Oriental Despotism 187- The power of the hydraulic state over labour greater than
that of capitalist enterprises
In both spheres the hydraulic state levied and controlled the needed labour forces
by coercive methods that were invocable by a feudal lord only within a restricted
area, and that were altogether different from the methods customary under capi-
talist conditions. The hydraulic rulers were sufficiently strong to do on a national
scale what a feudal sovereign or lord could accomplish only within the borders of
his domain. They compelled able-bodied commoners to work for them through
the agency of the corvée.
Corvée labour is forced labour. But unlike slave labour, which is demanded
permanently, corvée labour is conscripted on a temporary, although recurring,
basis. After the corvée service is completed, the worker is expected to go home and
continue with his own business.
Thus the corvée labourer is freer than the slave. But he is less free than a wage
labourer. He does not enjoy the bargaining advantages of the labour market, and
this is the case even if the state gives him food (in the ancient Near East often
‘bread and beer’) or some cash. In areas with a highly developed money economy
the hydraulic government may levy a corvée tax and hire rather than conscript the
needed labour. This was done largely in China at the close of the Ming dynasty
and during the greater part of Ch’ing rule.
But there as elsewhere the government arbitrarily fixed the wage. And it always
kept the workers under quasimilitary discipline.^114 Except in times of open politi-
cal crisis, the hydraulic state could always muster the labor forces it required; and
this whether the workers were levied or hired. It has been said that the Mogul ruler
Akbar, ‘by his firmān (order) could collect any number of men he liked. There was
no limit to his massing of labourers, save the number of people in his Empire.’^115
Mutatis mutandis, this statement is valid for all hydraulic civilizations.
G. A Genuine and Specific Type of Managerial Regime
Thus the hydraulic state fulfilled a variety of important managerial functions.^116 In
most instances it maintained crucial hydraulic works, appearing in the agrarian
sphere as the sole operator of large preparatory and protective enterprises. And
usually it also controlled the major nonhydraulic industrial enterprises, especially
large constructions. This was the case even in certain ‘marginal’ areas, where the
hydraulic works were insignificant.
The hydraulic state differs from the modern total managerial states in that it is
based on agriculture and operates only part of the country’s economy. It differs
from the laissez-faire states of a private-property-based industrial society in that, in
its core form, it fulfils crucial economic functions by means of commandeered
(forced) labour.