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Two Cheers for Anarchism: Six Easy Pieces on Autonomy, Dignity, and Meaningful Work and Play
James Scott taught us what's wrong with seeing like a state. Now, in his most accessible and personal book to date, the acclaimed social scientist makes the case for seeing like an anarchist. Inspired by the core anarchist faith in the possibilities of voluntary cooperation without hierarchy, Two Cheers for Anarchism is an engaging, high-spirited, and often very funny defense of an anarchist way of seeing--one that provides a unique and powerful perspective on everything from everyday social and political interactions to mass protests and revolutions. Through a wide-ranging series of memorable anecdotes and examples, the book describes an anarchist sensibility that celebrates the local knowledge, common sense, and creativity of ordinary people. The result is a kind of handbook on constructive anarchism that challenges us to radically reconsider the value of hierarchy in public and private life, from schools and workplaces to retirement homes and government itself.
Beginning with what Scott calls "the law of anarchist calisthenics," an argument for law-breaking inspired by an East German pedestrian crossing, each chapter opens with a story that captures an essential anarchist truth. In the course of telling these stories, Scott touches on a wide variety of subjects: public disorder and riots, desertion, poaching, vernacular knowledge, assembly-line production, globalization, the petty bourgeoisie, school testing, playgrounds, and the practice of historical explanation.
Far from a dogmatic manifesto, Two Cheers for Anarchism celebrates the anarchist confidence in the inventiveness and judgment of people who are free to exercise their creative and moral capacities.
199 pages, Kindle Edition
First published January 1, 2012
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3721 people want to read
About the author
James C. Scott
26 books900 followersJames C. Scott was an American political scientist and anthropologist specializing in comparative politics. He was a comparative scholar of agrarian and non-state societies, subaltern politics, and anarchism.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 197 reviews
September 24, 2013
I exist in political and theological schizophrenia. Half of me is a socialist and half of me, I am coming to realize, is an anarchist. James Scott provides a whimsical, intelligent, and thoughtful experiment in how to productively think like an anarchist without necessarily committing oneself wholeheartedly to the anarchist project. Scott uses what he calls an ‘anarchist squint’ to examine leadership, ways of knowing, human productivity, politics and power. His conclusion? Human beings are most productive and most flourishing precisely when they are least ‘efficient’ and least controlled by any other human being. Lest you think Scott is advocating libertarianism, he carefully points out that capitalism and corporations are some of the most dangerous and least anarchist organizations out there – we need to be free from supervisors and CEOs as well. He summarizes provocatively, “There is no authentic freedom when huge differences make voluntary agreements or exchanges nothing more than legalized plunder.” Essentially, this entire short volume is a series of thought experiments in the benefits of total freedom.
Scott experiments (successfully) with a series of vignettes organized around a thread of thought, rather than an exhaustively researched tome. (He claims his former books were written on multiple rolls of butcher paper with tiny footnotes everywhere, and he just got tired.) He uses examples like breaking a law every day (jaywalk!) to practice for more important civil disobedience; children in Denmark who build their own playgrounds; the success of haphazardly planted crops vs. the death of gardens in straight rows; and the power of the worker to break the corporation by actually following the rules. Scott quotes Bakunin in his preface, “Freedom without socialism is privilege and injustice; socialism without freedom is slavery and brutality.” The combination of these two with the anarchist squint is helping to resolve my multiple personality discomfort. Recommended for any intelligent person in any field who wants to experiment with true creativity, productivity, and human flourishing. Next step for me – an anarchist squint at theology.
Scott experiments (successfully) with a series of vignettes organized around a thread of thought, rather than an exhaustively researched tome. (He claims his former books were written on multiple rolls of butcher paper with tiny footnotes everywhere, and he just got tired.) He uses examples like breaking a law every day (jaywalk!) to practice for more important civil disobedience; children in Denmark who build their own playgrounds; the success of haphazardly planted crops vs. the death of gardens in straight rows; and the power of the worker to break the corporation by actually following the rules. Scott quotes Bakunin in his preface, “Freedom without socialism is privilege and injustice; socialism without freedom is slavery and brutality.” The combination of these two with the anarchist squint is helping to resolve my multiple personality discomfort. Recommended for any intelligent person in any field who wants to experiment with true creativity, productivity, and human flourishing. Next step for me – an anarchist squint at theology.
May 1, 2016
Three Cheers for Two Cheers For Anarchism
When Richard Ohmann once said “two cheers for literacy” it was obvious he was making a point about the limitations of claiming that literacy was indeed empowering for everyone. Ohmann liked literacy, he was an English professor who also worked to help struggling students, but he wasn’t about to defend writing ability as a cure-all for society’s ills. As with the more recent book by John Marsh, Class Dismissed: Why We Can’t Teach Or Learn Our Way Out of Inequality, Ohmann, a Marxist, wanted to suggest that other factors such as race and class also in part shape—and maybe in part determine--one’s future.
Because he gives anarchism two cheers instead of three, you can see before you even begin reading that Scott is aware this his is not a wholehearted defense of anarchism. Nor is it an articulation of its ideology. Rather, it is an exploration of what the spirit and core faith of anarchism is about. But instead of laying out these ideas in the way he usually writes, in a tight and exhaustively researched academic argument, in this book he shares anecdotes, many of them personal, about how vernacular and local knowledge as embraced by artisans and the petite bourgeoisie is preferable to the ways of most corporate bureaucracies. His book, Seeing Like a State, of which I have thus far only read random chapters, but of which I am familiar through its being cited in lots of work I admire, makes that same basic point.
In Two Cheers Scott is less describing the process of “seeing like a state,” pre-planned from above, than seeing like an anarchist, which would largely be ad hoc, invented, contextual, always local. He defines what he is mostly interested in about anarchism; “namely mutuality, or cooperation without hierarchy or state rule.”
Scott never really says or even hints at why it is he only gives anarchism two cheers instead of three. He’s finally not an all-out anarchist, but tries to think through various domains--educational, agricultural, traffic safety--according to principles that might be seen as in-the-spirit-of anarchism. He doesn’t really favor anarchy, per se. He wants people to be able to invent their own rules for living rather than to have them imposed from above. His is a celebration of common sense and creativity, which emerges as needed and is squelched by systems thinking, by hierarchal assumptions about the need for order, and neo-liberal states to decide for us just what the best order exists for each and every one of us. He’s not a libertarian, though, unless he might be described as Chomsky sometimes has described himself, as a libertarian socialist.
Scott’s an old-fashioned humanist, faced as he and we are with attempts at globalizing control and sameness. He shows us how Fordism and McDonaldism are profoundly and essentially movements toward standardization and “efficiency” as opposed to a diversity of approaches and innovation and local knowledge. He shows us the travesty of standardized testing and the increasing standardization generally in American schools and is enraged about it. He’s a freedom guy. Let a thousand (different) flowers bloom, Scott suggests. Diversity in human cultures is as valuable as it is in farming. Diversity of minds is as he sees it (and as I see it), being squelched by attempts at standardization:
“Those who do poorly on test of analytical intelligence may be incredibly talented at one or more of the many forms of intelligence that are neither taught nor valued by the school system. What sort of a system is it that wastes those talents, that sends four-fifths of its students away with a permanent stigma in the eyes of society’s gatekeepers, and perhaps in their own eyes as well? Are the dubious benefits of the privileges and opportunities accorded a “presumed analytical intelligence elite” by this pedagogical tunnel vision worth so much damage and waste?” (73)
What if schools valued instead compassion, wisdom, courage, things not easily quantified via standardized tests? Scott’s stories are a demonstration of the poverty of assessing people by only what can be counted. As Scott quotes Einstein, “Not everything that counts can be counted, and not everything that can be counted counts.”
If there is a kind of order to the “six easy pieces” in the book, the series of anecdotes, it is a move from what he calls “anarchist calisthenics” such as footdragging, squatting and jaywalking, small acts of (hardly) insurrection, to more organized rebellion, such as the French resistance to Naziism. He suggests adopting an anarchist “squint” that leads you to skepticism about the boss’s rules for the office or factory, that then leads to people creating their own best ways to do things, and if necessary, moving to organized rebellion. You need to flex your muscles before using your fists for the big push against Big Brother. Scott isn’t particularly a revolutionary, but he shows you through his anecdotes a way to make it seem reasonable to become one, if/when necessary.
I think the guy writes like a dream in this book, but then I like his anecdotal and conversational approach. He’s not trying to make an academic argument for anarchism. He’s trying to render the spirit of anarchism visible through great stories of freedom in action.
Some of my favorite stories:
*How they removed all the traffic signals in A Dutch city and accidents were drastically reduced: “Unsafe is safe,” (83)
*British agricultural agents who tried to “correct” messy and visually chaotic African farming methods through elaborate acontextual theories
*Danish kids given the materials to build their own playgrounds
The book also made me think of:
*anarchism’s sisterly relationship to pragmatism (William James said he was an anarchist at one point, though he wrote the book Pragmatism)
*Gramsci’s idea of the organic intellectual emerging from the working class and not from academia
*Giroux’s teacher as intellectual (being the decision-maker about what your students need on the basis of your observations and experience with them)
*The More Than a Score/Opt-Out movement and its opposition to standardization
*Bakhtin’s idea of carnival as resistance
*Feyerabend’s Against Method (most discoveries, he says, were made by breaking free from the "scientific method"
*Horton and Freire’s We Make the Road by Walking (the title is from Chuang Tzu)
*Occupy _______
When Richard Ohmann once said “two cheers for literacy” it was obvious he was making a point about the limitations of claiming that literacy was indeed empowering for everyone. Ohmann liked literacy, he was an English professor who also worked to help struggling students, but he wasn’t about to defend writing ability as a cure-all for society’s ills. As with the more recent book by John Marsh, Class Dismissed: Why We Can’t Teach Or Learn Our Way Out of Inequality, Ohmann, a Marxist, wanted to suggest that other factors such as race and class also in part shape—and maybe in part determine--one’s future.
