Hydraulic empire
Encyclopedia
A hydraulic empire is a social or government structure which maintains power and control through exclusive control over access to water. It arises through the need for flood
control and irrigation
, which requires central coordination and a specialized bureaucracy
.
Often associated with these terms and concepts is the notion of a water dynasty. This body is a political structure which is commonly characterized by a system of hierarchy and control often based around class or caste. Power, both over resources (food, water, energy) and a means of enforcement such as the military are vital for the maintenance of control.
" maintains control over its population by means of controlling the supply of water. The term was coined by the German American
historian Karl August Wittfogel
(1896–88), in Oriental Despotism (1957). Wittfogel asserted that such "hydraulic civilizations" — although they were neither all located in the Orient nor characteristic of all Oriental societies — were essentially different from those of the Western world. More recently, the idea of practical orientalism has emerged from the original field of orientalism envisioned by Edward Said and Wittfogel amongst others. Practical orientalism considers the creation of the binaries created in elements of everyday routine. In a modern neoliberal economic setting, concepts of common ownership and equal and universal access rights often emerge as exotic or oriental, creating as described below situations of contemporary hydraulic empire and resource control.
Most of the first civilizations in history, such as Ancient Egypt
, Ancient Somalia, Sri Lanka, Mesopotamia
, China and pre-Columbian Mexico
and Peru
, are believed to have been hydraulic empires. The Indus Valley civilization
is often considered a hydraulic empire despite a lack of evidence of irrigation (as this evidence may have been lost in time due to flood damage). Most hydraulic empires existed in desert
regions, but imperial China also had some such characteristics, due to the exacting needs of rice cultivation.
who suggests in his work Collapse that climatic and environmental determinants have been the central factor determining the rise and fall of empires. This environmental determinism comes to bear when considering that in those societies where the most control was exhibited, this was commonly the case due to the central role of the resource in economic processes and its environmentally limited, or constrained nature. This made controlling supply and demand easier and allowed a more complete monopoly to be established, as well as preventing the use of alternative resources to compensate. However, Diamond points out that complex irrigation projects predated states in Madagascar, Mexico, China and Mesopotamia.
The typical hydraulic empire government, in Wittfogel's thesis, is extremely centralized, with no trace of an independent aristocracy – in contrast to the decentralized feudalism
of medieval Europe. Though tribal societies had structures that were usually personal in nature, exercised by a patriarch over a tribal group related by various degrees of kinship, hydraulic hierarchies gave rise to the established permanent institution of impersonal government. Popular revolution in such a state was impossible: a dynasty might die out or be overthrown by force, but the new regime would differ very little from the old one. Hydraulic empires were only ever destroyed by foreign conquerors.
Wittfogel's ideas, when applied to China, have been harshly criticized by scholars such as Joseph Needham
who argued essentially that Wittfogel was operating from ignorance of basic Chinese history
. Needham argued that the Chinese government was not despotic, was not dominated by a priesthood, had lots of peasant rebellions, and that Wittfogel's perspective does not address the necessity and presence of bureaucracy in modern Western civilization.
The same elements of resource control central to hydraulic empire were also central to Europe's colonization of much of the global South. Colonies were resource rich areas located on the periphery, and the contemporary models of core-periphery interaction were focused on the extraction and control of these resources for the use of the core. This was accomplished through a type of agro-managerial despotism with close connections to debates around hydraulic empire.
Control over water emerged as a major issue in Latin America in the 1990s following World Bank loans to Bolivia to modernize and later privatize the municipal water systems of La Paz-El Alto and Cochabamba. The Bolivian government auctioned the public utilities in charge of water and sold them to Aguas del Tunari, a subsidiary of Bechtel. Terms of this contract stipulated that control over all water in Cochabamba was the property of Aguas del Tunari. This became a major clashing point as almost 40% of the city was receiving its water from informal systems not linked to the city's water supply. This effectively signaled the end of campesino and local control of water, and meant that the new corporate owners would have the right to place Bolivian water on the international market, effectively establishing hydraulic control over the cities involved.
