“ The larger the pile of rubble you leave behind, the larger your place in the historical record! James C. Scott
“ That frontier operated as a rough and ready homeostatic device; the more a state pressed its subjects, the fewer subjects it had. The frontier underwrote popular freedom. James C. Scott
“ Encouragement of sedentarism is perhaps the oldest state project, a project related to the second-oldest state project of taxation. James C. Scott
“ Ethnicity and tribe began, by definition, where sovereignty and taxes ended. The ethnic zone was feared and stigmatized by state rhetoric precisely because it was beyond its grasp and therefore an exa… James C. Scott
“ The petite bourgeoise and small property in general represent a precious zone of autonomy and freedom in state systems increasingly dominated by large public and private bureaucracies. James C. Scott
“ Given a choice between patterns of subsistence that are relatively unfavorable to the cultivator but which yield a greater return in manpower or grain to the state and those patterns that benefit the… James C. Scott
“ Early Near Eastern villages domesticated plants and animals. Uruk urban institutions, in turn, domesticated humans. James C. Scott
“ It is time someone put in a good word for the petite bourgeoise. Unlike the working class and capitalists, who have never lack for spokespersons, the petite bourgeoise rarely, if ever, speaks for itse… James C. Scott
“ Modern statecraft is largely a project of internal colonization, often glossed, as it is in imperial rhetoric, as a civilizing mission. James C. Scott
“ Nothing could be further from the truth. All identities, without exception, have been socially constructed: the Han, the Burman, the American, the Danish, all of them. Quite often such identities, par… James C. Scott
“ But all these systems of ‘education’ lack provisions for freedom of experiment, for training and for expression of creative abilities by those who are to be taught. In this respect also all our pedago… James C. Scott
“ Telling a farmer only that he is leasing twenty acres of land is about as helpful as telling a scholar that he has bought six kilograms of books. James C. Scott
“ Center for Disease Control in Atlanta is a striking case in point. Its network of sample hospitals allowed it to first discover—in the epidemiological sense—such hitherto unknown diseases as toxic sho… James C. Scott
“ A language is the joint historical creation of millions of speakers. Although all speakers have some effect on the trajectory of a language, the process is not particularly egalitarian. Linguists, gra… James C. Scott
“ What is inadmissible, both morally and scientifically, is the hubris that pretends to understand the behavior of human agents without for a moment listening systematically to how they understand what… James C. Scott
“ Not so very long ago, however, such self-governing peoples were the majority of humankind. Today, they are seen from the valley kingdoms as our living ancestors, what we were like before we discovered… James C. Scott
“ The despot is not a man. It is the Plan. The correct, realistic, exact plan, the one that will provide your solution once the problem has been posited clearly, in its entirety, in its indispensable ha… James C. Scott
“ 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… James C. Scott
“ The aspiration to such uniformity and order alerts us to the fact that modern statecraft is largely a project of internal colonization, often glossed, as it is in its imperial rhetoric, as a 'civilizi… James C. Scott