Because he gives anarchism two cheers instead of three, you can see before you even begin reading that Scott is aware this his is not a wholehearted defense of anarchism. Nor is it an articulation of its ideology. Rather, it is an exploration of what the spirit and core faith of anarchism is about. But instead of laying out these ideas in the way he usually writes, in a tight and exhaustively researched academic argument, in this book he shares anecdotes, many of them personal, about how vernacular and local knowledge as embraced by artisans and the petite bourgeoisie is preferable to the ways of most corporate bureaucracies. His book, Seeing Like a State, of which I have thus far only read random chapters, but of which I am familiar through its being cited in lots of work I admire, makes that same basic point.
In Two Cheers Scott is less describing the process of “seeing like a state,” pre-planned from above, than seeing like an anarchist, which would largely be ad hoc, invented, contextual, always local. He defines what he is mostly interested in about anarchism; “namely mutuality, or cooperation without hierarchy or state rule.”
Scott never really says or even hints at why it is he only gives anarchism two cheers instead of three. He’s finally not an all-out anarchist, but tries to think through various domains--educational, agricultural, traffic safety--according to principles that might be seen as in-the-spirit-of anarchism. He doesn’t really favor anarchy, per se. He wants people to be able to invent their own rules for living rather than to have them imposed from above. His is a celebration of common sense and creativity, which emerges as needed and is squelched by systems thinking, by hierarchal assumptions about the need for order, and neo-liberal states to decide for us just what the best order exists for each and every one of us. He’s not a libertarian, though, unless he might be described as Chomsky sometimes has described himself, as a libertarian socialist.
Scott’s an old-fashioned humanist, faced as he and we are with attempts at globalizing control and sameness. He shows us how Fordism and McDonaldism are profoundly and essentially movements toward standardization and “efficiency” as opposed to a diversity of approaches and innovation and local knowledge. He shows us the travesty of standardized testing and the increasing standardization generally in American schools and is enraged about it. He’s a freedom guy. Let a thousand (different) flowers bloom, Scott suggests. Diversity in human cultures is as valuable as it is in farming. Diversity of minds is as he sees it (and as I see it), being squelched by attempts at standardization:
“Those who do poorly on test of analytical intelligence may be incredibly talented at one or more of the many forms of intelligence that are neither taught nor valued by the school system. What sort of a system is it that wastes those talents, that sends four-fifths of its students away with a permanent stigma in the eyes of society’s gatekeepers, and perhaps in their own eyes as well? Are the dubious benefits of the privileges and opportunities accorded a “presumed analytical intelligence elite” by this pedagogical tunnel vision worth so much damage and waste?” (73)
What if schools valued instead compassion, wisdom, courage, things not easily quantified via standardized tests? Scott’s stories are a demonstration of the poverty of assessing people by only what can be counted. As Scott quotes Einstein, “Not everything that counts can be counted, and not everything that can be counted counts.”
If there is a kind of order to the “six easy pieces” in the book, the series of anecdotes, it is a move from what he calls “anarchist calisthenics” such as footdragging, squatting and jaywalking, small acts of (hardly) insurrection, to more organized rebellion, such as the French resistance to Naziism. He suggests adopting an anarchist “squint” that leads you to skepticism about the boss’s rules for the office or factory, that then leads to people creating their own best ways to do things, and if necessary, moving to organized rebellion. You need to flex your muscles before using your fists for the big push against Big Brother. Scott isn’t particularly a revolutionary, but he shows you through his anecdotes a way to make it seem reasonable to become one, if/when necessary.
I think the guy writes like a dream in this book, but then I like his anecdotal and conversational approach. He’s not trying to make an academic argument for anarchism. He’s trying to render the spirit of anarchism visible through great stories of freedom in action.
Some of my favorite stories:
*How they removed all the traffic signals in A Dutch city and accidents were drastically reduced: “Unsafe is safe,” (83)
*British agricultural agents who tried to “correct” messy and visually chaotic African farming methods through elaborate acontextual theories
*Danish kids given the materials to build their own playgrounds
The book also made me think of:
*anarchism’s sisterly relationship to pragmatism (William James said he was an anarchist at one point, though he wrote the book Pragmatism)
*Gramsci’s idea of the organic intellectual emerging from the working class and not from academia
*Giroux’s teacher as intellectual (being the decision-maker about what your students need on the basis of your observations and experience with them)
*The More Than a Score/Opt-Out movement and its opposition to standardization
*Bakhtin’s idea of carnival as resistance
*Feyerabend’s Against Method (most discoveries, he says, were made by breaking free from the "scientific method"
*Horton and Freire’s We Make the Road by Walking (the title is from Chuang Tzu)
*Occupy _______
November 10, 2018
This is a book that is a re-writing of Seeing like a state and his other books. It's not in itself a new idea.
He uses the same examples of forests and evasion by locals of top down rules and all the flaws of the state. That’s all well and good and it’ll make anyone into an anarchist to focus too closely on the stupidity of the state, but then call it three cheers for why states suck (which are two books he’s already written), but what about anarchy? Tell us more about that and how it would work? I’m ready to be convinced. I think probably Graeber’s utopia of rules is a better resource than this one on all counts
He uses the same examples of forests and evasion by locals of top down rules and all the flaws of the state. That’s all well and good and it’ll make anyone into an anarchist to focus too closely on the stupidity of the state, but then call it three cheers for why states suck (which are two books he’s already written), but what about anarchy? Tell us more about that and how it would work? I’m ready to be convinced. I think probably Graeber’s utopia of rules is a better resource than this one on all counts
October 20, 2017
Five stars for Two Cheers. Gently persuasive, illuminating, educational, a pleasure.
January 19, 2016
My favorite part is when he wanted to yell at German pedestrians for following traffic rules.
June 8, 2025
Many years ago, I was intending to attend a organizing community member's free class on anarchism. James C Scott's Seeing like a State was one of the first reading assignments. Unfortunately, as was the case of many commitments back when I balanced a life with too many responsibilities, I missed the class and the book remained on my to-read list. When I encountered James C Scott's, Two Cheers for Anarchism, it seemed like a good time to remedy the fact that I'd never read any of his work. I cannot comment on whether or not this book is a repetition of his previous works, as another reviewer mentioned. What I am able to say is that this brief volume has a decent group of ideas that can help introduce the reader to anarchist thought in a simple enough way that it can accommodate a larger audience.
This book does have an academic bent to it, but is not excessively jargony. I wouldn't necessarily call these six pieces "easy" depending on one's reference point, but they are readable. I like how Scott used analogies and creative explanations to make his points. There are some historical references that I got a little overwhelmed by at times essentially because I have a terrible memory and I was rusty on some of the details. Someone who is completely unfamiliar with some of the histories discussed in this book might need to look something up on occasion. But overall I think the average reader would be able to parse the point of these discussions with or without perfect historical knowledge.
Scott offers a frame of reference that shows how anarchist ideas and practices have existed in many places and populations before and after the coining of the term. The central practices and belief systems of anarchism can be found anywhere collective liberation and mutual aid are taking place. Collective action was/is often unintended and selfish- meaning it is not always designed from the start as a wider liberatory framework, but people working together end up creating that in the process.
One element of the text is the idea of seeing things through anarchist glasses. Scott discusses that doing so still results in a wide variation of assessments. However, he is not claiming that anarchist glasses are rose colored. There is complexity to resistance that adds many wild cards to the possible outcomes. There is a discussion about how to use the state in an emancipatory role even while being anti-state. I would see this more as an accident or exception to the rule, such as his example of officers protecting Black schoolchildren during the dismantling of segregation. Yet, I get the point. This leads to a discussion in the other direction. Scott discusses the reality that disruption of the state and authoritarianism is necessary, though it can sometimes result in an authoritarian response. The latter does not take away the importance and inevitability of the former as a step toward liberation.
I really liked Scott's idea of "anarchist calisthenics," which is a fun term for basically the practice of consistently questioning authority and rule breaking- especially rules that do harm or that are simply stupid. It takes practice to go against the normative human tendency towards conformity or fear of punishment to realize how easy and effective going against the grain can often be. True order in the anarchist sense relies on breaking rules and collectively organizing for effectiveness. He uses the example of speed limits (which due to widespread disobedience have changed in strictness over time) and factory workers resisting en masse (leading to better conditions being the only possible outcome if the factory were to continue.)
Scott also discussed how (authoritarian) democracies are sometimes created with the intention to institutionalize resistance, but instead are parasitic, using the desire for liberation against the people. He makes an ecosystem analogy wherein a forest is disturbed to focus on propagating a single tree species to increase timber productivity. It works at first, but under the surface, the ecosystem is collapsing. Water and usable soil are running out, biodiversity is disintegrating, and once it becomes clear to everyone, if it does at all, the damage has been done. The imbalance is systemic.
These are all things I was generally aware of, but I liked some of the framings that conveyed messages in ways I think can reach larger audiences. One newish thing to me from this book was not a new idea in general in anarchism. Yet, it was new in it's framing for me. Scott discusses how important participation in collective democracy is a crucial learning process for all community members. In state based ideology, we're supposed to lift up the most experienced/qualified to make various decisions. (I must mention though that this is often untrue in practice and is exceptionally laughable currently to anyone paying attention to USA politics, but I digress.) However, designing things hierarchically like this robs the public of collective growth that comes from making decisions together and teaching each other in the process. It creates a dynamic where people, especially those with no experience, see only one route forward- one in which they have no power or responsibility.
This book does have an academic bent to it, but is not excessively jargony. I wouldn't necessarily call these six pieces "easy" depending on one's reference point, but they are readable. I like how Scott used analogies and creative explanations to make his points. There are some historical references that I got a little overwhelmed by at times essentially because I have a terrible memory and I was rusty on some of the details. Someone who is completely unfamiliar with some of the histories discussed in this book might need to look something up on occasion. But overall I think the average reader would be able to parse the point of these discussions with or without perfect historical knowledge.
