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Hoover Dam



On a recent visit to Las Vegas I visited Hoover Dam. You can see one of the resulting photos above.

I'm told that I over-intellectualize things ,and I sometimes resent that observation. But in this case ... I have to report that I couldn't help but reflect on the theories of Karl Wittfogel when I looked at that sight.

Wittfogel, professor of Chinese history at the University of Washington from 1947 to 1966, developed the "hydraulic theory of state formation." This is the view that sovereigns and empires rise and fall based largely on their control of water, especially for flood control in wet regions and irrigation in dry regions. A state that organizes forced labor for these purposes will inevitably be despotic, but since the irrigation/flood-control projects will be so indispensable for the life and livelihood of much of the population it will be able to maintain its despotism over long periods of time.

Wittfogel began his academic career as a Marxist, and his hydraulic views were an elaboration of what Marx in some rather off-handed remarks described as the "Asiatic mode of production."

In time, Wittfogel broke from Marxism, and it has to be said that there is nothing especially "Asiatic" about the range of applicability of the theory.

Much of the American southwest is utterly dependent upon the sort of governmental largesse that Wittfogel understood.

Related thoughts tomorrow.
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