How Governmental Control of Our Lives Has Consistently Failed

We have all heard the saying, 'If the shoe fits, wear it.' Wearing the shoe can sometimes be very beneficial. Look at Cinderella and when she was the only one who fit the glass slipper. Many females tried to fit into the slipper, but only she fit into it, and so she was the only one that the prince would take. That is what has happened with high-modernism in America. High-Modernism (H.M.) was something that failed many times in a variety of different countries, and yet somehow the ideas that it produced have fit so well in America. You are probably asking yourself, "What has Cinderella have to do with anything about Public Administration?" Good question, however, we will see that the idea of something not fitting one person, or country, can fit another country. H.M. failed, in every aspect of the word, in many countries, but it took a growing democracy to make the theory work. In today's paper, we will look at James C. Scott's book, Seeing Like a State, and look at how the countries that tried to use a H.M. scheme to try and put some order to their state failed. Next, we will relate some of those ideas to America, and see how the schemes we have put forth have been highly successful. Finally, we will draw some conclusions about the similarities, and differences, and why H.M. really isn't all that bad.

One of the biggest reasons that H.M. has worked in America and failed in so many other states is outlined in the introduction. Scott tells us that there are four things that need to be present in order for a disaster to take place. One of those is H.M., and another is an administrative ordering of society. Both of these are present in the United States, however, the other two factors are not. The other two factors are an Authoritarian State, and a prostrate civil society that lacks the capacity to resist. If anything, America was born to resist. These are going to be the reason's why H.M. has worked so well in America. So now let's take a look at some specific ways on how H.M. failed in other countries.

When we look first at Chapter two, we start to wonder what the Author is on, because he wants to relate city designs with surnames, languages, and national traffic patterns. How can all of these be related? Well, the author explains it quite well. In every situation, the government was trying to make some sense of the society around it. Let's look at surnames for an example. The government needed some method to collect taxes more efficiently. The problem with collecting taxes was that there was no real way to identify people with their names. There could be four or five John's out there, so how do you know which one you taxed. The way to solve this problem was to give people a last name. So the government went into towns and gave people last names. The problem with this however was that the people never used their last name, so they would forget it the next time the tax collectors were in town. So the project failed miserably. However, in America, we never had a problem with this, why? Well, the reason was is that you were not let through the borders of America until you gave the person registering you in a last name. Once you gave him one, it was written down, and then you had a last name. It worked so well in America because it was a relatively new country, and if you wanted to get in, you had to have a last name. However, surnames did not result in a massive loss of lives, it just resulted in a dramatic change in the way we live, and what we call ourselves.

City designs on the other hand, have lead to a loss of lives, and numerous other problems for the state. When we look back at some of the cities in Europe, the towns were a maze. Unless you were from that area, you will easily get lost. So to the government, this was a headache. The state wanted to be able to go into the town, and if they had to, put down a revolt. This was impossible in the older towns that had a maze for their main streets. So the government went about changing the towns so it was legible for the states. The result of this was a massive displacement of the citizens, and a "sister-city" would evolve. The best example of this is Brasilia in Brazil. Brasilia was designed by Le Corbusier, who also envisioned a better Paris, in the mid 1900's. The king wanted to have a city that was so grand, and with such order that people could get from one place to another in little time, and with little confusion. This was suppose to be an exemplary city that would transfer the lives of Brazilians everywhere. The city is called "The City without crowds" because the streets are all straight, and there are designated areas for everything. In the business district, there are no small shops that have people coming in and out, and every building is the same size. However, the problem with this city is that it failed from the beginning. By 1980, over 75 percent of Brasilia's population lived in settlements outside of the planned city, while the city itself only reached half of the planned population. This in turn, resulted in a massive segregation of the classes. The city was marked by resistance, and no one wanted to be a part of it. The problem with the city was that the planning was too simple. They forget all of the complexities that go into a city, the small businessmen, the variety of stores that keep a robust community going. They forgot about this. In America, we have combined both ideas. The majority of our cities have numbered streets, and for the most part are straight streets with 90-degree corners. Yet we have those small businesses and other things that keep the smaller communities thriving. Had a dictator gone in and said how our city was to be built, and where everything should exactly be, we would be in the same predicament. However, since we are a democracy, we do want to have order, but we keep our citizens in mind when we implement that order.

So far, I have talked about two instances that really didn't result in a massive loss of lives, or a destruction of the society. These examples were just two instances at how a good idea, can go wrong, unless you let the people have some control over what they want. Next however, we will look at a couple of areas where this H.M. was taken too far, and how the idea of getting the society to comply with the governments idea, will result in millions of lives lost.