Scott offers a frame of reference that shows how anarchist ideas and practices have existed in many places and populations before and after the coining of the term. The central practices and belief systems of anarchism can be found anywhere collective liberation and mutual aid are taking place. Collective action was/is often unintended and selfish- meaning it is not always designed from the start as a wider liberatory framework, but people working together end up creating that in the process.
One element of the text is the idea of seeing things through anarchist glasses. Scott discusses that doing so still results in a wide variation of assessments. However, he is not claiming that anarchist glasses are rose colored. There is complexity to resistance that adds many wild cards to the possible outcomes. There is a discussion about how to use the state in an emancipatory role even while being anti-state. I would see this more as an accident or exception to the rule, such as his example of officers protecting Black schoolchildren during the dismantling of segregation. Yet, I get the point. This leads to a discussion in the other direction. Scott discusses the reality that disruption of the state and authoritarianism is necessary, though it can sometimes result in an authoritarian response. The latter does not take away the importance and inevitability of the former as a step toward liberation.
I really liked Scott's idea of "anarchist calisthenics," which is a fun term for basically the practice of consistently questioning authority and rule breaking- especially rules that do harm or that are simply stupid. It takes practice to go against the normative human tendency towards conformity or fear of punishment to realize how easy and effective going against the grain can often be. True order in the anarchist sense relies on breaking rules and collectively organizing for effectiveness. He uses the example of speed limits (which due to widespread disobedience have changed in strictness over time) and factory workers resisting en masse (leading to better conditions being the only possible outcome if the factory were to continue.)
Scott also discussed how (authoritarian) democracies are sometimes created with the intention to institutionalize resistance, but instead are parasitic, using the desire for liberation against the people. He makes an ecosystem analogy wherein a forest is disturbed to focus on propagating a single tree species to increase timber productivity. It works at first, but under the surface, the ecosystem is collapsing. Water and usable soil are running out, biodiversity is disintegrating, and once it becomes clear to everyone, if it does at all, the damage has been done. The imbalance is systemic.
These are all things I was generally aware of, but I liked some of the framings that conveyed messages in ways I think can reach larger audiences. One newish thing to me from this book was not a new idea in general in anarchism. Yet, it was new in it's framing for me. Scott discusses how important participation in collective democracy is a crucial learning process for all community members. In state based ideology, we're supposed to lift up the most experienced/qualified to make various decisions. (I must mention though that this is often untrue in practice and is exceptionally laughable currently to anyone paying attention to USA politics, but I digress.) However, designing things hierarchically like this robs the public of collective growth that comes from making decisions together and teaching each other in the process. It creates a dynamic where people, especially those with no experience, see only one route forward- one in which they have no power or responsibility.
It all reminds me of a discussion with someone years ago where we were lamenting the length of a particular organizing meeting. She said, "Anarchy is beautiful. Anarchy takes forever." I do think that this book needed a little bit more about what more intentional anarchism is as far as next steps go after you examine the sort of accidental bits of anarchism discussed throughout this text. However, I think this book offers something to both those new to ideas of anarchism and to more seasoned readers (even if we would have liked a neater iteration of the circle A.)
This was also posted to my storygraph and blog.
May 23, 2015
If this were not the first book by this author that I have read, I imagine I might have given it only three stars. The author notes, at the end of his preface, that the book is written in new (for him), reader-friendly, informal sort of way. That gives some charm to it, but also invites a certain amount of repetition, laziness, and self-indulgence. Nonetheless, it is my first book by Scott, and his ideas and insights are extremely interesting and wide-ranging. I look forward to reading some of his other books.
January 12, 2021
Some sound observations and a solid worldview supporting the anarchist vision.
"One thing that heaves into view, I believe, is what Pierre-Joseph Proudhon had in mind when he first used the term 'anarchism,' namely, mutuality, or cooperation without hierarchy or state rule. Another is the anarchist tolerance for confusion and improvisation that accompanies social learning, and confidence in spontaneous cooperation and reciprocity. Here Rosa Luxemburg's preference, in the long run, for the honest mistakes of the working class over the wisdom of the executive decisions of a handful of vanguard party elites is indicative of this stance."
In other words:
"We make the path by walking." Chuang Tzu
"One thing that heaves into view, I believe, is what Pierre-Joseph Proudhon had in mind when he first used the term 'anarchism,' namely, mutuality, or cooperation without hierarchy or state rule. Another is the anarchist tolerance for confusion and improvisation that accompanies social learning, and confidence in spontaneous cooperation and reciprocity. Here Rosa Luxemburg's preference, in the long run, for the honest mistakes of the working class over the wisdom of the executive decisions of a handful of vanguard party elites is indicative of this stance."
In other words:
"We make the path by walking." Chuang Tzu
April 2, 2014
Not a masterpiece, but Scott's earned the right to casually pontificate.
March 6, 2021
I can’t help but chuckle that the unlicensed reprint version is an available version to select on this site. But if you think about it with all of James C scott’s ideas one might ask to how illegal this reprint really is.
Having read his books seeing like a state and the art of not being governed, this essays bundle does not offer that much new, the ideas he has formulated in those two books, especially in “seeing like a state” are talked about here in an abbreviated formula, does that mean it was only that? No but I can’t help but do feel a bit let down.
What hurts the bundle is that it is trying to be too many things at the same time. It is a bundle, reflecting how his own stance on the modern bureaucratic state and its attempts to control society came to be shaped, it is meant to discredit a few chosen examples of flawed control and illusionary effectivety, discuss a few of his other ideas which is fine, but what is not, is a cheering for anarchism. Let me put it this way, with a title like two cheers for anarchism, one expects at least one of the essays to be all about promoting the anarchist society perhaps the zapatistas movement in Mexico, but that is not the case. The bundle sets out to make a case for “an anarchist squint” that is too deconstruct tools of control and ideology of efficiency by focusing on the imperfect reality, the human factor and vernacular knowledge. James C Scott is not a dogmatic person, in the sense that he readily acknowledges inhumane acts committed in non state societies and emancipatory acts by states, it is just that in his opinion there are comparatively few of either of those.
All and all, the bundle is severely lacking in that it does not built up to a unifying conclusion to take with you. Sure the essays have ideas and deconstructions but I did not put this book down and say “well that is an interesting idea” That being said, what I did do while reading the book was utilizing the same deconstruction tools he used in his examples and applied them to historical cases I knew. As a method, this anarchist squint does have its merits, it simply lacks a more sounder and abstract theoretical tool to use and share. The book bundle is focused on teaching you to deconstruct and squint via examples and make a case for the imperfect, the spontaneous, the vernacular knowledge, the human aspect that should not be attempted to be reduced to an afterthought or to be forcefully transformed in graphs, numbers and forms.
James C Scott is definitively beholden to Foucault and in particular his idea of the prison regime as a model for schools, nursing homes etc. The difference, based on his examples, is that the prison as a model is for Scott too limited to grasp the ideal pursued here by modern states, neoliberals and leninist marxists. It is not just control and punishment, it the goal of control over production output and measurable efficiency, the fordist factory floor is the ideal according to Scott. An attempt to monitor and control societies and other aspects of life like one would manage an assembly line. Scott spends most of his thoughts on how depended these attempts at control are on unplanned local adaptations to make it workabe. For example how in east Germany the most important two persons on the payroll of a state factories but neither of whom were in the formal state plans, were the all around handyman and a person who had to scour the black market for replacement parts when it broke down for lack of material.
Besides this human factor to make it work, Scott has a serious beef with the self delusions this attempt to control and supposdly objectivly monitoring can create. He talks about the US armies choice to signal progress in the vietnam war with body counts which lulled the high command in the falsity that victory was just right arround the corner. A second example that does feel like personal frustrations, is the citation system used by universities in the anglo saxon world. This has lead to fraud, clique forming to cite one another to boost their citation record, disregards non English academic output and has turned universities in part into article factories, pushing staff to publish continuously in hope to live up to this one flawed universal evaluation tool. How does this contribute positively to anything.
At this point I had the anarchist squint on my own job. I work for the government in a role as international cooperation specialist. What this means is that I and my colleagues manage European projects aimed at bringing together government agencies from EU countries to cooperate on things like energy, climate adaption, invasive species control, flood control and so on. The thing is that this managing is focused on providing the proof that these projects are run smoothly and fairly a large part of which is a complex system of timetables that prove that the wage costs that these projects provide subsidies for were used correctly. Each of these projects use a different format and reporting system and even a different timetable. Thus in order to participate in these projects my job was created to manage all of these rules because otherwise the engineers, researchers, biologists would be swamped by all of this management work and thus not actually working on the project. Thus it was agreed that a sizable part of the wage cost subsidies can be used for the people like me whose job is to prove the other hours subsidized were done so correctly.
This is in fact a clear example of what James C Scott sets out to prove, this whole set up was built on control and meant to ensure the projects to be more efficient but are they really? How much does all of this control (I have not even talked about all the auditors and first lever controllers and final controllers and so on) really help anything? I am not saying there should be no control but surely the balance has tilted the wrong way. My job is vital because of the byzantine system that has been put into place, which would like that east German factory ground to a halt if all parties involved would strictly stick to every rule.
In fact the human spontaneous aspect of these projects is hampered to a saddening degree, the overarching goal of these projects is to foster crossborder contacts and expertise but because (before corona) this meant a lot of visits and meetings to foster said bond, my job also meant going to represent the people who the project was meant to bring together. It is my fellow Byzantine bureaucrats with whom I connect, not the engineers who were supposed to be the ones bonding. Why is that? Because these supposedly spontaneous meetings need to be recorded with proof and one has to follow a checklist for the whole project (X number of meetings means expected amount of crossborder bonding and contact achieved) Which gives the bosses of these European programs the quantitative “proof” that their projects foster the European spirit. These projects have great goals and their results on the field are inspiring but they are hampered by all of the control and measurements of efficiency which only serves an illusion of measurability on every aspect of these projects, including the social contact that really can’t be objectively measured however one looks at it. This to me, is the anarchist squint that James C Scott was talking about.
