Markets and Metis: Reading Hayek with Scott

Both James C. Scott and Friedrich Hayek articulate critiques of centralised state planning that are fundamentally epistemological in character. In particular, both emphasize the loss of knowledge resulting from attempts to achieve synoptic legibility of complex social practices. Yet while Hayek’s critique of central planning leads to an emphasis on the indispensability of the price system, Scott argues that capitalist markets are also mechanisms of perverse simplification. This paper explores the roots of this disagreement and seeks to articulate the insights that emerge from reading Hayek and Scott together on questions of markets, knowledge, and the state.