Legibility: Mētis Within the System of Standardized Households

In recent years, a peculiar type of news has frequently emerged in China: on the commercial streets of a certain city, all shops, regardless of what goods they sell, are required to unify their signboard specifications, with identical size, color, and font. The public is generally perplexed by this: business should naturally be diverse, so what is the intention behind such uniformity?

Behind this phenomenon lies the most primal impulse of large systems.

In fact, such phenomena are not limited to large systems. Even some publishing houses adhere to a similar philosophy: the cover designs of their books are highly uniform, lining bookshelves like a parade in uniform, some even bearing serial numbers.

If you possess control, you will instinctively demand that the world be orderly.

This is not merely for aesthetics and tidiness. What large systems pursue is a more profound characteristic: “legibility.”

‘Legibility’: The Underlying Logic of State Governance #

The concept of “legibility” was introduced by American political scientist and anthropologist James C. Scott in his book Seeing Like a State [1] . We have previously explored Scott’s theories; he is particularly adept at dissecting the art of government and the plight of the governed.

Many mistakenly believe that rulers can do whatever they please, but this is not the case. Even if you wield absolute military power and can arbitrarily decide the life and death of others, you cannot simply do as you wish. You need to conscript soldiers, you need to maintain the operation of a bureaucracy, and you must have tax revenue. You must ensure that you can collect taxes without draining the pond to catch all the fish, thereby destroying the populace’s ability to pay taxes.

As mentioned before, grain states are the easiest to tax, but specific collection still requires strategy. Imagine you are an emperor ruling tens of millions of subjects, speaking hundreds of dialects, cultivating lands of various forms… If you wish to levy taxes and conscript soldiers, how would you know how much land and how many people each household possesses?

Scott points out that you first need to make society “legible.”

In fact, the earliest human writing recorded not poetry or love letters, but grain, taxes, and labor [2] .

You might think that Qin Shihuang unified writing and weights and measures to facilitate trade among people nationwide and stimulate the market economy? In reality, that was precisely a technical means for the state to enhance social “legibility.” Countries around the world have undergone similar upgrades in governance techniques: fixing surnames for everyone, surveying and registering land, regularly counting populations, drawing maps, compiling tax registers, and even issuing identity documents.

However, being “legible” is far more than simply “reading.” It does not mean allowing the populace to live as they please, with me sending people to slowly count door-to-door; rather, for the convenience of statistics, the populace must be uniform, living in a way that is more convenient for me to “read.”

In ancient China, “legibility” had a more forceful expression: ‘Standardized Household Registration (编户齐民)’.

This was a customary stratagem of the Qin system: the central government administered commanderies and counties, the counties managed household registers, and local authorities enforced the ‘shi-wu’ mutual responsibility system among the populace, firmly binding households to the land. This set of techniques reached its pinnacle during Zhu Yuanzhang’s era: he registered every individual with “Yellow Registers” and measured every inch of land with “Fish-Scale Land Registers,” categorizing each household into military households, artisan households, salt-producing households, civilian households, courier station households, shop households, boat households, musician households… mandating that they could not change their profession for generations.

When “legibility” reaches this level, it means that for the sake of clear and easily readable state accounts, the populace must relinquish the variability of their lives.

You might call this enslavement, but Zhu Yuanzhang had his own argument: without “legibility,” the state would be blind. If taxes cannot be collected or fairly collected, how can basic public services like safety and protection, infrastructure, and education be provided?

The problem is not that the state “reads” society, but that in its attempt to “read” society, it instead “thins it out.”

How Systems ‘Thin Out’ Society: The German Forest as a Warning #

History has repeatedly proven that the “legibility” Zhu Yuanzhang pursued did not lead to people living in peace and prosperity ever after.

Scott cites a classic case: the German forests in the 18th and 19th centuries.

In the eyes of forestry officials, wild forests were too chaotic: mixed tree species, uneven heights, and countless shrubs, vines, dead branches, and moss covering the forest floor, making it difficult to accurately estimate timber yield. So they simply tore down and started anew, planting a “scientific forest”: a single tree species, equal row spacing, perfectly straight lines, like a military formation. Upon observation, the number of trees, their volume, and value were all clear at a glance. Furthermore, fertilization, pest control, and management were all convenient; this was the effect of “scalability”!

Initially, forestry indeed saw a bumper harvest, attracting all of Europe to learn from its experience. However, a century later, disaster struck.

Those things “rationally” cleared away—fungi, insects, birds, dead branches, humus—were originally the forest’s immune system and nutrient cycling system. Once removed, soil fertility depleted, pest infestations became rampant, and trees grew weaker with each generation, eventually leading to the death of the entire forest. The Germans ultimately had to invite the “wildness” they had initially removed back into the forest.