I do feel this is a book bundle that everyone should read. It is accessible and makes one think, think and wonder which is a lot more that can be said for many books on political ideology. It is a toolbox that one if is free to use however one pleases to, as long as it is to question the social order, institutions and structures in society supposedly to be self evident and self explanatory; which is perhaps the true core of anarchism. Two cheers for it indeed.
Having read his books seeing like a state and the art of not being governed, this essays bundle does not offer that much new, the ideas he has formulated in those two books, especially in “seeing like a state” are talked about here in an abbreviated formula, does that mean it was only that? No but I can’t help but do feel a bit let down.
What hurts the bundle is that it is trying to be too many things at the same time. It is a bundle, reflecting how his own stance on the modern bureaucratic state and its attempts to control society came to be shaped, it is meant to discredit a few chosen examples of flawed control and illusionary effectivety, discuss a few of his other ideas which is fine, but what is not, is a cheering for anarchism. Let me put it this way, with a title like two cheers for anarchism, one expects at least one of the essays to be all about promoting the anarchist society perhaps the zapatistas movement in Mexico, but that is not the case. The bundle sets out to make a case for “an anarchist squint” that is too deconstruct tools of control and ideology of efficiency by focusing on the imperfect reality, the human factor and vernacular knowledge. James C Scott is not a dogmatic person, in the sense that he readily acknowledges inhumane acts committed in non state societies and emancipatory acts by states, it is just that in his opinion there are comparatively few of either of those.
All and all, the bundle is severely lacking in that it does not built up to a unifying conclusion to take with you. Sure the essays have ideas and deconstructions but I did not put this book down and say “well that is an interesting idea” That being said, what I did do while reading the book was utilizing the same deconstruction tools he used in his examples and applied them to historical cases I knew. As a method, this anarchist squint does have its merits, it simply lacks a more sounder and abstract theoretical tool to use and share. The book bundle is focused on teaching you to deconstruct and squint via examples and make a case for the imperfect, the spontaneous, the vernacular knowledge, the human aspect that should not be attempted to be reduced to an afterthought or to be forcefully transformed in graphs, numbers and forms.
James C Scott is definitively beholden to Foucault and in particular his idea of the prison regime as a model for schools, nursing homes etc. The difference, based on his examples, is that the prison as a model is for Scott too limited to grasp the ideal pursued here by modern states, neoliberals and leninist marxists. It is not just control and punishment, it the goal of control over production output and measurable efficiency, the fordist factory floor is the ideal according to Scott. An attempt to monitor and control societies and other aspects of life like one would manage an assembly line. Scott spends most of his thoughts on how depended these attempts at control are on unplanned local adaptations to make it workabe. For example how in east Germany the most important two persons on the payroll of a state factories but neither of whom were in the formal state plans, were the all around handyman and a person who had to scour the black market for replacement parts when it broke down for lack of material.
Besides this human factor to make it work, Scott has a serious beef with the self delusions this attempt to control and supposdly objectivly monitoring can create. He talks about the US armies choice to signal progress in the vietnam war with body counts which lulled the high command in the falsity that victory was just right arround the corner. A second example that does feel like personal frustrations, is the citation system used by universities in the anglo saxon world. This has lead to fraud, clique forming to cite one another to boost their citation record, disregards non English academic output and has turned universities in part into article factories, pushing staff to publish continuously in hope to live up to this one flawed universal evaluation tool. How does this contribute positively to anything.
At this point I had the anarchist squint on my own job. I work for the government in a role as international cooperation specialist. What this means is that I and my colleagues manage European projects aimed at bringing together government agencies from EU countries to cooperate on things like energy, climate adaption, invasive species control, flood control and so on. The thing is that this managing is focused on providing the proof that these projects are run smoothly and fairly a large part of which is a complex system of timetables that prove that the wage costs that these projects provide subsidies for were used correctly. Each of these projects use a different format and reporting system and even a different timetable. Thus in order to participate in these projects my job was created to manage all of these rules because otherwise the engineers, researchers, biologists would be swamped by all of this management work and thus not actually working on the project. Thus it was agreed that a sizable part of the wage cost subsidies can be used for the people like me whose job is to prove the other hours subsidized were done so correctly.
This is in fact a clear example of what James C Scott sets out to prove, this whole set up was built on control and meant to ensure the projects to be more efficient but are they really? How much does all of this control (I have not even talked about all the auditors and first lever controllers and final controllers and so on) really help anything? I am not saying there should be no control but surely the balance has tilted the wrong way. My job is vital because of the byzantine system that has been put into place, which would like that east German factory ground to a halt if all parties involved would strictly stick to every rule.
In fact the human spontaneous aspect of these projects is hampered to a saddening degree, the overarching goal of these projects is to foster crossborder contacts and expertise but because (before corona) this meant a lot of visits and meetings to foster said bond, my job also meant going to represent the people who the project was meant to bring together. It is my fellow Byzantine bureaucrats with whom I connect, not the engineers who were supposed to be the ones bonding. Why is that? Because these supposedly spontaneous meetings need to be recorded with proof and one has to follow a checklist for the whole project (X number of meetings means expected amount of crossborder bonding and contact achieved) Which gives the bosses of these European programs the quantitative “proof” that their projects foster the European spirit. These projects have great goals and their results on the field are inspiring but they are hampered by all of the control and measurements of efficiency which only serves an illusion of measurability on every aspect of these projects, including the social contact that really can’t be objectively measured however one looks at it. This to me, is the anarchist squint that James C Scott was talking about.
I do feel this is a book bundle that everyone should read. It is accessible and makes one think, think and wonder which is a lot more that can be said for many books on political ideology. It is a toolbox that one if is free to use however one pleases to, as long as it is to question the social order, institutions and structures in society supposedly to be self evident and self explanatory; which is perhaps the true core of anarchism. Two cheers for it indeed.
August 29, 2023
Two Cheers For Anarchism, by James C. Scott
When reading a book like this, it is important to remember that the libertarian traditions of the United States tend to be highly distinct from the anarchist traditions of Europe, which are more left-wing in nature and frequently include a high degree of tolerance for socialism in the support of egalitarianism that would not pass muster in the United States. Whatever this author's background, he argues for anarchism from the point of view of European anarchism, so his hatred of capitalists is even greater than his (considerable) mistrust of governments. This limits his appeal to a reader like myself, it must readily be admitted, though at least some aspects of this rather fragmentary and personal account of various thoughts of the difference between order that is imposed from above and the more chaotic order that emerges bottom-up is certainly more congenial to me as a reader. My thoughts on this book are mixed, and it is likely that a book as messy as this one is going to get a mixed review from a variety of people who find different aspects of his non-systematic thinking congenial while finding fault with other seemingly incoherent and contradictory aspects of thought.
This book is a bit less than 150 pages and it is composed of six chapters that themselves are divided up into more than 25 fragments. The book begins with a list of illustrations and a preface that explains the author's choice to write this book in a decidedly non-academic way. The author begins with various discussions about the uses of disorder and the context-dependent nature of charisma, and the way that "leaders" are frequently led about by the crowds that they are trying to mobilize that shape them through their responses and silence (1). This is followed by a chapter that talks about the difference between vernacular order and official order and how these interact in complex ways (2). After that there is a discussion about the production of human beings, including the regimentation that goes on in the family, in schools, in business, and in prisons (3). There is a chapter, my own personal favorite, that discusses what the author finds praiseworthy about the small and creative operations of the petit bourgeoisie (4). There is a chapter that the author writes that is in praise of politics as a means of overcoming the more insidiously biased nature of technocratic regimes of bureaucrats (5), and a final chapter that discusses the messy and particular nature of human experience and the constant state of flux involved with living things (6). The book then closes with notes, acknowledgements, and an index.
In general, the parts of this book that resonated most with me were the author's praise of the petit bourgeoisie and the recognition of the importance of dignity and freedom from external control and surveillance to a great many people. It would be deeply interesting, as a thought experiment, to see what would happen to the extent that a society of petit bourgeoisie could be developed that would avoid the extremes of wealth and poverty that claim most contemporary regimes. The author's just criticism of the rise of the tyrannical behavior of the state and the ways this has been manifested in many regimes over history is certainly worth paying attention to, and those libertarians who are blind to the possibility of abusive authority from corporate elites would do wise to ponder how life would be better without increasing power from either corrupt cronyism or corrupt totalitarianism, both of which threaten the well-being and freedom of ordinary people. If I am not enthusiastic enough about this book and its contents to give two cheers for anarchism, I do think the author's note on the sort of low-grade but pervasive hostility to efforts at control are well worth understanding and emulating in a great many circumstances at the present time. If this book is wildly uneven, it does offer quite a bit that is worthy of commendation, reflection, and adoption for those who oppose thoughtless and demanding and frequently incompetent authorities.
When reading a book like this, it is important to remember that the libertarian traditions of the United States tend to be highly distinct from the anarchist traditions of Europe, which are more left-wing in nature and frequently include a high degree of tolerance for socialism in the support of egalitarianism that would not pass muster in the United States. Whatever this author's background, he argues for anarchism from the point of view of European anarchism, so his hatred of capitalists is even greater than his (considerable) mistrust of governments. This limits his appeal to a reader like myself, it must readily be admitted, though at least some aspects of this rather fragmentary and personal account of various thoughts of the difference between order that is imposed from above and the more chaotic order that emerges bottom-up is certainly more congenial to me as a reader. My thoughts on this book are mixed, and it is likely that a book as messy as this one is going to get a mixed review from a variety of people who find different aspects of his non-systematic thinking congenial while finding fault with other seemingly incoherent and contradictory aspects of thought.
