Assignment Desk: What Are the Best Readings for a Week Spent Teaching James C. Scott-Stuff?
The night watchman state that supports the fully-developed market economy is one of the most strange and significant historical development in political economy. Any analysis of it requires that one view hit in perspective—that one examine other the other alternative forms that state power and authority can and do take and have taken.
And the greatest sociologist-political scientist-historian of our age analyzing such things is James C. Scott. I have often wished that I had a reading list on Scott-stuff to hand. And I wish somebody would construct an annotated one:
Here are my thoughts:
- James Scott and Friedrich von Hayek http://delong.typepad.com/sdj/2007/10/james-scott-and.html
- Perhaps. And Sometimes https://www.cato-unbound.org/2010/09/16/j-bradford-delong/perhaps-sometimes
Here are some more starting points:
- James C. Scott: Seeing like a State: How Certain Schemes to Improve the Human Condition Have Failed http://amzn.to/2toma1E
- James C. Scott: Against the Grain: A Deep History of the Earliest States http://amzn.to/2sZoVHb
- James C. Scott: The Trouble with the View from Above https://www.cato-unbound.org/2010/09/08/james-c-scott/trouble-view-above
- Timothy B. Lee: Of Hayek and Rubber Tomatoes https://www.cato-unbound.org/2010/09/24/timothy-b-lee/hayek-rubber-tomatoes
- Friedrich von Hayek: The Use of Knowledge in Society http://www.econlib.org/library/Essays/hykKnw1.html
- Paul Seabright: http://paulseabright.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/Paul-Seabright-reviews-%E2%80%98Seeing-Like-a-State%E2%80%99-by-James-C.-Scott-%C2%B7-LRB-27-May-1999.pdf
- Mark Koyama: Some Thoughts on “Seeing Like a State” https://medium.com/@MarkKoyama/some-thoughts-on-seeing-like-a-state-6b151be25479
- Noel D. Johnson and Mark Koyama: https://mason.gmu.edu/~mkoyama2/About_files/StateCapacitySurvey.pdf
- Jacob T. Levy: On Seeing Like a State https://www.cato-unbound.org/2010/09/20/editors/letters-department-jacob-t-levy-seeing-state
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