Looking back, what the state saw was not the forest itself, but timber.

If this is true for trees, how much more so for humans?

The Contraction of Civilizational Temperament: How ‘Legibility’ Shapes People #

What the Germans did to their forests is akin to what the Qin system did to the ancient Chinese. Living on grain, the Chinese people of that era and those of later generations differed immensely in their spiritual outlook.

Zhang Hongjie once made a profoundly insightful analogy [3]: the Chinese spiritual temperament is like a river. The Spring and Autumn period was its upper reaches, with clear water and rushing currents, thus human nature was also clear and robust; the Han and Tang dynasties were its middle reaches, though already carrying mud and sand, still possessed a grand spirit; by the Ming and Qing dynasties, the river neared its lower reaches, its currents weakened, and the spirit also diminished. What we then saw was no longer the aristocratic demeanor of the pre-Qin era, nor the elegant and robust temperament of the Tang and Song dynasties, but an increasingly pervasive numbness, submission, glibness, even servility and thuggishness.

Let’s take the enlightenment texts for children in ancient China as an example. The Thousand Character Classic, compiled during the Southern Dynasties’ Emperor Wu of Liang’s reign and popular during the Sui and Tang dynasties, opens with: “Heaven and earth, dark and yellow; the universe, vast and boundless. Sun and moon rise and set; stars and constellations arrayed…” What grandeur! It admonished people to ponder big questions and undertake great endeavors.

By the time The Three Character Classic was compiled during the Southern Song dynasty, the opening had changed to: “People at birth, are inherently good…” The focus of learning shifted towards ethical order.

And Di Zi Gui (Standards for Being a Good Student and Child), from Emperor Kangxi’s reign in the Qing Dynasty, further narrowed its demands on individuals to: “When parents call, answer without delay; when parents command, do not be lazy…”

This is the contraction of civilizational temperament.

This was neither due to inherent Chinese nature, nor was it an inevitable outcome of grain civilizations; rather, it was the layers of increasingly meticulous governance techniques like household registration, ethical codes, and the imperial examination system that gradually shaped people in this way.

From this perspective, the answer to the so-called “Needham Question” becomes clear: Why did modern science not originate in China? The crux lies in the fact that during the Ming and Qing dynasties, all talented individuals in China pursued the path of the imperial examinations. An empire that pushed the imperial examination, bureaucracy, and assessment systems to their extremes would personally flatten the “illegible wildernesses” within society—and it is precisely these “wildernesses” that can nurture unexpected occurrences, fostering innovation and breakthroughs.

Excessive ‘Legibility’: Self-Inflicted Damage to the Governing Machine #

Excessive “legibility” and “Standardized Household Registration” not only infringe upon the interests of the populace but also render the governing machine itself foolish and fragile.

The strongest periods of rule for Qin-system dynasties were invariably in their early stages. Land was re-surveyed, household registers were re-recorded, taxes and labor services were re-allocated, and military households, artisan households, and salt-producing households all returned to their assigned positions; at that time, order could be said to have been impeccable… However, the day the ledger was tidied up was also the beginning of its distortion.

Populations move, land changes hands, professions evolve, local clerks forge records, powerful families hide their properties, and ordinary people also try to gain some freedom [4]. After several generations, even Zhu Yuanzhang’s descendants no longer fully believed in this system. In the late Ming and late Qing periods, Chinese society was relatively free; on the one hand, commerce became increasingly developed, but on the other hand, the government was unable to cope with the new commercial landscape, its extractive capacity declined, and ultimately it could only oppress farmers.

The crux of “Standardized Household Registration” is that it eradicated all those things that were “difficult to register”—local knowledge, informal cooperation, space for trial and error, heterodox ideas, the intuitive judgment of artisans—wiping them out completely.

Personal Reflection: Safeguarding Your Mētis Wisdom #

I recount these matters not to accuse ancient empires, but to clarify a principle concerning individuals: people cannot “standardize” themselves.

Many are keen on becoming institutionalized, little realizing that institutionalized individuals are often replaceable, and are precisely the most pitiable kind of person.

What Scott truly emphasizes in Seeing Like a State is not that “the state is terrifying,” but a very valuable existence that the state finds difficult to “read.”

This existence even lacks a ready-made English term, prompting Scott to borrow a word from ancient Greek: “mētis.”

“Mētis” is the living wisdom of adapting on the fly and getting things done in constantly changing, never-repeating situations—that is, “cunning intelligence,” “quick wit,” “adaptive wisdom.”