This book is a bit less than 150 pages and it is composed of six chapters that themselves are divided up into more than 25 fragments. The book begins with a list of illustrations and a preface that explains the author's choice to write this book in a decidedly non-academic way. The author begins with various discussions about the uses of disorder and the context-dependent nature of charisma, and the way that "leaders" are frequently led about by the crowds that they are trying to mobilize that shape them through their responses and silence (1). This is followed by a chapter that talks about the difference between vernacular order and official order and how these interact in complex ways (2). After that there is a discussion about the production of human beings, including the regimentation that goes on in the family, in schools, in business, and in prisons (3). There is a chapter, my own personal favorite, that discusses what the author finds praiseworthy about the small and creative operations of the petit bourgeoisie (4). There is a chapter that the author writes that is in praise of politics as a means of overcoming the more insidiously biased nature of technocratic regimes of bureaucrats (5), and a final chapter that discusses the messy and particular nature of human experience and the constant state of flux involved with living things (6). The book then closes with notes, acknowledgements, and an index.
In general, the parts of this book that resonated most with me were the author's praise of the petit bourgeoisie and the recognition of the importance of dignity and freedom from external control and surveillance to a great many people. It would be deeply interesting, as a thought experiment, to see what would happen to the extent that a society of petit bourgeoisie could be developed that would avoid the extremes of wealth and poverty that claim most contemporary regimes. The author's just criticism of the rise of the tyrannical behavior of the state and the ways this has been manifested in many regimes over history is certainly worth paying attention to, and those libertarians who are blind to the possibility of abusive authority from corporate elites would do wise to ponder how life would be better without increasing power from either corrupt cronyism or corrupt totalitarianism, both of which threaten the well-being and freedom of ordinary people. If I am not enthusiastic enough about this book and its contents to give two cheers for anarchism, I do think the author's note on the sort of low-grade but pervasive hostility to efforts at control are well worth understanding and emulating in a great many circumstances at the present time. If this book is wildly uneven, it does offer quite a bit that is worthy of commendation, reflection, and adoption for those who oppose thoughtless and demanding and frequently incompetent authorities.
August 12, 2015
Am I an anarchist? After reading this book, I believe my tendencies sway in that direction. As should any thoughtful, intelligent person's. Scott's definition of anarchism is not that of bearded bomb-throwers, but has elements of libertarianism, democracy, and even socialism.
What is most thought-provoking about this collection of tenuously-linked essays is the way Scott applies his brand of anarchist thinking onto areas of life we may not think of as purely political. His first section encourages "anarchist calisthenics" as a series of minor disobediences, such as jaywalking when there isn't a car within miles. Later he sets out evidence that most (every? some?) attempt by governments to impose order are doomed to succumb to the laws of entropy.
His form of anarchy does not preclude leadership. In his view, effective protest movements, ones that proceed in 'anarchist' fashion, are grassroots in nature, forming from the ground up, rather than imposed by revolutionary committee, yet such movements still require charismatic leaders to channel the energy and not let things descend into disorder.
My favorite section of the book was probably the least surprising, in which he condemns standardized assessments, focusing of course on education. He quotes Einstein:
Not everything that counts can be counted, and not everything that can be counted counts.
Finally, the least interesting chapter is the final one, in which he applies his analysis to politics itself. There are few thought-inspiring ideas here. However, the rest of the book more than makes up for it.
I believe anyone, politically left or right, who sees themselves as a supporter of causes, could benefit from the wealth of ideas, both large and small, in this short volume.
What is most thought-provoking about this collection of tenuously-linked essays is the way Scott applies his brand of anarchist thinking onto areas of life we may not think of as purely political. His first section encourages "anarchist calisthenics" as a series of minor disobediences, such as jaywalking when there isn't a car within miles. Later he sets out evidence that most (every? some?) attempt by governments to impose order are doomed to succumb to the laws of entropy.
His form of anarchy does not preclude leadership. In his view, effective protest movements, ones that proceed in 'anarchist' fashion, are grassroots in nature, forming from the ground up, rather than imposed by revolutionary committee, yet such movements still require charismatic leaders to channel the energy and not let things descend into disorder.
My favorite section of the book was probably the least surprising, in which he condemns standardized assessments, focusing of course on education. He quotes Einstein:
Not everything that counts can be counted, and not everything that can be counted counts.
Finally, the least interesting chapter is the final one, in which he applies his analysis to politics itself. There are few thought-inspiring ideas here. However, the rest of the book more than makes up for it.
I believe anyone, politically left or right, who sees themselves as a supporter of causes, could benefit from the wealth of ideas, both large and small, in this short volume.
January 1, 2014
A thoughtful study of anarchism by way of occasional observations about different styles of insubordination and local adaptation. Scott doesn't present anarchism as a complete ideology with a revolutionary method, but rather as a "squint" which will allow us to see possibilities (most of which are reflective of the agrarian studies that Scott has built his career upon) for everyday life and decision-making. For more thoughts, see my blog post here.
March 4, 2019
Aside from some engaging anecdotes here, there's not a whole lot to recommend for someone already familiar with Scott's major works. It's a distillation of themes recurring throughout his previous works. That being said, this would be a nice introduction for someone new to Scott, and a jumping-off place for further reading.
The most off-putting thing is the graphic design: specifically, page numbers in white print inside black squares, which makes them almost unreadable.
The most off-putting thing is the graphic design: specifically, page numbers in white print inside black squares, which makes them almost unreadable.
May 15, 2021
A collection of mini-essays about government and society, told from a thoughtful and gentle anarchist perspective. “Two Cheers” instead of three, because Scott is more or less resigned that the state is here to stay, and not only that he admits that the state sometimes does useful things. But the tendency of even well-meaning governmental action, and people’s submission to it, is often injurious to the common good, and Scott is great in looking at that. If your association of anarchists is antifa or assassins that’s a shame, this book would be a friendly intro to a peaceful and optimistic type of anarchism, a la Peter Kropotkin.
Read
October 13, 2025lættis. min første og sannsynligvis siste bok i år og det er pensum 🤓
August 6, 2018
James C. Scott’s Two Cheers for Anarchism is a good summary of some of Scott’s conclusions about authority’s quest for metrics, legibility, and control, how this backfires, and the ingenious and well-camouflaged ways ordinary people resist it. If you’ve been thinking of reading some Scott but have been intimidated by his more in-depth sociology papers or a thicker book like Seeing Like a State (see my review), this would be a good place to start.
The way he tells it, he noticed himself putting forward ideas based on his research and thinking “that sounds like what an anarchist would argue.” So he decided he ought to familiarize himself with the tradition of anarchist thinking. That accomplished, he discovered not that he was necessarily an Anarchist, but that “if you put on anarchist glasses and look at the history of popular movements, revolutions, ordinary politics, and the state from that angle, certain insights will appear that are obscured from almost any other angle.”
Furthermore, “anarchist principles are active in the aspirations and political action of people who have never heard of anarchism or anarchist philosophy.” The first of these principles being “mutuality, or cooperation without hierarchy or state rule.”
His essays explore a variety of topics — including history, education, charismatic leadership, memorials, geographical nomenclature, urban planning, scientific agriculture, playground design, institutions for the aged, traffic lights, the petit bourgeois, and the suppression of politics by bureaucracy — by looking at them through this “anarchist squint.”
He makes a good case that the state, rather than bringing order to an otherwise chaotic and dangerous mass of people, instead erodes the traditions and abilities that naturally bring order to society:
I enjoyed also his description of “anarchist calisthenics.” He describes watching German pedestrians at an intersection, waiting for several minutes for the light to turn green although everyone can see perfectly well that no traffic is coming on the road for a mile in either direction.
The way he tells it, he noticed himself putting forward ideas based on his research and thinking “that sounds like what an anarchist would argue.” So he decided he ought to familiarize himself with the tradition of anarchist thinking. That accomplished, he discovered not that he was necessarily an Anarchist, but that “if you put on anarchist glasses and look at the history of popular movements, revolutions, ordinary politics, and the state from that angle, certain insights will appear that are obscured from almost any other angle.”
Furthermore, “anarchist principles are active in the aspirations and political action of people who have never heard of anarchism or anarchist philosophy.” The first of these principles being “mutuality, or cooperation without hierarchy or state rule.”
His essays explore a variety of topics — including history, education, charismatic leadership, memorials, geographical nomenclature, urban planning, scientific agriculture, playground design, institutions for the aged, traffic lights, the petit bourgeois, and the suppression of politics by bureaucracy — by looking at them through this “anarchist squint.”
He makes a good case that the state, rather than bringing order to an otherwise chaotic and dangerous mass of people, instead erodes the traditions and abilities that naturally bring order to society:
To what extent has the hegemony of the state and of formal, hierarchical organizations undermined the capacity for and the practice of mutuality and cooperation that have historically created order without the state? To what degree have the growing reach of the state and the assumptions behind action in a liberal economy actually produced the asocial egoists that Hobbes thought Leviathan was designed to tame? One could argue that the formal order of the liberal state depends fundamentally on a social capital of habits of mutuality and cooperation that antedate it, which it cannot create and which, in fact, it undermines. The state, arguably, destroys the natural initiative and responsibility that arise from voluntary cooperation.
I enjoyed also his description of “anarchist calisthenics.” He describes watching German pedestrians at an intersection, waiting for several minutes for the light to turn green although everyone can see perfectly well that no traffic is coming on the road for a mile in either direction.
