rossbm's review
4.0
(read as ebook)
This book can be very interesting as it describes different attempts by the state to impose order and thus more easily control a chaotic world. Scientific forestry and Soviet collectivization are a couple of the fascinating examples. The author goes into excessive detail in places, perhaps reflecting his academic background, making this book harder to read. I'll admit to skipping some parts but I would still recommend reading Seeing like a State
This book can be very interesting as it describes different attempts by the state to impose order and thus more easily control a chaotic world. Scientific forestry and Soviet collectivization are a couple of the fascinating examples. The author goes into excessive detail in places, perhaps reflecting his academic background, making this book harder to read. I'll admit to skipping some parts but I would still recommend reading Seeing like a State
paulataua's review
4.0
‘Seeing like a State’ piles on example after example of where state intervention has proved disastrous from places as far apart as the Soviet Union and Tanzania, and yet while mirroring Hayek’s horror at Government large scale economic and social intervention, which is tightly conjoined with a total belief in market forces, Scott takes a more anarchistic stance looking more to local knowledge, involvement, and decision making. The book as a whole works well at battering supporters of large scale state intervention, but really goes no further than that. One might ask the question of whether we might be able to cite other interventions that have proved successful, or, at least, consider what might have been the consequences of non-intervention in certain cases. There are important questions to pose about State intervention, how it can restrict individual freedom of choice, but equally how it can lead to the eradication of killer diseases and even the promotion of transportation and communication systems that lead to better living standards. Having said all that, it’s a fascinating and important addition to the whole question of how we should organize our world.
nickjagged's review against another edition
Dropped at 74%
Suffers from an overly academic writing style, making fairly clear case studies a bit of a slog. The book is laid out such that the thesis (laid out clearly in the first chapter) isn’t expanded upon with each subsequent chapter but rather is just repeated and restated.
Suffers from an overly academic writing style, making fairly clear case studies a bit of a slog. The book is laid out such that the thesis (laid out clearly in the first chapter) isn’t expanded upon with each subsequent chapter but rather is just repeated and restated.
nmuffet's review against another edition
4.5
Reflective and profound but a little slow and belaboring.