The End Condition Analysis

Moving throughout points in human history –but mainly focusing on the 19th and 20th centuries- author James Scott takes the reader through multiple case studies of governments and individuals’ pursuit of a centrally controlled society. Authoritarian countries such as the Soviet Union both before and during the cold war as well as imperialist Germany during World War I are giving special attention due to their capacity and history of leading grand social experiments: significantly altering the regular flow of life for their citizens in the aim of increasing productivity and improving their “end condition”. How the state or state planner defines the end condition varies in each instance, with no two countries having the exact same rationale,
Eventually, as decades passed and the states grew in their capacity to extend their reach, more and more individuals began to make use of their last names; each individual had an incentive to participate in the new system as the increasingly potent governments threatened to double tax individuals who resided outside of their recorded system. This transition was gradual and took generations over changing political landscapes to be fully cemented, and even then Scott implies that much of the shift was a homegrown-led effort, which would mean the most the state could be attributed with is the initial push that spurred on the generations to come.
Although Scott makes the interesting point that no country is immune to lure of central planning, due to its promises of rapid and sustained development managed through simplified models –developed by experts in their field. Especially for countries that have a high number of agrarian-based citizens, reliance on a fast-acting technical solution may be seem like a more viable option than deferring to a potentially misinformed populace. tha addition, the presence proactive, participatory formal
On the other hand, detractors like Rosa Luxemburg and Aleksandra Kollontai believed while a central body of elites had its place in the movement, its sole role should be the nominal guidance of the overall working class: allowing the masses to work towards their ideal form of communism on local and regional levels, rather than dictating terms from the top down. Unfortunately, the centralists won the day in the Soviet Union, and the populace was subjugated to a strict, state interpretation of what communism was to be. In the short-run, the Soviet Union was able to make significant gains in terms of industry, military strength, and global prestige, but at the expense of the strength of its civil society –an issue that was only magnified when Stalin succeeded Lenin, and implemented a series of brutal purges that led to what Scott classified as a perfect set-up to the worst possible outcome of High Modernist thought. Collectivization of agricultural fields meant that individual rights were sidelined for overall productivity; designers aimed for simplicity in grouping these agricultural lands, and foresaw an increase in productivity that warranted relegating individuals as mere numbers. Reducing people into numbers is what allowed the authoritarian government to weather out the