Karl August Wittfogel (6 September 1896, in Woltersdorf, Germany – 25 May 1988, in New York, USA) was a German-American playwright, historian, and sinologist. Originally a Marxist and an active member of the Communist Party of Germany, after the Second World War Wittfogel was an equally fierce Anticommunist.
Starting from a Marxist analysis of the ideas of Max Weber on China and India's "hydraulic-bureaucratic official-state" and building on Marx's sceptical view of the Asiatic Mode of Production, Wittfogel came up with an analysis of Oriental despotism which emphasized the role of irrigation works, the bureaucratic structures needed to maintain them and the impact that these had on society, coining the term "hydraulic empire" to describe the system. In his view, many societies, mainly in Asia, relied heavily on the building of large-scale irrigation works. To do this, the state had to organize forced labor from the population at large. As only a centralized administration could organize the building and maintenance of large-scale systems of irrigation, the need for such systems made bureaucratic despotism inevitable in Oriental lands. This structure was uniquely placed to also crush civil society and any other force capable of mobilizing against the state. Such a state would inevitably be despotic, powerful, stable and wealthy. Wittfogel's anticommunism led in "Oriental Despotism" to extend the hydraulic hypothesis to Russia, where it hardly is applicable.
發表於2024-12-23
Oriental Despotism 2024 pdf epub mobi 電子書 下載
單是目錄裏的觀點,就已經夠一針見血瞭~ 01、治水專製主義,國傢比社會強有力 02、治水國傢國傢權力貪得無厭 03、治水國傢,私人財産是軟弱的財産,被國傢通過財政、司法、法律和政治措施進行瞭限製。 04、治水政權使國傢中占優勢地位的宗教附屬於它。 05、專製權力——極...
評分由一個有社會主義運動背景的學者構建亞洲生産模式的專製發生理論,會讓馬列主義老太太們睡不著覺吧。 治水說是地緣決定論的一種,它對於說明古代中國早熟的組織體係是很有說服力的。維特夫引用的例證仍顯不足。例如,南北朝後人口日益集中在稻米區(需要更多的人力、資源、工程...
評分比較中西曆史時會發現,歐羅巴綿延韆年,卻偏偏沒有東方國傢普遍存在的宦官製度,這是一個很好玩的事情。我記得傳統觀念對此的解釋是,宦官的誕生仰仗於兩個條件:人類學意義上的一夫多妻製,以及發達的牲畜養殖/閹割技術。 前者醞釀誕生宦官的需求,即王室後裔血統的純潔和...
評分這本書中譯本齣來後就遭到瞭學者的批評,在當時80年代末的環境,成為瞭禁書,現在舊書攤高價齣售,要麼就是大學圖書館瞭。
評分最近寫論文需要,看瞭這本書。水治社會的說法雖然站不住腳,但分析的角度還是很獨特的,不失為比較東西方政治製度起源的一個因素~
圖書標籤: 魏特夫 治水社會 曆史 政治學 近代史 英文 東亞 sociology
Oriental Despotism 2024 pdf epub mobi 電子書 下載