“Mētis” shares similarities with what Polanyi called “tacit knowledge,” which we discussed previously, but their meanings are not entirely identical. “Tacit knowledge” emphasizes knowing but being unable to articulate; whereas “mētis” refers to knowledge that can only be mastered on-site, in the local context—you might be able to articulate it or not, but the core point is that it cannot be learned without being present.

“Mētis” is exemplified when: an old machinist, by simply touching a machine tool, determines it will break down tonight, even if the logs show no alarm; an experienced editor reviews a manuscript, data is correct, logic clear, yet states directly, “the tone is off”; an old salesperson has dinner with someone; contract terms seem fine, yet he insists, “this person is unreliable.”

Mētis is not the ability to fill out forms, but the deep understanding of when forms will fail.

Faced with “Standardized Household Registration (编户齐民),” what you must do is not retreat into the mountains to make yourself “illegible,” but rather, within cities, companies, platforms, and schools, preserve a part of yourself that cannot be fully “read” in low resolution. You must pursue and safeguard “mētis.”

‘Mētis’: The Invisible Pillar of System Function #

“Mētis” is not about exploiting loopholes in the system, but an effective complement to it. History proves that the more a system attempts to “read uniformly” and “thin out” people, the more it ironically depends on those who remain “illegible.”

Take the Ming and Qing dynasties as an example: both implemented a “rotating official system” (流官制), where local chief officials served three-year terms, and an avoidance system was in place, prohibiting officials from serving in their home province. This was a deliberately designed “legibility” feature, aimed at turning officials into standard “parts” that could be replaced at any time, to prevent them from growing powerful and becoming a local force.

However, this was nothing short of an absurd design. Imagine: could an imperial examination “test-taker,” whose entire training consisted of eight-legged essays and who had never handled a single practical matter, truly govern a region after being parachuted in? Did he understand how to handle matters of finance, grain, and criminal justice? He couldn’t even understand the local dialect!

What truly maintained the functioning of government affairs were the local clerks, as well as the advisors (muyou) and legal secretaries (shiye) privately hired by officials at their own expense. The shiye, especially, mostly hailed from Shaoxing; they mastered the precise operations of laws and regulations through oral transmission from master to apprentice and networking among fellow provincials [5]. The imperial court would not directly “see” these people; the court only communicated with officials; however, the empire actually relied on these individuals to function.

This system, intended to make people replaceable, ultimately put real power in the hands of the most irreplaceable shiye.

Consider the Shanxi Piaohao (native banks). In a weak legal environment where partnership and contract terms were difficult to perfect, Shanxi merchants successfully dominated the nation’s remittance business for nearly a century. They certainly did not rely on state policy, but raised funds through credit networks of fellow provincials and clansmen, and recruited staff through guarantors [6].

It was thanks to the Shanxi Piaohao that China, in an era without a modern banking system, could connect the silver in Beijing, Pingyao, Hankou, Shanghai, Guangzhou, and even more distant trade routes into a vast network. Shanxi merchants transformed silver from a “metal that had to be transported” into “credit that could be remitted.” As a result, even the imperial court and local governments had to rely on these piaohao to complete inter-provincial fund transfers.

The system could not “read” them, yet had to rely on them.

If “Standardized Household Registration” had truly operated as meticulously as Zhu Yuanzhang designed, the state would likely have long since collapsed. The upper echelons acted recklessly, while the lower echelons could barely maintain stability, precisely by relying on those unseen individuals possessing “mētis” wisdom.

One researcher, in examining the Soviet planned economy, discovered an interesting phenomenon: Soviet factories were actually maintained by two types of people [7] —

One type was the “all-purpose repairman,” who could patch up any machine malfunction, regardless of its nature. They did not operate by manuals, did not follow leadership instructions, nor did they expect help from superiors. They relied on their own experience and feel, using a pile of old parts, finding alternative solutions, and cleverly resolving problems.

The other type was known as “tolkach,” which can be translated as “expediter” or “fixer.” They would use personal connections to “procure” raw materials that were fundamentally impossible to obtain through official channels as per the plan. Yes, the Soviet Union also had its network of connections, known as “blat.”

Imagine, didn’t factories during China’s planned economy era also rely on these two types of people to maintain operation? In the recently popular TV series Protagonist, Yi Qing’e’s uncle, Hu Sanyuan, the drum player for the county theater troupe, is a typical portrayal of such a person.

He didn’t speak platitudes, didn’t follow organizational procedures, didn’t obey management, and even had a bit of a maverick air, but the leaders were helpless with him. Because the ones who could truly solve problems were precisely these “white-and-expert” (proficient but politically disengaged) types of capable people.

“Standardized Household Registration” prefers to cultivate replaceable people, but what truly maintains the functioning of the system are the irreplaceable ones.

