In Seeing Like A State ¹ the author discusses how the state necessarily “makes legible” its people and resources — and in doing so necessarily loses information. The author in particular focuses on what is termed " high modernism" which is defined as the ability to design and operate the state. the book then becomes primarily around failed state planning. These are some thoughts I have about the content. It isn’t a summary but more of some weakly held thoughts.

1. Abstractions are inherently leaky—and by ignoring the leaks one inherently can cause damage or mismanage. This is well known to software engineers.
2. It reminds me of the critiques of taylorism and Scientific management.
3. Legibility is absolutely required for any coherent state to emerge. I found an interesting article ² that discusses the difference between imposed legibility (what this book critiques) and clarifying legibility which makes the navigation and understanding easier even to the local residents.
4. The patterns of using legibility to design systems are a mixture of failure of abstraction but also of social control. One that stood out to me is how the King of France mandated uniform measures of grain in order to exert control over the nobles (see pp. 51–58). By enforcing a uniform measurement it was the King, rather the nobles that determined taxation.
5. Legibility isn’t inherently bad. By homogenising people you can also enforce rights: “At one stroke the equality of all French people before the law was guaranteed by the state; they were no longer mere subjects of their lords and sovereign but bearers of inalienable rights as citizens” (p. 58)

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