Jacob van Etten continues our coffee-table conversation about whether crops determine everything.
All of this started off with Wittfogel’s Oriental despotism and how crops (rice) and cropping technologies (irrigation) give shape to whole societies. Jeremy mentioned Malcolm Gladwell, who argues in Outliers that Asians are good in math because they grow rice. Crops determine everything?
Wittfogel first. Some more recent opinions nuance the point about hierarchical rice societies. Yes, irrigation tends to give rise to more hierarchical societies. Dorian Fuller and Ling Qin write that the rise of water management in China in archaeological times went hand in hand with the development of social hierarchies. ((D.Q. Fuller & L. Qin. 2009. Water management and labour in the origins and dispersal of Asian rice. World Archaeology 41(1): 88-111.)) But rice irrigation is not as hierarchical as if Henry Ford had organized it. A lot of ‘participation’ goes on, as most water management ultimately relies on the efforts of both big and small players. Francesca Bray writes:
One of the main arguments that underlies such theories is that only a highly centralised state can mobilise sufficient capital and technical and administrative expertise to construct and run huge irrigation systems. It is certainly true that both Hindu and, later, Buddhist monarchs all over Southeast Asia saw it as part of their kingly role, an act of the highest religious merit, to donate generously from the royal treasuries to provide the necessary materials and funding. But kings were not the only instigators of such works. Temples, dignitaries, or even rich villagers often gave endowments to construct or maintain irrigation works on different scales.
Malcolm Gladwell actually argues something similar:
By the 14th and 15th centuries, landlords in central and southern China had a nearly hands-off role with their tenants, collecting only a fixed amount and letting farmers keep whatever yields they had left over. Farmers had a stake in their harvest, leading to greater diligence and success.