Russian Collectivism is the best example of this idea. The soviets wanted to get control of the farms for one main reason, to get control of the grain. The government needed the grain so they could feed the people in the cities. The soviets believed, as Americans did, that smaller farms could not produce the quality and quantity that a larger farm could produce. So the Soviet's idea was to get all of the smaller farms and combine them into one big one, with one director in charge of everything. Lenin's desire to get all of these farms into large collective ones was a disaster. The wars and revolutions had caused many people to flee the city, and many people had ownership of their land. So when Lenin wanted to take government control of the land, there was open resistance. Lenin set out massive troops to force the peasants to comply with his orders. Millions of people starved because they refused to comply. In the Ukraine, well over 10 million people were killed because of the massive starvation. Why did Lenin, and eventually Stalin, want all of this land? They believed that government control of the land would provide much more food, and that they would be able to use their power to buy larger machinery that would enable even more food to be produced. And as we have seen, there were disastrous results. However, when we look at America, we have collectivism here in our society. We can look at the farms in America and see how our society was never forced to move towards these large collective farms, but the economy has allowed for it. In fact, Russia looked at the United States as an example of where they wanted to go. How could something that was so similar be so different in its results? The easiest way to explain it is a democracy. When we at America, the people wanted to go towards larger farms, and even today, larger farms are starting to take over even more land. The reason why it has worked so well in America cannot be summed up in one answer. There are many different reason's why it has worked in America, and not in Russia. In America, the economy has allowed bigger farms to flourish. Secondly, the smaller farms, when hit with a bad crop, or bad economy, will go out of business, and the larger farms can take a bad year or two. So eventually, the larger farms are the only ones that are left. So it is mainly the economy that has allowed the idea of a massive farm, which was idealized by the High Modernists, to thrive in America, and kill millions in Russia.

A second example of H.M. causing numerous problems and loss of lives is that of Villagization in Tanzania. The president of Tanzania wanted to change his society, because he viewed it as being backwards. Everyone lived like nomads, moving from one place to another, and that was hardly the type of society that he wanted to rule. His plan was to build cities, with specific land for each person. The cities were drawn up, and he believed that the people would want to move into the new villages. The president did not want to do the same thing that Stalin did and end up killing millions of people. However, the people did not move into the villages as he had hoped, and eventually he forced people to move into the villages. The problem with the villages was that they were not planned out correctly. The villages were usually no where near any farmable land, or any water that the peasants could use. So the people that lived in the villages had to go a long ways away to do their work. Violence was inevitable in this situation. The peasants refused to move, so force and brutality was used against them. Instead of the great plan that the president had envisioned, the villagization resulted in an alienated, skeptical, demoralized, and uncooperative people that paid a huge price in both their finances, and their lives.

So what we have seen is that large plans that the government believes will do a great benefit to the people, ultimately fail because of resistance and over simplification. However, now we will look at America, and see how these same types of plans have not resulted in deaths, misplacement of homes, or revolts. Let's first take a look at the Tennessee Valley Authority, otherwise known as the TVA. When we look at TVA, this was a massive project that gave the government great control, not only over a building project, but also over the entire communities around it. The reason that this H.M. worked so well in America was because of the democracy. The economy was in disarray, and the government had an idea on how to improve the communities that were backwards in their living conditions. The people benefited from this project however, instead of losing. When we look at the benefits of the TVA, we can see that the communities, who did not have electricity, finally got electricity because of this project. Not only that, but the government paid the workers well, and therefore it helped out the economy instead of hurting it. Another example of H.M. at work in America, and how it worked instead of hurting us is that of the Space Program. Without the enormous size of the federal government to support this plan, we would have never reached the moon. But why did another large governmental program work in America? The society wanted this to happen. We looked at the people's opinions, and the public wanted us to try and reach the moon before anyone else. When the public wants you to implement a large program, why not.

The last area I will look at however, is very frightening. The high-modernist idea is to bring order to a society. Social Security is that idea. This has brought more order in our society than any collectivized farming, villagization, and city planning or last names. Let's think about what Social Security entails. Every person in the United States is issued a number, and is kept track of each and every minute. What better way to make sure we pay our taxes than to take it right out of our checks. Why do we have to put down our social security number on our W-2's? The reason is that the government can keep track of how much money you make. That is some kind of order. Not only that, but when Social Security was first brought into the United States, it was said that it would not be used for identification. However, what is on everyone's drivers' license? Our Social Security number. Not only that, our ID numbers in computers in almost every State supported school are our Social Security numbers. In almost every instance, our SS numbers are used for identification, so the government knows exactly where everyone is, what they do, what they buy, and where they are going. The reason that this type of High Modernism has worked so well here in America, is that people don't realize that this is happening. They just think social security is a way for them to have some money when they retire. However, if they realized how much control our government has over them, they probably would not agree with what is happening. But as many people have said before, people are sheep, and the government is just pulling the wool over our eyes.

So let's take a look back at what we have looked at so far. High-Modernism has failed miserably in many different countries. The reason that it failed is that the government did not listen to the public, and what they wanted to happen. Not only that, they were an authoritarian state, that wanted to do something, and they didn't care about the consequences involved with it. However, when we look at America, we can see how High-Modernism has thrived in our society. Maybe High-Modernism isn't too bad, if you don't mind being controlled by the government.

Reference:

James C. Scott; "Seeing Like a State: How Certain Schemes to Improve the Human Condition Have Failed" Yale University Press, 1998, Pg. 1-464

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