Flood
A flood is an overflow of an expanse of water that submerges land. The EU Floods directive defines a flood as a temporary covering by water of land not normally covered by water...
control and irrigation
Irrigation
Irrigation may be defined as the science of artificial application of water to the land or soil. It is used to assist in the growing of agricultural crops, maintenance of landscapes, and revegetation of disturbed soils in dry areas and during periods of inadequate rainfall...
, which requires central coordination and a specialized bureaucracy
Bureaucracy
A bureaucracy is an organization of non-elected officials of a governmental or organization who implement the rules, laws, and functions of their institution, and are occasionally characterized by officialism and red tape.-Weberian bureaucracy:...
.
Often associated with these terms and concepts is the notion of a water dynasty. This body is a political structure which is commonly characterized by a system of hierarchy and control often based around class or caste. Power, both over resources (food, water, energy) and a means of enforcement such as the military are vital for the maintenance of control.
Civilizations
A developed "hydraulic civilizationCivilization
Civilization is a sometimes controversial term that has been used in several related ways. Primarily, the term has been used to refer to the material and instrumental side of human cultures that are complex in terms of technology, science, and division of labor. Such civilizations are generally...
" maintains control over its population by means of controlling the supply of water. The term was coined by the German American
German American
German Americans are citizens of the United States of German ancestry and comprise about 51 million people, or 17% of the U.S. population, the country's largest self-reported ancestral group...
historian Karl August Wittfogel
Karl August Wittfogel
Karl August Wittfogel was a German-American playwright, historian, and sinologist. Originally a Marxist and an active member of the Communist Party of Germany, after the Second World War Wittfogel was an equally fierce anticommunist.-Biography:...
(1896–88), in Oriental Despotism (1957). Wittfogel asserted that such "hydraulic civilizations" — although they were neither all located in the Orient nor characteristic of all Oriental societies — were essentially different from those of the Western world. More recently, the idea of practical orientalism has emerged from the original field of orientalism envisioned by Edward Said and Wittfogel amongst others. Practical orientalism considers the creation of the binaries created in elements of everyday routine. In a modern neoliberal economic setting, concepts of common ownership and equal and universal access rights often emerge as exotic or oriental, creating as described below situations of contemporary hydraulic empire and resource control.
Most of the first civilizations in history, such as Ancient Egypt
Ancient Egypt
Ancient Egypt was an ancient civilization of Northeastern Africa, concentrated along the lower reaches of the Nile River in what is now the modern country of Egypt. Egyptian civilization coalesced around 3150 BC with the political unification of Upper and Lower Egypt under the first pharaoh...
, Ancient Somalia, Sri Lanka, Mesopotamia
Mesopotamia
Mesopotamia is a toponym for the area of the Tigris–Euphrates river system, largely corresponding to modern-day Iraq, northeastern Syria, southeastern Turkey and southwestern Iran.Widely considered to be the cradle of civilization, Bronze Age Mesopotamia included Sumer and the...
, China and pre-Columbian Mexico
Mexico
The United Mexican States , commonly known as Mexico , is a federal constitutional republic in North America. It is bordered on the north by the United States; on the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; on the southeast by Guatemala, Belize, and the Caribbean Sea; and on the east by the Gulf of...
and Peru
Peru
Peru , officially the Republic of Peru , is a country in western South America. It is bordered on the north by Ecuador and Colombia, on the east by Brazil, on the southeast by Bolivia, on the south by Chile, and on the west by the Pacific Ocean....
, are believed to have been hydraulic empires. The Indus Valley civilization
Indus Valley Civilization
The Indus Valley Civilization was a Bronze Age civilization that was located in the northwestern region of the Indian subcontinent, consisting of what is now mainly modern-day Pakistan and northwest India...
is often considered a hydraulic empire despite a lack of evidence of irrigation (as this evidence may have been lost in time due to flood damage). Most hydraulic empires existed in desert
Desert
A desert is a landscape or region that receives an extremely low amount of precipitation, less than enough to support growth of most plants. Most deserts have an average annual precipitation of less than...
regions, but imperial China also had some such characteristics, due to the exacting needs of rice cultivation.
