The Review of Austrian Economics

, Volume 25, Issue 1, pp 1–7 | Cite as

An anarchist’s reflection on the political economy of everyday life

Article
First Online:

Abstract

James Scott has written a detailed ethnography on the lives of the peoples of upland Southeast Asia who choose to escape oppressive government by living at the edge of their civilization. To the political economist the fascinating story told by Scott provides useful narratives in need of analytical exposition. There remains in this work a “plea for mechanism”; the mechanisms that enable social cooperation to emerge among individuals living outside the realm of state control. Social cooperation outside the formal rules of governance nevertheless require “rules” of social intercourse and techniques of “enforcement” to ensure the disciplining of opportunistic behavior.

Keywords

Economic development Self-regulation Political economy Peasant economy 

JEL Codes

O17 P48 
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Copyright information

© Springer Science+Business Media, LLC 2011

Authors and Affiliations

  1. 1.Department of EconomicsGeorge Mason UniversityFairfaxUSA

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