Throughout history, there have always existed many individuals claiming to know what progress is and how to achieve it. Some of these individuals claim more than just intellectual insight, i.e. intellectual superiority, and along with a belief that it is possible to succeed in the reordering of society and nature, they justify and control the powers of the state and use it to create something that is supposedly dedicated to human advancement. With the help of the best available scientist, engineers, technicians and architects, they centralize planning to create the best society possible, according to them. In some sense, these social engineers or economic planners are the creators of what James C. Scott calls, the high modernist state, where technocratic and authoritarian principles are implemented to achieve progress. “Political rationalists” are what Oakeshott, in Rationalism in Politics, calls them. The high modernist approach has bettered many factors of society including health and safety, but there are hardly any positive long term effects. This is because, at its very core, it is impossible for the state to have all the information necessary to truly be able to function so it ends up simplifying the world when trying to understand it. In addition, while the government continually grows, vast numbers of people who have been hired by the state seemingly turn into parts of a machine made only to produce utility. For these reasons, states should not be used to achieve the ends of the high modernist philosophy.
On some utilitarian grounds, the high modernist state may seem to be achieving many positive outcomes. In his book, Seeing like a State, Scott explains how roads were named before states took it upon themselves to name them and how it helped benefit society when it translated this vernacular knowledge into official knowledge. In certain towns, a road’s name would always describe its destination but that created multiple names for the same road, depending on where you’re coming from. If remained unchanged, this would have led to many problems and confusions for tourists, for police and for people stuck in car accidents on a road with many names. The state, in its infinite wisdom, gives an official name/number to these roads so that there would be no confusion between road names. This, along with the state initiative to create and legalize surnames, helped organize society and individual identities so that it would be a lot easier to find, protect and tax citizens. Louis Napoleon’s reconstruction of Paris is another example of a transition into high modernism. He provided efficient roads, decent sewage, relatively clean water, gas lighting etc. but most importantly, especially after the revolutions of 1789, 1830 and 1848, he formed Paris so that it would have increased security from revolutionaries. Roads and train tracks were made to go directly to the heart of the city from the barracks’ while many squares, where revolutionaries would usually meet, had been torn down. All done in the name of safety, health and efficiency, he was able to justify the protections set for the state.
However, one should be skeptical of any positive outcomes achieved through political rationalism as any claim to have enough intellect to govern is also an impossible claim of being able to attain it. States cannot efficiently allocate resource, land, labor etc. as the worldwide economy is constantly changing; nobody can know what is happening in every local economy in the world. Those involved in the economy, unlike the central planner, can do the right thing in relative ignorance and are not subject to an unattainable obligation of reaching omniscience. People, being capable of solving problems that they don‘t understand, may be blinded from even recognizing a market structure or its effectiveness (Hayek). In effect, the central planner, regardless of his intellect, is still lacking in attaining all the necessary knowledge which, in turn, forces him to create a simplified version of reality. Simplifications are sometimes useful (e.g. maps, mathematics, etc.) but when one has access to the violent monopoly of the state and tries to shape society according to a simplified map, there is a tendency to simplify reality as well. Also, the nature of the state skews knowledge when it simplifies the world. The state only concerns itself with aspects of social life that it deems to be of official or of utilitarian interest. Facts attained are always static, egalitarian and written documents (i.e. verbal or numerical). Also, to be able to make collective assessments, officials find themselves needing to group individuals. Scott gives the example of scientific forestry which had devastated forests and profits when it tried to turn the forest into an efficient lumber producer. Clear cutting and only planting efficient lumber trees not only ruined the soil capital that had been created by the mixed forest which were needed for regeneration, but also eliminated many other resources and animals such as fodder, nuts & berries, medicinal plants, animals, etc. This problem arises from an inability to collect all the necessary knowledge while, at the same time, simplifying the very knowledge available. Cities, much like these forest, can be either planned or created through thousands of individual activities and people going about their regular business. Also, by promising their followers that, if they follow their path, they too can gain superiority in knowledge and understanding, the political rationalists gain the will of the majority as well; which becomes increasingly helpful when trying to implement their philosophy within a democratic state.