They are not achievements of the system, nor even favors from it, but survivors of the system.

The spirit of “mētis” never fades.

Nurturing ‘Mētis’: Six Paths of Practice #

So, how can we nurture our own “mētis” wisdom?

First, you need to “be present.”

Mētis can only grow from being on-site, and it must be a context with real consequences. In an office, you cannot cultivate a deep understanding of education; you must personally observe how students learn and discern why excellent teachers are sometimes penalized by the system.

Second, learn to “vary your approach.”

In my opinion, mētis is extremely difficult to practice deliberately, because you are not facing the same type of problem. You must have encountered countless situations that are “similar yet never identical” to hone the discernment for what makes them “subtly different, making a complete difference.”

Your true learning method lies in “debriefing.”

Experience itself does not directly produce mētis; experience without debriefing only leads to increased fatigue, glibness, and prejudice. Insights stem from honest inquiry after the fact: What did I predict would happen? What actually happened? Which signal did I miss? How can I detect the early signs sooner next time?

Furthermore, you need to “network.”

Mētis is not the sole domain of lone heroes; it often grows within the collective memory of a group of people. Learning mētis is a form of “situated learning,” where newcomers need to integrate into communities of practice through “legitimate peripheral participation” [8] — in plain terms, you need a master to guide you into the profession.

The secret is not contained in a PPT, but is passed down in private conversations like, “Let me tell you, there was a case once…”

Next, “leave traces.”

You need to establish a note-taking system and build a “thick dossier”: its purpose is not to record scores and ranks, but to preserve key cases you’ve handled, the iteration process of your work, the basis for your judgments at the time, and those “near misses” that almost led to disaster but which you successfully prevented. The results are for the system to “read,” but the process is for your own “survival.”

The final step is called “translate.”

You must enable the system to “read” you—even if it cannot truly understand—you still need to prove your value to the system. This means you need to “translate” experience and intuition into forms that institutions can recognize. Scott refers to this as the “public transcript” and the “hidden transcript” [9]—

You need to make the “public” layer—compliance, meeting standards, reports, processes—irreproachable; this is like your “toll fee” for gaining freedom. At the same time, place your true judgment, your near-obsessive insistence on quality, and your bet on long-term value beyond the reach of metrics.

‘Anarchist Calisthenics’: In the Frame, Not in the Cage #

One evening in 1990, Scott was waiting at a red light at a crossroads in what was then East Germany. The road was clearly empty, yet dozens of pedestrians still waited obediently in place. Occasionally, someone would cross, only to be publicly reprimanded. Scott suddenly realized: obedience does not begin with training for big matters, but gradually becomes habituated through these small, meaningless waits.

Scott offered a suggestion that I immediately adopted, calling it “anarchist calisthenics” [10]: that is, occasionally violating a harmless, subtly unreasonable minor rule, not with the intention of disrupting order, but to remind oneself—that I still possess the ability to judge whether rules are reasonable.

Do not let obedience become muscle memory;

Do not let metrics replace your thinking;

Do not live your life as the most easily replaceable person in an organization.

In an environment of “Standardized Household Registration,” your ideal relationship with the system should be to be “in the frame,” but not “in the cage.”

Notes

[1] James C. Scott, Seeing Like a State: How Certain Schemes to Improve the Human Condition Have Failed, Yale University Press, 1998.

[2] James C. Scott, Against the Grain: A Deep History of the Earliest States, Yale University Press, 2017.

[3] 张宏杰，《中国国民性演变史》，长沙：岳麓书社，2020 年。

[4] 《精英日课》第四季，统治的技术和被统治的艺术（上）、（下）。

[5] Ch’ü T’ung-tsu, Local Government in China under the Ch’ing, Harvard University Press, 1962；Bradly W. Reed, Talons and Teeth: County Clerks and Runners in the Qing Dynasty, Stanford University Press, 2000.

[6] Randall Morck and Fan Yang, The Shanxi Banks, NBER Working Paper No. 15884, 2010；Meng Wu, “A Study of the Shanxi Piaohao Banks, 1820s–1930s,” Business History, 2024.

[7] Alena V. Ledeneva, Russia’s Economy of Favours: Blat, Networking and Informal Exchange, Cambridge University Press, 1998.

[8] Jean Lave and Etienne Wenger, Situated Learning: Legitimate Peripheral Participation, Cambridge University Press, 1991.

[9] James C. Scott, Domination and the Arts of Resistance: Hidden Transcripts, Yale University Press, 1990.

[10] James C. Scott, Two Cheers for Anarchism: Six Easy Pieces on Autonomy, Dignity, and Meaningful Work and Play. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2012.