I began to rehearse a little discourse that I imagined delivering in perfect German. It went something like this. “You know, you and especially your grandparents could have used more of a spirit of lawbreaking. One day you will be called upon to break a big law in the name of justice and rationality. Everything will depend on it. You have to be ready. How are you going to prepare for that day when it really matters? You have to stay ‘in shape’ so that when the big day comes you will be ready. What you need is ‘anarchist calisthenics.’ Every day or so break some trivial law that makes no sense, even if it’s only jaywalking. Use your own head to judge whether a law is just or reasonable. That way, you’ll keep trim; and when the big day comes, you’ll be ready.”
October 3, 2015
Through a series of mini essay-like conversational fragments, Scott aims to show the value of peering at the world through an "anarchist squint". Scott describes his perspective as a "squint" because he is not yet prepared to toss the state aside, admitting that he fails to see how the anarchist ideals of "mutuality and freedom" can be guaranteed without the state playing a role. And yet from this perspective, in an easy-going personable tone, mixing often brilliant insight with personal recollection, Scott charts how state power, in a variety of ways, can actually undermine mutuality and freedom - in a word, democracy - through the very institutions and organizations that have been constructed as the means to protect it.
Scott questions our increasingly technocratic society and the culture of test-taking, metrics and indexes - meant to promote a more democratic "meritocracy", but instead impart their own perverse behavioral effects on the subject of measurement, to a degree that calls into question the quality of the metric - everything from standardized tests meant to gauge scholastic aptitude to McNamara's quixotic attempts to measure whether the U.S. was winning the war in Vietnam; all such efforts seem vulnerable to what Scott terms "behavioral colonization" - or more bluntly, "gaming the system". Scott seems to assert that you can't take the *human* out of systems and processes meant to organize humans - that we must embrace debate, subjectivity, slow iterative learning, political tug-of-wars and other forms of open, public conflict, and all the messiness therein over the purely quantified or mechanistic means of parsing and organizing society, or else risk forfeiting any essential democratic spirit at the heart of such enterprises. Democracy cannot be automated; the messy human variable is an essential component. Scott offers a wonderful quote attributed to Einstein: "Not everything that counts can be counted and not everything that can be counted counts".
I particularly enjoyed Scott's musings on how political change, in particular those changes that move society towards greater freedom and equality, have at their inception not organizations or institutions - those come later - but a kind of raw, incipient restlessness and discontent amongst individuals, manifested as protests, wildcat strikes, riots - or even much less visible or accounted-for "footdragging", desertion, absenteeism or other forms of lower-risk "infrapolitics" as practiced by subordinate classes. History may be written after the fact to credit the forming of various organizational structures with positive social and political change, but it all starts with countless smaller acts of civil disobedience. The anarchist squint has respect for this sense of agency amongst non-elites, in fact it seems to offer a rather generous, more holistic view of how societies experience social and political change - and a more inclusive sense of who the critical players are - than might be appreciated otherwise. It strikes me as not entirely coincidental that both Scott and one other prominent anarchist, David Graeber - share a background in the social sciences and particularly anthropology.
"Huge disparities in wealth, equality and property make a mockery of freedom", Scott asserts in the preface. Scott offers some clues as to how we have reached such a predicament in these essays. He worries, though, that Leviathan has so transformed us, from a naturally social and cooperative species into more asocial, selfish, Hobbsian egoists, that we have practically lost the instinct for self-organization and direct action. That might seem a stretch. If such tendencies are near-instinctive, which is arguable, then perhaps the anarchist squint can help us rediscover them. Scott certainly makes a great case for it in this wonderful little book.
Scott questions our increasingly technocratic society and the culture of test-taking, metrics and indexes - meant to promote a more democratic "meritocracy", but instead impart their own perverse behavioral effects on the subject of measurement, to a degree that calls into question the quality of the metric - everything from standardized tests meant to gauge scholastic aptitude to McNamara's quixotic attempts to measure whether the U.S. was winning the war in Vietnam; all such efforts seem vulnerable to what Scott terms "behavioral colonization" - or more bluntly, "gaming the system". Scott seems to assert that you can't take the *human* out of systems and processes meant to organize humans - that we must embrace debate, subjectivity, slow iterative learning, political tug-of-wars and other forms of open, public conflict, and all the messiness therein over the purely quantified or mechanistic means of parsing and organizing society, or else risk forfeiting any essential democratic spirit at the heart of such enterprises. Democracy cannot be automated; the messy human variable is an essential component. Scott offers a wonderful quote attributed to Einstein: "Not everything that counts can be counted and not everything that can be counted counts".
I particularly enjoyed Scott's musings on how political change, in particular those changes that move society towards greater freedom and equality, have at their inception not organizations or institutions - those come later - but a kind of raw, incipient restlessness and discontent amongst individuals, manifested as protests, wildcat strikes, riots - or even much less visible or accounted-for "footdragging", desertion, absenteeism or other forms of lower-risk "infrapolitics" as practiced by subordinate classes. History may be written after the fact to credit the forming of various organizational structures with positive social and political change, but it all starts with countless smaller acts of civil disobedience. The anarchist squint has respect for this sense of agency amongst non-elites, in fact it seems to offer a rather generous, more holistic view of how societies experience social and political change - and a more inclusive sense of who the critical players are - than might be appreciated otherwise. It strikes me as not entirely coincidental that both Scott and one other prominent anarchist, David Graeber - share a background in the social sciences and particularly anthropology.
"Huge disparities in wealth, equality and property make a mockery of freedom", Scott asserts in the preface. Scott offers some clues as to how we have reached such a predicament in these essays. He worries, though, that Leviathan has so transformed us, from a naturally social and cooperative species into more asocial, selfish, Hobbsian egoists, that we have practically lost the instinct for self-organization and direct action. That might seem a stretch. If such tendencies are near-instinctive, which is arguable, then perhaps the anarchist squint can help us rediscover them. Scott certainly makes a great case for it in this wonderful little book.
June 21, 2024
Detta är the good shit. Få författare som skriver facklitteratur har haft lika stor inverkan på mig som James C. Scott. Han vet whats up utan att göra anspråk på för mycket. Underskattad som tusan. Drar av en stjärna för att den är för kort (snälla ge mig meeer) och högpunkterna är många redan (på ett lysande sätt) nådda i Seeing like a state.
Stark 4/5
Stark 4/5
April 27, 2013
James Scott set out to write a book that is sympathetic to but not a defense of anarchism. It is not meant to be a rigorous treatise, but an easy-to-read series of observations on topics that are disparate enough to be quite varied, but similar enough to be grouped together using an "anarchist squint". I think there is nothing wrong with having such a project, and that he succeeded in writing an interesting, engaging, easily readable but still stimulating book.
Two things about the book did bother me a bit, though, and I'm sure they will bother others much more:
1)some of his essays require quite a deep squint in order to classify them as "anarchist". The anarchist themes of his first essay, for instance, is obvious. It's not so obvious in some of his other ones, especially if you're not familiar with Scott's work. If you've read some of his other (more thorough) stuff, you'll be able to make the jump from his sometimes non-anarchist seeming observations to his critique of the imposition of state "rationality" to anarchism. To his credit, he does explicitly discuss the imposition of this "rationality" in the second chapter, and a Scott fan will always be able to ultimately connect any given part of the text to "anarchism" writ large. I nonetheless think that reasonable people will either not really see or not buy the link in some cases. To the extent that they can reasonably hold such a belief, they can argue that Scott is "stretching" the concept of anarchism too far, or does an insufficient job at linking his very interesting observations to his central theme
2)he appears to put forth two contradictory arguments and does not seem to resolve the conflict. On the one hand, he argues that the state and other centralized, hierarchical institutions impose certain social practices that destroy local "vernaculars", linguistic and otherwise. This is the point that he discusses at length in his book, Seeing Like A State. The ecosystem of vernaculars is being reduced, and this is oftentimes a bad thing. Okay. But on the other hand, he argues that the subaltern class routinely engages in practices to resist their oppression. These practices are very well organized at the micro-level, and are possible only via the existence of local vernaculars. What's more, Scott argues that the system imposed by centralized authority only works due to the persistence of local micro-organization.
For instance: "The utopian management dream of perfect mechanical control was, however, unrealizable not just because trade unions intervened but also because each machine had its own particularities, and a worker who had a vernacular, local knowledge of this particular milling or stamping machine was valuable for that reason. Even on the line, vernacular knowledge was essential to successful production." (p.35) Similar examples abound in the text.
So which is it? Is central authority stunting our ability to think by structuring our lives so that we no longer have holistic, complex experiences? Or is the real story about the persistence of local knowledge in spite of oppressive conditions? I really do think that he has some kind of answer to this, but it isn't clear in this book.
I still think that this is a 4-star book. "Easy" texts are all-too-often superficial, and that's not the case here.
Two things about the book did bother me a bit, though, and I'm sure they will bother others much more:
1)some of his essays require quite a deep squint in order to classify them as "anarchist". The anarchist themes of his first essay, for instance, is obvious. It's not so obvious in some of his other ones, especially if you're not familiar with Scott's work. If you've read some of his other (more thorough) stuff, you'll be able to make the jump from his sometimes non-anarchist seeming observations to his critique of the imposition of state "rationality" to anarchism. To his credit, he does explicitly discuss the imposition of this "rationality" in the second chapter, and a Scott fan will always be able to ultimately connect any given part of the text to "anarchism" writ large. I nonetheless think that reasonable people will either not really see or not buy the link in some cases. To the extent that they can reasonably hold such a belief, they can argue that Scott is "stretching" the concept of anarchism too far, or does an insufficient job at linking his very interesting observations to his central theme
2)he appears to put forth two contradictory arguments and does not seem to resolve the conflict. On the one hand, he argues that the state and other centralized, hierarchical institutions impose certain social practices that destroy local "vernaculars", linguistic and otherwise. This is the point that he discusses at length in his book, Seeing Like A State. The ecosystem of vernaculars is being reduced, and this is oftentimes a bad thing. Okay. But on the other hand, he argues that the subaltern class routinely engages in practices to resist their oppression. These practices are very well organized at the micro-level, and are possible only via the existence of local vernaculars. What's more, Scott argues that the system imposed by centralized authority only works due to the persistence of local micro-organization.
