Scott's work focuses on the ways that
subaltern people resist domination.
The Moral Economy of the Peasant During the
Vietnam War, Scott took an interest in
Vietnam and wrote
The Moral Economy of the Peasant: Rebellion and Subsistence in Southeast Asia (1976) about the ways peasants resisted authority. Scott asserted that the highest priority for most peasants is ensuring that their incomes will not fall below minimal subsistence level. They desire higher income levels and will pursue them aggressively under some circumstances, but if their only path toward higher incomes is a gamble that might drop them below subsistence level if it did not work out, they will almost always reject that gamble. Scott asserted that in traditional societies, many (though by no means all) peasants have relationships with the elite that provide some degree of assurance that the peasants will not fall below subsistence level. The peasants believe that elites are under a strong moral obligation to behave in a fashion that respects peasant needs (hence the phrase “moral economy” in his title), and they use such leverage as they have to persuade elites to do this. Elites are naturally less enthusiastic about this than peasants are. The processes of modernization often reduce peasant leverage. When peasant leverage becomes inadequate, elites often abandon their traditional moral obligations. Peasants react with shock and outrage, sometimes with riot or rebellion.
Samuel Popkin, in his book
The Rational Peasant (1979), wanting to refute some ideas he regarded as unfounded, made those ideas seem more influential than they were by 1) Saying that these were the ideas of a group he called the "moral economists." 2) Making it clear that he regarded Scott, an influential and highly respected scholar, as the most conspicuous spokesman for the "moral economists." Popkin's "moral economists," unlike the actual James Scott, believed "that peasants have a fixed view of a proper income, that they will not strive to raise their income beyond that level, and that they are not interested in new forms of consumption." Popkin argued these "moral economists," romanticized the traditional elites, suggesting that the elites often would act benevolently without much regard for their own self-interest. Popkin gave an impression that he and Scott represented two radically different positions in the
formalist–substantivist debate in political anthropology.
Weapons of the Weak In
Weapons of the Weak: Everyday Forms of Peasant Resistance (1985) Scott expanded his theories to peasants in other parts of the world. Scott's theories are often contrasted with
Gramscian ideas about
hegemony. Against Gramsci, Scott argues that the
everyday resistance of
subalterns shows that they have not consented to dominance. (1990) Scott argues that subordinate groups employ strategies of resistance that go unnoticed. He terms this "infrapolitics". Scott describes the public interactions between dominators and
oppressed as a "public transcript" and the critique of power that goes on offstage as a "hidden transcript".David Thang and James C. Scott, "Reading Romans 13:1-7 as a Hidden Transcript of Public Theology," International Journal of Public Theology, 17 (2): 226-245. Groups under domination—from
bonded labor to
sexual violence—thus cannot be understood merely by their outward appearances. In order to study the systems of domination, careful attention is paid to what lies beneath the surface of evident, public behavior. In public, those that are oppressed accept their domination, but they always question their domination offstage. On the event of a publicization of this "hidden transcript," oppressed classes openly assume their speech and become conscious of its common status.
Seeing Like a State Scott's book
Seeing Like a State: How Certain Schemes to Improve the Human Condition Have Failed (1998) saw his first major foray into political science. In it, he showed how
central governments attempt to force
legibility on their subjects, and fail to see complex, valuable forms of local social order and knowledge. Scott argues that in order for schemes to improve the human condition to succeed, they must take into account local conditions, and that the
high-modernist ideologies of the 20th century have prevented this. He highlights
collective farms in the
Soviet Union, the building of
Brasília, and
Prussian
forestry techniques as examples of failed schemes.
The Art of Not Being Governed In
The Art of Not Being Governed, Scott addresses the question of how certain groups in the mountainous jungles of Southeast Asia managed to avoid a package of exploitation centered around the state, taxation, and grain cultivation. Certain aspects of their society seen by outsiders as backward (e.g., limited literacy and use of written language) were in fact part of the "Arts" referenced in the title: limiting literacy meant lower visibility to the state. Scott's main argument is that these people are "barbaric by design": their social organization, geographical location, subsistence practices and culture have been carved to discourage states to annex them to their territories. Addressing identity in the Introduction, he wrote:
Against the Grain Published in August 2017,
Against the Grain: A Deep History of the Earliest States is an account of new evidence for the beginnings of the
earliest civilizations that contradict the standard narrative. Scott explores why we avoided
sedentism and
plow agriculture; the advantages of
mobile subsistence; the unforeseeable
epidemics arising from crowding plants, animals, and grain; and why all early states are based on
millets,
cereal grains and
unfree labor. He also discusses the "barbarians" who long evaded state control, as a way of understanding continuing tension between states and non-subject peoples.
Other works In
Two Cheers for Anarchism: Six Easy Pieces on Autonomy, Dignity, and Meaningful Work and Play (2012), Scott says that "Lacking a comprehensive anarchist worldview and philosophy, and in any case wary of nomothetic ways of seeing, I am making a case for a sort of anarchist squint. What I aim to show is that if you put on anarchist glasses and look at the history of popular movements, revolutions, ordinary politics, and the state from that angle, certain insights will appear that are obscured from almost any other angle. It will also become apparent that anarchist principles are active in the aspirations and political action of people who have never heard of
anarchism or anarchist philosophy." ==Awards and fellowships==