Oriental despotism

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The oriental despotism is one of Karl August Wittfogel revived term especially on Aristotle and Montesquieu back, even in Marxist society theories in the form of Asiatic mode of production was formulated.

Wittfogel understands it as a despotic system of government in which the ruler claims total power and a strong state bureaucracy completely rules the country. In such societies, there is a lack of political counterweights that can ensure civil liberties . The cities are characterized by a strong dependence on the civil service , so that merchants and craftsmen could not become their own political force. Oriental despotism has very detrimental effects on the dignity of the individual .

Wittfogel sees the emergence of oriental despotism as follows:

" Hydraulic societies " arose where there were large accumulations of water in an otherwise dry, but latently fertile landscape . The construction of irrigation systems required the massive use of peasant workers. This work was done through compulsory labor , but was only possible due to the fragmentation of the many village communities through the central planning power of an elite of functionaries who at the same time rose to the politically ruling caste and had a bureaucracy capable of mathematics , geometry , astronomy and administration .

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literature

  • August Karl Wittfogel: The oriental despotism , 1957
  • Alain Grosrichard: The Sultan's Court. European fantasies of the East , London 1998
  • Richard Koebner: Despot and Despotism: Vicissitudes of a Political Term , in: Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes 14, 1951, pp. 275-302
  • Melvin Richter: Despotism , in: Dictionary of the History of Ideas, Vol. 2, New York 1974, pp. 1-18
  • Joan-Pau Rubiés: Oriental Despotism and European Orientalism: Botero to Montesquieu , in: Journal of Early Modern History 9, 2005, pp. 109-180