For instance: "The utopian management dream of perfect mechanical control was, however, unrealizable not just because trade unions intervened but also because each machine had its own particularities, and a worker who had a vernacular, local knowledge of this particular milling or stamping machine was valuable for that reason. Even on the line, vernacular knowledge was essential to successful production." (p.35) Similar examples abound in the text.
So which is it? Is central authority stunting our ability to think by structuring our lives so that we no longer have holistic, complex experiences? Or is the real story about the persistence of local knowledge in spite of oppressive conditions? I really do think that he has some kind of answer to this, but it isn't clear in this book.
I still think that this is a 4-star book. "Easy" texts are all-too-often superficial, and that's not the case here.
May 23, 2013
Though this small volume contains critiques of history and state-extending structures like nursing homes and schools, there isn't much adherence to the central thesis that an anarchist "squint" explains a lot of otherwise hard-to-understand phenomena. (It's not a philosophy, it's not a political party, it's a "squint." Ok.)
Why is there no mention of the "Occupy" movements, which Bourgeoisie guys like me have a hard time understanding? What was up with the 2005 riots on the outskirts of Paris? What about the Watts riots or post-Rodney King riots in LA? Why were some social movements with distinct leaders such as Gandhi or MLK successful? Have there been leaderless anarchic movements that have failed to produce social change? Is there a biological basis for humans acting in anarchic ways? As little as this book is, there are certainly a lot of unexplored possibilities.
Also, we get a little here about the author selecting a nursing home for his aunt, but what about bigger questions about healthcare? To what extent is healthcare an extension of the state? Can health science innovation (or any innovation) thrive in anarchic situations? Do people in places like Upland Southeast Asia have meaningful access to healthcare?
I think it's also ironic for a guy to write a book about why we should cheer for "anarchism" and then charge twenty-five bucks for it. Evidently anarchism is a useful concept, but only insofar as intellectual property rights are still protected by a state!
Update:
I keep coming back to this book over and over. You can pretty much just pick it up and flip to a random page and get a nice little thought for a moment.
This book does explain a lot of seemingly random human behavior, like Occupy and other stuff.
Why is there no mention of the "Occupy" movements, which Bourgeoisie guys like me have a hard time understanding? What was up with the 2005 riots on the outskirts of Paris? What about the Watts riots or post-Rodney King riots in LA? Why were some social movements with distinct leaders such as Gandhi or MLK successful? Have there been leaderless anarchic movements that have failed to produce social change? Is there a biological basis for humans acting in anarchic ways? As little as this book is, there are certainly a lot of unexplored possibilities.
Also, we get a little here about the author selecting a nursing home for his aunt, but what about bigger questions about healthcare? To what extent is healthcare an extension of the state? Can health science innovation (or any innovation) thrive in anarchic situations? Do people in places like Upland Southeast Asia have meaningful access to healthcare?
I think it's also ironic for a guy to write a book about why we should cheer for "anarchism" and then charge twenty-five bucks for it. Evidently anarchism is a useful concept, but only insofar as intellectual property rights are still protected by a state!
Update:
I keep coming back to this book over and over. You can pretty much just pick it up and flip to a random page and get a nice little thought for a moment.
This book does explain a lot of seemingly random human behavior, like Occupy and other stuff.
March 6, 2022
I really like James Scott's writing. He has an inclination toward anarchism as the title suggests, but he is very smart about it, practical and not doctrinaire. He's willing to acknowledge that some good things can come out of modern capitalist society. He mentions that he's not enough of a Luddite to want to give up his refrigerator. But he doesn't let us be complacent in accepting that society has to be the way that it is.
This book isn't quite as good as Against the Grain or Seeing Like a State, as it is more episodic, consisting of separate essays around an anarchist theme, rather than putting forth and defending a comphrehensive thesis. Still it's quite good. And I agree with his idea that spontaneous self organized mass actions, such as desertions, shirking or rioting can sometimes be more important drivers of history than the actions of organized groups who claim credit after the fact and repackage history into stories that make themselves seem wise, strong and in control of a rising tide that in historical reality was carrying them helplessly along.
This book isn't quite as good as Against the Grain or Seeing Like a State, as it is more episodic, consisting of separate essays around an anarchist theme, rather than putting forth and defending a comphrehensive thesis. Still it's quite good. And I agree with his idea that spontaneous self organized mass actions, such as desertions, shirking or rioting can sometimes be more important drivers of history than the actions of organized groups who claim credit after the fact and repackage history into stories that make themselves seem wise, strong and in control of a rising tide that in historical reality was carrying them helplessly along.
March 29, 2013
While I applaud any academic work which explains and highlights the potentials of Anarchism,
this presentation is a pallid shallow shadow next to academics who have true experience working in activism. Discussing how pedestrians make paths off sidewalks, which the city create sidewalks from, is a squalid description compared to David Graeber's real-time descriptions and explanation of activist meetings, actions, and international relations.
In short, one should read Graeber's "Direct Action," but feel free to skim "Two Cheers for Anarchism."
this presentation is a pallid shallow shadow next to academics who have true experience working in activism. Discussing how pedestrians make paths off sidewalks, which the city create sidewalks from, is a squalid description compared to David Graeber's real-time descriptions and explanation of activist meetings, actions, and international relations.
In short, one should read Graeber's "Direct Action," but feel free to skim "Two Cheers for Anarchism."
January 20, 2015
I will keep this short and say that this is a book that everyone should read. But, there are two groups of people who should read it more carefully than others: The leftists who think a "well-oiled machine" through enhanced bureaucracy is the key to moving forward. And the libertarians who rationalize a fundamental believe in "the market", and therefore calculating everything, will be mankind's path to freedom.
November 9, 2016
We must remember always that no matter what conditions we live in, we have options for action.
We always can act with dignity.
We always can bring power to ourselves and those who wish to act with us in the world. There are always possibilities.
Scott shows this is true.
For myself, those actions will be accompanied by mindfulness and loving compassion. At least, that is what I strive for.
We always can act with dignity.
We always can bring power to ourselves and those who wish to act with us in the world. There are always possibilities.
Scott shows this is true.
For myself, those actions will be accompanied by mindfulness and loving compassion. At least, that is what I strive for.
November 29, 2012
A spirited defence of the petty bourgeoisie as the real anarchists of the world.
January 31, 2022
Having read this whilst tired, I want to refrain from rating until I can read it again.
August 23, 2021
anarşizmin basitçe ergenlerin çantasındaki rozet dışında pek bir şey ifade etmemesi insanlar için çok üzücü. anarşi kelimesini o kadar çok kullanıyoruz ve o kadar fazla şeye yakıştırıyoruz ki inanılmaz çünkü anarşizmin tanımını bile yapabileceğini zannetmiyorum çoğu insanın.
"hiyerarşi ya da devlet kanunu olmadan iş birliği" diye açıklıyor Scott basitçe. aslında zaten beklenenin bu yönde ilerlediği ve aslında kanunların yerine bilimin yavaş yavaş geçmesi gerektiğini söylüyor. eğer devlet büyükleri ve insanları ayrışmaktan çıkarları olan insanlar olmasaydı yani. şey gibi çözülen çoğu fizik sorusunun sürtünmesiz ortamda gerçekleşmesi ve aslında dünyada öyle bir ortamın olmaması gibi bir şey.
neoliberalizm. yani dinimiz para olmuş demenin kültürlü hali. anarşistlerin zaten beklediği de bu yöndeydi. amerikanın her şeyi "rüya" olarak göstermesinden sonra güney amerika vb yerlerde buna özeniyor. ambalaj parlak.
isyan kısmına gelmek lazım bence.
isyan neden iyidir? çünkü her kurala körü körüne inanmamakla başlar isyan. düşünmekle başlar. bunu da tabiki neoliberal toplumlar (dünyanın %95i) ister mi? istemez. eğer tüm yol gözüküyorsa ve araba hiç gözükmüyorsa türkler ışıkları sallamaz. ama bir avrupalı asla geçmez. bu noktada işte kuralları kafamızda mantık çerçevesinde tartmamız gerekiyor.
farklı tarzda yani toplumsal olan isyanlar da vardır. işte tüm dünya asıl bundan korkuyor. o yüzden anarşikler hiçbir zaman iyi anılmıyor, hiçbir toplumda. bu toplumsal isyanlar düzensizdir. "düzgün bir iddia veya talep olmaksızın tam gelişmemiş bir öfke ve yabancılaşma çığlığıdır" diyor Scott. liberal sistem asıl bundan korkuyor. çünkü bu noktadan sonra aksama gerçekleşecek.
toplu isyanlar, toplu grevler, başkaldırılar neden sorun? çünkü liberallerin cebine giren parayı etkiliyor. üretim bandında aksaklık. eğer bunu becerebilirsek istediğimiz her şeyi alabileceğimizi söylüyor. geniş çaplı bir aksama veya başkaldırı....
işte bunlar olmamalı. o zaman ne olmalı? devlet denilen illetin herkesin hayatına kabus gibi çökmesi gerekiyor. bizleri sınıflandırması, ayırması, incelemesi, düzene sokması, nutuk atması bazı şeyleri çocukluktan bize zerk etmesi gerekiyor. okul gibi. 9/5 çalışma düzenine alıştırmak için olabilir mi acaba????? işte olay burada kopuyor. bizi o kadar mekanize ediyorlar ki çoğu şeyi bizim için devlet düşünüyor. "gönüllü işbirliğinden doğan doğal insiyatifi ve sormluluğu devlet yok eder." diyor Scott. devletler insanları özgür bırakamıyor. bırakırsa insanların toplanıp kendi kollektif hayatlarını kurması en büyük korkuları. eğer bazı şeyler kanun ve devletten üstün, bireylerin bireylere karşı olan tavrı ile alakalı olursa bunu nasıl yıkabilirler ve bundan nasıl para kazanabilirler ki?
bunlar kitapta anlatılan binlerce süper düşünceden benim aklımda en kalanlar ve en çok sanırım beni aydınlatanlar. çok daha fazlası ve ayrıntısı var kitapta. düzenlerden nefret ediyor ve neden şu insanları kendi hallerine bırakmıyorlar, bayrak ulus diye şişirip şişirip dünya insanlığını bölmeye çalışıyorlar diye düşünüyorsanız, bu kitap tam size göre.
