In his analysis of farmers and the subsistence ethic, James C. Scott writes:
“In bad years the collection of taxes fell off substantially and, reluctantly, remissions were granted for whole districts hit by floods, pests, or drought. This lenience may in part have been due to a symbolic alignment of the traditional court with the welfare of its subjects but it was also surely a reflection of the traditional state’s inability to reliably control much of its hinterland.”1.
Continue reading “The Centralisation of Power”
- James C. Scott, The Moral Economy of the Peasant: Rebellion and Subsistence in Southeast Asia: Rebellion and Subsistence in South East Asia (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1977), 53 ↩