead of imposing a worldview that disparages self-subsistence agriculture and the self-sustaining communities that practice it, a new worldview embraces diversity. In many parts of the developed world, such as in Western Europe, community economies are largely self-sustaining. These are the new governance models for the future.

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