Analysis
Wittfogel argues that climate caused some parts of the world to develop higher levels of civilization than others. He is known for claiming that climate in the Orient led to despotic rule. These arguments for climatic determinism are today echoed by the work of scholars such as Jared DiamondJared Diamond
Jared Mason Diamond is an American scientist and author whose work draws from a variety of fields. He is currently Professor of Geography and Physiology at UCLA...
who suggests in his work Collapse that climatic and environmental determinants have been the central factor determining the rise and fall of empires. This environmental determinism comes to bear when considering that in those societies where the most control was exhibited, this was commonly the case due to the central role of the resource in economic processes and its environmentally limited, or constrained nature. This made controlling supply and demand easier and allowed a more complete monopoly to be established, as well as preventing the use of alternative resources to compensate. However, Diamond points out that complex irrigation projects predated states in Madagascar, Mexico, China and Mesopotamia.
The typical hydraulic empire government, in Wittfogel's thesis, is extremely centralized, with no trace of an independent aristocracy – in contrast to the decentralized feudalism
Feudalism
Feudalism was a set of legal and military customs in medieval Europe that flourished between the 9th and 15th centuries, which, broadly defined, was a system for ordering society around relationships derived from the holding of land in exchange for service or labour.Although derived from the...
of medieval Europe. Though tribal societies had structures that were usually personal in nature, exercised by a patriarch over a tribal group related by various degrees of kinship, hydraulic hierarchies gave rise to the established permanent institution of impersonal government. Popular revolution in such a state was impossible: a dynasty might die out or be overthrown by force, but the new regime would differ very little from the old one. Hydraulic empires were only ever destroyed by foreign conquerors.
Wittfogel's ideas, when applied to China, have been harshly criticized by scholars such as Joseph Needham
Joseph Needham
Noel Joseph Terence Montgomery Needham, CH, FRS, FBA , also known as Li Yuese , was a British scientist, historian and sinologist known for his scientific research and writing on the history of Chinese science. He was elected a fellow of the Royal Society in 1941, and as a fellow of the British...
who argued essentially that Wittfogel was operating from ignorance of basic Chinese history
History of China
Chinese civilization originated in various regional centers along both the Yellow River and the Yangtze River valleys in the Neolithic era, but the Yellow River is said to be the Cradle of Chinese Civilization. With thousands of years of continuous history, China is one of the world's oldest...
. Needham argued that the Chinese government was not despotic, was not dominated by a priesthood, had lots of peasant rebellions, and that Wittfogel's perspective does not address the necessity and presence of bureaucracy in modern Western civilization.
The same elements of resource control central to hydraulic empire were also central to Europe's colonization of much of the global South. Colonies were resource rich areas located on the periphery, and the contemporary models of core-periphery interaction were focused on the extraction and control of these resources for the use of the core. This was accomplished through a type of agro-managerial despotism with close connections to debates around hydraulic empire.
Contemporary application
Struggles and debate around rights to water access and use for both agriculture and also fundamentally for human consumption remain an issue, outside of simply historical cases. In recent decades there has been increased debate around the status of water as a "human right", a resource which cannot be owned and which all should have access to for their own use and survival.Control over water emerged as a major issue in Latin America in the 1990s following World Bank loans to Bolivia to modernize and later privatize the municipal water systems of La Paz-El Alto and Cochabamba. The Bolivian government auctioned the public utilities in charge of water and sold them to Aguas del Tunari, a subsidiary of Bechtel. Terms of this contract stipulated that control over all water in Cochabamba was the property of Aguas del Tunari. This became a major clashing point as almost 40% of the city was receiving its water from informal systems not linked to the city's water supply. This effectively signaled the end of campesino and local control of water, and meant that the new corporate owners would have the right to place Bolivian water on the international market, effectively establishing hydraulic control over the cities involved.
In fiction
- The most famous hydraulic empire in fiction is probably described in Frank HerbertFrank HerbertFranklin Patrick Herbert, Jr. was a critically acclaimed and commercially successful American science fiction author. Although a short story author, he is best known for his novels, most notably Dune and its five sequels...
's Dune universeDune universeDune is a science fiction franchise which originated with the 1965 novel Dune by Frank Herbert. Considered by many to be the greatest science fiction novel of all time, Dune is frequently cited as the best-selling science fiction novel in history...
