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Hydraulic despotism is a term for despotic rule supported by control of a single, necessary resource. In its first instances, it was literally water that was controlled: in Egypt and Babylonia in the BCE era, the government controlled the irrigation channels; good subjects received plentiful water for their crops, while bad subjects were starved of water so that their crops died. The term can be used to indicate any tyrannical rule propped up by control of a vital resource.
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