ANSWERS TO GEOGRAPHY! EUROPE AND CHINA 27potash) is lower than that of other food staples; its labor requirements
greater. Its caloric yield per acre exceeds that of temperate zone grains
such as wheat, rye, and oats; its protein content, however, is only about
half as high.^12 Rice is a tough grain: it grows in diverse habitats and is
the only cereal that will give good yields on poor soil year after year so
long as it gets enough water. On the other hand, the wading in water
paddies and the use of human feces as fertilizer has meant high expo
sure to schistosomes and other nasty parasites, with loss to productiv
ity and hence higher labor requirements.
This labor-intensive, water-intensive energy model had important
consequences for Chinese history. For one thing, reliance on the in
digenous population meant that the Chinese never sought to incor
porate foreign slaves into their workforce. (To be sure, many of their
own population lived in bondage, though they were not chattel slaves.)
For another, they did expand by sheer force of numbers. It was very
hard for sparsely distributed, less organized, and technically less ad
vanced groups to keep the Chinese out.
At the same time, the management of water called for supralocal
power and promoted imperial authority. This link between water and
power was early noted by European observers, going back to Mon
tesquieu and reappearing in Hegel, later copied by Marx. The most de
tailed analysis, though, is the more recent one of Karl Wittfogel, who
gave to water-based rule the name of Oriental despotism, with all the
dominance and servitude that that implies.^13 (Others have offered anal
ogous arguments, prudently shorn of portentous social and cultural
implications.)^14
The hydraulic thesis has been roundly criticized by a generation of
Western sinologists zealous in their political correctness (Maoism and
its later avatars are good) and quick to defend China's commitment to
democracy. Wittfogel is the preferred target. One scholar sees in his
thesis a lightly disguised program for neo-imperialism: "Clearly the ac
tion message of this theory is to recommend and justify interven
tion."^15 Presumably these protestations of loyalty aim to convince
Chinese, if not Western, readers, for almost all these critics of the. water
connection are courting the favor of an umbrageous regime, dispenser
of invitations and access.
The facts gainsay them. The anti-hydraulics point to evidence that
the early centers of Chinese population did not rely much on irrigation;
that then and later, much water was drawn from wells rather than
brought in; and that some aspects of water management were always
locally conceived and financed—as though such activity somehow con-