, which describes a traditional hydraulic empire on the planet ArrakisArrakisArrakis — informally known as Dune and later called Rakis — is a fictional desert planet featured in the Dune series of novels by Frank Herbert. Herbert's first novel in the series, 1965's Dune, is popularly considered one of the greatest science fiction novels of all time, and it is...
, as well as a galactic empireOld Empire (Dune)The Old Empire is a fictional galactic empire in the Dune universe created by Frank Herbert. The term has been applied to two distinct eras in the fictional history of the Dune series.-The Padishah Empire:...
controlled by the limitation of the spice drug produced on Arrakis. - The society described by Larry NivenLarry NivenLaurence van Cott Niven / ˈlæri ˈnɪvən/ is an American science fiction author. His best-known work is Ringworld , which received Hugo, Locus, Ditmar, and Nebula awards. His work is primarily hard science fiction, using big science concepts and theoretical physics...
in his 1998 novel, Destiny's RoadDestiny's RoadDestiny's Road is a science fiction novel by Larry Niven first published in 1998. It follows Jemmy Bloocher's exploration of Destiny's Road, a long scar of once-melted rock seared onto the planet's surface by a spaceship's fusion drive...
, is classified as a hydraulic empire. In the case of the story, though, a rigid bureaucracy holds the sole reliable source of potassium, and without it people will see increasing cognitive issues until they die. The hero of this novel, Jemmy Bloocher (under various pseudonyms) discovers the status quo and at the end of the novel actively works to upset the balance. - The protagonist in Larry NivenLarry NivenLaurence van Cott Niven / ˈlæri ˈnɪvən/ is an American science fiction author. His best-known work is Ringworld , which received Hugo, Locus, Ditmar, and Nebula awards. His work is primarily hard science fiction, using big science concepts and theoretical physics...
's 1976 book, A World Out of TimeA World Out of TimeA World Out of Time is a science fiction novel by Larry Niven and published in 1976. It is set outside the Known Space universe of many of Niven's stories, but is otherwise fairly representative of his 1970s hard science fiction novels...
, describes the concept of a water-monopoly empire to the antagonist. This becomes a major plot point. - In S. M. StirlingS. M. StirlingStephen Michael Stirling is a French-born Canadian-American science fiction and fantasy author. Stirling is probably best known for his Draka series of alternate history novels and the more recent time travel/alternate history Nantucket series and Emberverse series.-Personal:Stirling was born on...
's novel DrakonDrakon (novel)Drakon is a follow-up to S. M. Stirling's alternate history series, The Domination.-Plot introduction:Set centuries since the last war between the Domination and the Alliance, the Domination has conquered the Earth and the solar system, while the Alliance survivors have fled to the Alpha-Centauri...
(The Domination series), the female drakensis Gwendolyn Ingolfson comments on Wittfogel's Oriental Despotism: "Interesting analysis. Very acute...my ancestors would probably have killed him." - Hamdo, the primary villain of the 1999 anime series Now and Then, Here and ThereNow and Then, Here and Thereis a thirteen episode anime series directed by Akitaro Daichi and written by Hideyuki Kurata. The story was originally conceived by director Daichi. It premiered in Japan on the WOWOW television station on October 14, 1999 and ran until January 20, 2000. It was licensed for Region 1 DVD English...
, seeks to control the entire desert world of Hellywood through complete control of its water. - The 2011 westernWestern (genre)The Western is a genre of various visual arts, such as film, television, radio, literature, painting and others. Westerns are devoted to telling stories set primarily in the latter half of the 19th century in the American Old West, hence the name. Some Westerns are set as early as the Battle of...
animated film RangoRango (2011 film)Rango is a 2011 American computer-animated Western Comedy film directed by Gore Verbinski and produced by Graham King. In the film, a chameleon named Rango accidentally ends up in the town of Dirt, an outpost that is in desperate need of a new sheriff...
concerns the struggle for water between the local mafia and the inhabitants of the drought-stricken desert town of Dirt. As its mayor said, "Control the water and you control everything."