"hiyerarşi ya da devlet kanunu olmadan iş birliği" diye açıklıyor Scott basitçe. aslında zaten beklenenin bu yönde ilerlediği ve aslında kanunların yerine bilimin yavaş yavaş geçmesi gerektiğini söylüyor. eğer devlet büyükleri ve insanları ayrışmaktan çıkarları olan insanlar olmasaydı yani. şey gibi çözülen çoğu fizik sorusunun sürtünmesiz ortamda gerçekleşmesi ve aslında dünyada öyle bir ortamın olmaması gibi bir şey.
neoliberalizm. yani dinimiz para olmuş demenin kültürlü hali. anarşistlerin zaten beklediği de bu yöndeydi. amerikanın her şeyi "rüya" olarak göstermesinden sonra güney amerika vb yerlerde buna özeniyor. ambalaj parlak.
isyan kısmına gelmek lazım bence.
isyan neden iyidir? çünkü her kurala körü körüne inanmamakla başlar isyan. düşünmekle başlar. bunu da tabiki neoliberal toplumlar (dünyanın %95i) ister mi? istemez. eğer tüm yol gözüküyorsa ve araba hiç gözükmüyorsa türkler ışıkları sallamaz. ama bir avrupalı asla geçmez. bu noktada işte kuralları kafamızda mantık çerçevesinde tartmamız gerekiyor.
farklı tarzda yani toplumsal olan isyanlar da vardır. işte tüm dünya asıl bundan korkuyor. o yüzden anarşikler hiçbir zaman iyi anılmıyor, hiçbir toplumda. bu toplumsal isyanlar düzensizdir. "düzgün bir iddia veya talep olmaksızın tam gelişmemiş bir öfke ve yabancılaşma çığlığıdır" diyor Scott. liberal sistem asıl bundan korkuyor. çünkü bu noktadan sonra aksama gerçekleşecek.
toplu isyanlar, toplu grevler, başkaldırılar neden sorun? çünkü liberallerin cebine giren parayı etkiliyor. üretim bandında aksaklık. eğer bunu becerebilirsek istediğimiz her şeyi alabileceğimizi söylüyor. geniş çaplı bir aksama veya başkaldırı....
işte bunlar olmamalı. o zaman ne olmalı? devlet denilen illetin herkesin hayatına kabus gibi çökmesi gerekiyor. bizleri sınıflandırması, ayırması, incelemesi, düzene sokması, nutuk atması bazı şeyleri çocukluktan bize zerk etmesi gerekiyor. okul gibi. 9/5 çalışma düzenine alıştırmak için olabilir mi acaba????? işte olay burada kopuyor. bizi o kadar mekanize ediyorlar ki çoğu şeyi bizim için devlet düşünüyor. "gönüllü işbirliğinden doğan doğal insiyatifi ve sormluluğu devlet yok eder." diyor Scott. devletler insanları özgür bırakamıyor. bırakırsa insanların toplanıp kendi kollektif hayatlarını kurması en büyük korkuları. eğer bazı şeyler kanun ve devletten üstün, bireylerin bireylere karşı olan tavrı ile alakalı olursa bunu nasıl yıkabilirler ve bundan nasıl para kazanabilirler ki?
bunlar kitapta anlatılan binlerce süper düşünceden benim aklımda en kalanlar ve en çok sanırım beni aydınlatanlar. çok daha fazlası ve ayrıntısı var kitapta. düzenlerden nefret ediyor ve neden şu insanları kendi hallerine bırakmıyorlar, bayrak ulus diye şişirip şişirip dünya insanlığını bölmeye çalışıyorlar diye düşünüyorsanız, bu kitap tam size göre.
January 4, 2019
"Contrariamente a quel che si pensa, le organizzazioni in genere non fungono da catalizzatore per i movimenti di protesta. In effetti, è più corretto dire che sono i movimenti di protesta a fungere da catalizzatori per le organizzazioni, che poi cercano di addomesticare la protesta dirigendola verso canali istituzionali. Nei confronti delle proteste anti-sistema, le organizzazioni formali sono più un impedimento che un elemento facilitatore."
"Il fatto che il rinnovamento e il progresso democratici sembrino dipendere in modo vitale dai grandi episodi di disordine extra-istituzionale va in contraddizione con le premesse stesse della democrazia in quanto forma di istituzionalizzazione del cambiamento pacifico."
"Più un ordine sociale o economico è formale, regolato e altamente pianificato, più probabilmente avrà un carattere parassitario verso quei processi informali che lo schema formale non riconosce e senza i quali non può continuare a esistere, processi informali che l'ordine formale non può creare né mantenere da solo."
"Il vero processo lavorativo di un ufficio, in un cantiere o in una fabbrica non può essere adeguatamente spiegato solo con le regole che lo governano, per quanto elaborate siano: il lavoro viene svolto solo grazie alle efficaci interpretazioni informali e alle improvvisazioni che avvengono al di fuori di quelle regole."
"Nell'economia neoclassica non esiste un'efficienza lavorativa che non presupponga implicitamente condizioni che la forza lavoro possa accettare e tollerare. Se i lavoratori rifiutano di adeguarsi alla disciplina di un piano lavorativo, con le loro azioni possono vanificare qualunque efficienza."
"Non enunciavano un principio e poi agivano di conseguenza. Piuttosto, agivano e poi derivavano una logica da quell'atto. Il principio astratto era il figlio dell'azione pratica, non il genitore."
"La tendenza a condensare la storia, il nostro desiderio di avere narrazioni limpide, la necessità per élite e istituzioni di proiettare un'immagine di sé basata sul controllo e l'efficienza, tutto questo concorre a fornire una falsa immagine della casualità storica. E occulta il fatto che la maggior parte delle rivoluzioni non sono state il risultato dell'azione dei partiti rivoluzionari ma il precipitato di un'azione improvvisata e spontanea («avventurista», nel lessico marxista); che i movimenti sociali organizzati sono il prodotto e non la causa delle manifestazioni e delle proteste sociali non coordinate; che le grandi conquiste emancipatorie della libertà umana non sono state il risultato di ordinate procedure istituzionali ma di azioni spontanee, disordinate e imprevedibili che hanno incrinato dal basso l'ordine sociale."
"Il fatto che il rinnovamento e il progresso democratici sembrino dipendere in modo vitale dai grandi episodi di disordine extra-istituzionale va in contraddizione con le premesse stesse della democrazia in quanto forma di istituzionalizzazione del cambiamento pacifico."
"Più un ordine sociale o economico è formale, regolato e altamente pianificato, più probabilmente avrà un carattere parassitario verso quei processi informali che lo schema formale non riconosce e senza i quali non può continuare a esistere, processi informali che l'ordine formale non può creare né mantenere da solo."
"Il vero processo lavorativo di un ufficio, in un cantiere o in una fabbrica non può essere adeguatamente spiegato solo con le regole che lo governano, per quanto elaborate siano: il lavoro viene svolto solo grazie alle efficaci interpretazioni informali e alle improvvisazioni che avvengono al di fuori di quelle regole."
"Nell'economia neoclassica non esiste un'efficienza lavorativa che non presupponga implicitamente condizioni che la forza lavoro possa accettare e tollerare. Se i lavoratori rifiutano di adeguarsi alla disciplina di un piano lavorativo, con le loro azioni possono vanificare qualunque efficienza."
"Non enunciavano un principio e poi agivano di conseguenza. Piuttosto, agivano e poi derivavano una logica da quell'atto. Il principio astratto era il figlio dell'azione pratica, non il genitore."
"La tendenza a condensare la storia, il nostro desiderio di avere narrazioni limpide, la necessità per élite e istituzioni di proiettare un'immagine di sé basata sul controllo e l'efficienza, tutto questo concorre a fornire una falsa immagine della casualità storica. E occulta il fatto che la maggior parte delle rivoluzioni non sono state il risultato dell'azione dei partiti rivoluzionari ma il precipitato di un'azione improvvisata e spontanea («avventurista», nel lessico marxista); che i movimenti sociali organizzati sono il prodotto e non la causa delle manifestazioni e delle proteste sociali non coordinate; che le grandi conquiste emancipatorie della libertà umana non sono state il risultato di ordinate procedure istituzionali ma di azioni spontanee, disordinate e imprevedibili che hanno incrinato dal basso l'ordine sociale."
August 3, 2020
Definitely going to re read parts of this book annually. Very Taleb-ian. Central control is rarely good, small feats of anarchy (think j-walking) that become accepted are the building blocks to take this power away from the state and give it back to the lowest constituent members of society. Crossing the street when there is no car coming is more efficient than waiting for your turn to go.
I think I am reading a lot of things from this perspective these days. I am wary that I am beginning to have the "hammer problem" - to a hammer, every problem looks like a nail. But I also am not impressed with centrally controlled systems. Who knows.
This book takes no time to read and it is entirely possible to skip around. It is worth your time.
I think I am reading a lot of things from this perspective these days. I am wary that I am beginning to have the "hammer problem" - to a hammer, every problem looks like a nail. But I also am not impressed with centrally controlled systems. Who knows.
This book takes no time to read and it is entirely possible to skip around. It is worth your time.
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