Political rationalists are also fully aware of all those who also claim rationality but are disagreeing with them, yet in their valiant effort, they still bring it on themselves to force all those within a certain domain to do as they say and of course, not as they do (e.g. create laws against violence using violence). In contrast, economic rationalism, opposes using the state to achieve desired ends as it humbly admits that it cannot attain the knowledge necessary to be able to fully function properly; for it to dump any negative consequences it causes on society would be unjust. Although both public and private institutions have the capability to standardize cultural diversity, one is essentially coercive cultural homogenization while the other is pluralistic, syncretistic and evolutionary assimilation.
Oakeshott explains rationalism as a balance of a politics of perfection and a politics of uniformity and categorizes it as using technical knowledge, that which can be learned through formulas, books and being able to learn how to learn, rather than practical knowledge, that which can be learned through continual practice. To them, perfection is indeed uniform and they strive so that all of mankind, or at least the ones within their domain, reach it, whether they like it or not. Using violence against their own people, all to reach their own views of perfection, dehumanizes them. The reality is, especially when states have differences among themselves, expansion will become the primary purpose for the state. Since it has no problem using violence against its own citizens, it definitely should not have any problems with minorities and those outside their state. So all who disagree must either be assimilated or be destroyed. However, even high modernist states recognize that violence is inefficient when it comes to profit so, as Scott portrays it, the creation of institutions to help with the constant exploitation of other countries, like the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund and the World Trade Organization, was only natural. To be more efficient in turning humans into nothing but parts of a machine made solely for utility maximization, the high modernist state needs to socially engineer their lives through public education, public healthcare, state imposed correctional facilities, a unitary monetary system, a federal bank and of course, a military to impose it all. The three institutions listed above help western countries gain control over all these factors in countries they do not have direct power over. Brasilia would be a good example of a working high modernist state that had been built from scratch. Instead of representing the country’s history, people and culture, Brasilia was built for an abstract citizen living an abstract idea of what a great internationalist city should be. There are no street festivals, no crowds and no landmarks; just big empty squares and architectural repetitions which help emphasize collective uniformity and devalue individual heroism. Foucault, in Discipline and Punish, explains that high modernist states, like Brasilia, are made so that we all act like slaves, even when there is no master. It has the ability to subject its citizens into submission and control, making them become part of this modernity by giving them schedules and timetables for everyday life. Brasilia had been made into a machine where the state holds the vast majority of employment opportunities, narrowing choice and standardizing pay. Also, in its quest for complete transparency, the state strives to minimize the number of languages spoken, extinguishing the histories of past cultures. Doctors actually ended up treating a clinical condition called Brasilitis; a depression caused by living a home and work lifestyle within a socially deprived environment. Society exposes its weakness in its inability to resist, succumbing to high modernism.
Accordingly, it is impossible for high modernist states to run properly as they can never achieve the knowledge necessary for governance. Much like centrally planned forests, high modernist states create many economic and social issues that are not necessarily recognized at first but which ultimately dispossess citizens of their humanity. It may be fine to build a city that preserves health and safety, but when this is done without using the leviathan, there is no fear of depression caused by social and cultural deprivation.
Foucault, Michel. Discipline and Punish : The Birth of the Prison. New York: Vintage, 1995.
Hayek, “The Use of Knowledge in Society,” The American Economic Review, Vol. 35, No. 4. (Sep., 1945), pp. 519-530. Stable URL: http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0002- 8282%28194509%2935%3A4%3C519%3ATUOKIS%3E2.0.CO%3B2-1
Oakeshott, Michael, and Timothy Fuller. Rationalism in Politics and Other Essays. Danbury: Liberty Fund, Incorporated, 1991.
Scott, James C. Seeing Like a State : How Certain Schemes to Improve the Human Condition Have Failed. New York: Yale UP, 1999.
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