Hydraulic Despotism

One Man's Cure Is Another Man's Sword

From Wikipedia:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydraulic_empire

The concept of hydraulic despotism, or a hydraulic empire, was elucidated by Karl August Wittfogel in his 1957 book Oriental Despotism: A Comparative Study of Total Power.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oriental_Despotism

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karl_August_Wittfogel

The basic idea is that a country in which irrigation is a necessity and has a large, controlled from the top irrigation system, may be despotic for the simple reason that the powers in charge can cut off one's water when one is out of line. As is seen in the Wikipedia article, scholars were not terribly impressed, and their basic complaint is that things are more complicated than that. Scholars maintain that in order to create such an irrigation system a top down method would be needed to be in place already, though I think the project would be popular with the people, and I'm not sure it would be necessary that the leadership be totalitarian. Nevertheless, the idea is seen as contributing to the methods of control of the powerful, if not the only method. Not every place in the world is in need of irrigation, so what is an aspiring tyrant to do? Look for other things that people cannot do without. If those in power have total control over some vital element that everyone in the land needs they then have extra power, perhaps to a despotic extent. A moments contemplation on the part of the student will reveal that much of domestic politics concerns the search for, and the struggle to obtain, such devices. Every policy should be examined for why it does or does not constitute a possible surrogate for a hydraulic despotism.

Creating a hydraulic despotism, using the term in the broader sense, is generally portrayed by the perpetrators as being kindness, civic responsibility, making the world a better place. Those who support them are probably a mixture of those believing in the promises and those cynically promoting the agenda. Indeed, a possible hydraulic despotism kept small and under control can be a good thing, much like a valuable medicine becomes a poison in large dosage. Who would be against your small city constructing a hospital? Who would be for your small city controlling all businesses?

"Many of the greatest tyrants on the records of history have begun their reigns in the fairest manner. But the truth is, this unnatural power corrupts both the heart and the understanding." ~ Edmund Burke

Getting total control of vital commodities is a goal of those wishing to amass dictatorial power. Anything will do in place of irrigation water as long as it's needed for survival and can be controlled from the top. Health care for instance. If all health care is controlled centrally it's simple to control people by threatening to withhold it from persons in opposition, or even use it to surreptitiously eliminate them. Death panels, anyone? But why stop there? Central control of food works great, and it's easy to posit other useful techniques. How about not being allowed to travel without permission and only on public transportation, or an internal passport system, brought to us by vaccine passports?

"Who controls the food supply controls the people; who controls the energy can control whole continents; who controls money can control the world." ~ Henry A. Kissinger

It's not only these positive controls such as Kissinger mentions, but there are what the powerful might think of as negative controls. Things that the people can do that undermine their control are things they will seek to reduce or eliminate. The power to travel and not be tracked while doing so, the power to speak freely and not be jailed for doing so, the right to arms, or you might say the protections of the Bill of Rights. All of these undermine centralized control, but other things do as well. Producing and storing ones own food, belief in God, strong families, survival skills, knowledge of military strategy and tactics by the hoy-polloi, all things falling into this category, and I'm sure everyone can think of more.

"This country cannot afford to be materially rich and spiritually poor." ~ John F. Kennedy

"Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable." ~ John F. Kennedy

Creating economic policies that force small businesses out in favor of large ones works in the favor of the powerful, since a few large ones can be controlled whereas thousands of smaller ones cannot.

The U. S. Constitution called for a separation of powers such that no one entity would control all political power.

If we had many more but smaller corporations, as well as small family owned stores, service companies and manufacturers the power of political concentrated power would be weakened. If your boss is a jerk you just go to a new job. This situation developed because people would be concerned about the power of large corporations, so they would demand that the government Do Something. The rules and regulations thereby induced would make life much harder for small companies than for large, who would just filled up a room with lawyers and accountants. (Don't throw me into that briar patch!) This consolidated power in both corporations and government. We need rules that give the economic advantage to smaller companies, and tend to cause a large company to fission into smaller ones. It also needs to be easy to start a new company; you want to make it easy for a group of bright, young executives and engineers to leave their parent company and start their own, infuriating their old bosses. (I used to tell people that as long as the corporations support the Republicans the Democrats will do their bidding.) The size of businesses in any industry are strongly affected by the economies of scale, and that can be affected by such policies. The COVID lock-downs shifted vast wealth from small businesses to large.

"The strength and power of despotism consists wholly in the fear of resistance." ~ Thomas Paine

A goal of those in power may be seen as increasing the fear of resistance from themselves as high as possible by a combination of controlling as many commodities as possible, as well as eliminating as many items that limit their control as they can.

A related essay of mine:

Stay Brave, Stay Free