James Scott is known for portraying the moral world of peasants, showing how they have resisted the encroachment of capitalism and the state. Now he investigates the other side: the experts, bureaucrats, and revolutionaries whose grandiose schemes to improve the human condition have inflicted untold misery on the twentieth century. Seeing Like a State can be read, along with Foucault's Discipline and Punish and James Ferguson's The Anti-Politics Machine, as a classic of ‘structural dysfunctionalism.' The point (put metaphorically) is not merely that the cure for social ills has proven inadequate-but that the disease inhered in the diagnosis, and that failure will continue so long as the doctors prevail.
The dysfunction, Scott argues, derived from three modern conditions.
Right up front, and in part because this is going to be a “tough love” commentary, I want to say that of all those of any persuasion who are known presidential contenders, Mike Huckabee is the only one I genuinely like, trust, and would support. Mitch Daniels surprised me with his gifted presentation at the conservative caucus, and Donald Trump has his own gifts, but for me, Huckabee is a natural. I review his book in the third part of this review, the first two sections are short tough love stage setters.
That said, he is not attracting the big money, he needs a broader advisory base, and he needs to inspire ALL Americans.
As a former direct report to John Guenther, who served along the same lines for many years in Marine Corps counterintelligence in Europe and elsewhere, I have to admire what this author has done and certainly agree that it is useful and important perspective from a ground-level point of view.
I like the names, the photos, the details. HOWEVER, there are two contextual issues that are not well-represented in the book, which is a historical account.
First, the author was and remains unwitting of the fact that the US was funding the Red Brigades and creating a false terrorist threat within Italy in order to further consolidate the power of the fascist government in the post-war period. Only recently has all of this been exposed in the aftermath of the CIA renditions out of Italy, and testimony finally elicited from several participants in the earlier cover operations . In that context then, this book has to be seen as a partial unwitting account. For the tip of the iceberg, see Journal: Nato's Secret Armies (It's Not Terror if CIA Pays and Locals Do the Dirty….) at Phi Beta Iota the Public Intelligence Blog.
Extraordinary Personal Effort, Constrained by Publisher
February 21, 2011
I received a copy of this book at my request from the author himself (I am unemployed, and globally available).
I gave the author's first book, The Second World: How Emerging Powers Are Redefining Global Competition in the Twenty-first Century, a five star leaning toward six review. This book is carried from a high four to a low five because of the concluding insights, but it also disappoints in relation to both the contributing experiences (as recounted in the Acknowledgments), and the broader literature that is not evident in this book, very possibly because of page limits set by the publisher. For more, see my Worth A Look: Book Review Lists (Positive) and also Worth A Look: Book Review Lists (Negative) at Phi Beta Iota the Public Intelligence Blog. Indeed, the author's work, his professional network, and his multi-cultural insights are a perfect complement to my own–he knows much that I do not know, and vice versa. The index is mediocre–that is on the publisher, not the author, and I suspect that other publisher constraints kept this book from being all that the author would normally have offered. The publisher has also been remiss in not offering “Look Inside the Book” details to Amazon, a free service.
The author's focus is on the failure of state-based diplomacy and the emergence as well as the need for more mega-diplomacy, which he quite ably defined as a constantly shifting mélange of hybrid relationships that full integrate nations, states, businesses, and non-governmental organizations–what they know, what they can share, and what they can do TOGETHER. Although the author is clearly a strong proponent of public-private partnerships, this is an area where others have done more nuanced work, generally limited to one sector. Panarchy: Understanding Transformations in Human and Natural Systems, and Paul Hertzog's work (Panarchy.com) are where we are all headed. On a second reading I picked up an easy to miss and rather startling emphasis, not fully developed, on the need to re-map colonial territories to diminish incentives for the military-industrial complex while boosting cross-border economic collaboration. The author sees, better than most, the harm done by artificial boundaries inconsistent with natural and tribal boundaries.
“This book introduces a fundamentally new social contract.
It is a pathway into the center of a radically new system of Law and governance.
It is best comprehended with the intelligence of the Heart.”
Dr. Franca Baroni holds a J.D. equivalent and a doctorate in law from the University of Basle, Switzerland, and a master’s in comparative law (L.L.M.) from the University of Miami. She is a member of the New York Bar since 1999 and a member of the Swiss Bar since 1997. She is a certified mediator with the Supreme Court of Florida and a meditation and awareness guide, not aligned with any particular tradition. She lives in Seattle, Washington.
Reuniting America: A Toolkit for Changing the Political Game is a manifesto for a “grassroots upwising,” a transpartisan movement-of-movements. It is the story of the eight year journey of a serious citizen on a quest to discern the principles and practices for transforming the political game from win/lose to win/win. It weaves bold truth telling about power, control and the game of politics with the enlightened humor of a jester willing to point out “the Emperor has no clothes.” As old top-down ways of governing prove inadequate in the face of increasing complexity, it is intended to direct attention to the early signs of a new, cooperative form of political behavior emerging from the bottom-up (beginning with green-progressives working with “conservatarians” to localize economic and political decision-making.)
A Mesh enterprise (as opposed to a Mesh company) consists of everyone directly or indirectly associated with the design, production, marketing, sales, distribution, and servicing. It relies on advanced web and mobile data networks to obtain or create whatever information is needed (e.g. demographics of consumers, market trends and patterns, as well as the nature, extent, and frequency of usage. Also, it makes effective use of word-of-mouth and social network channels to “get the word out” about offers, news, and recommendations.
One Saturday a friend who lives on Nob Hill in S.F. drove a zipcar over to visit me in Sausalito. He was eager to tell me about his trip to Istanbul, paid for by renting out his spare bedroom. Earlier that morning, via a freecycle posting, a stranger picked up some clay pots I'd set out by my garage so he could make a deck garden. Our apparently different actions are, in fact, part of a trend that Roos Rogers and Rachel Botsman dub collaborative consumption in their book, What's Mine is Yours.
Great Mind and Heart, Too Simple, Good Start
