Hydraulic Despotisms:

Egypt and Iraq

A hydraulic despotism is a social system based on the availability of water. Those who control it, control the people. Egypt and various governments in Iraq used soldiers to control access

to the water

These civilizations

were characterized

by: small ruling classes, soldiers

and priests to keep order, and a peasant/urban

worker class.

I say, why would anyone control others in such a cruel fashion?! I’d just kill them!

“Between two types of men who seek to create

inconsistent kinds of worlds, I see no alternative but force. It

seems that all societies rest upon the death of men.”

- Francis Bacon

The first of the Hydraulic Despotism was in the Tigris-Euphrates valley

(known as Mesopotamia).

The second one was

in the northern extremity of Egypt,

in the Nile

Delta.

“How do we know?”

Archaeology tells us about these people before 3500 BC. Between 3500 BC and 2500 BC, most written records were state business, letters, and public works praising the king.

The forces for change in these societies were all external (with only one exception.)

What happened in these river-valley civilizations was determined by wars (invasions) started by other groups.

There is only ONE exception to the Hydraulic Despotism model of control in the pre-Greek world. Can you guess?

The Hebrews, living along the main trade/military route between Iraq and Egypt, were the only expression of intellectual dissent in the Middle East before the Greeks.

To Iraq

To Egypt

They benefited from cultural diffusion, but suffered by being on the primary invasion route in the Middle East.

Where others developed models of rigid social/political control, the Hebrews wrote elegant poems calling for social justice and a more open, humanitarian society.

Of these two ancient world models, we (in the Western World) more closely identify with the Hebrew social justice model than the Hydraulic Despotism model.

This link between religion and social theory is often overlooked by

modern society. The concept of Democracy owes much to the free

thinkers of the past who were most often the religious

leaders of Israel.