On the Inapplicability of “Oriental Despotism” and the “Asiatic Mode of Production” to the Aztecs of Texcoco

Abstract

Sanders and Price, Palerm, Carrasco, and others have argued for the utility of the theoretical formulations of "oriental despotism" and the "Asiatic mode of production" for the investigation and comprehension of Aztec political organization and society. Accordingly, it has been claimed that irrigation played an important role in the consolidation of Aztec states, that no significant private property in land existed among the Aztecs, and that government control of the economy was thoroughgoing and complete. All of these theoretically generated positions are demonstrably false, at least for the important Aztec state of Texcoco. Irrigation played no significant role in the origin or consolidation of the Texcocan state; extensive private property in land did exist among the Texcocans, and the government of Texcoco did not at all dominate the Texcocan economy. Marketing was clearly the principal mechanism within the empire for the transference of goods. The basic principles of Aztec society are to be discovered through objective examination of the ethnohistorical and archaeological data and cannot be determined through the imposition of inappropriate or outmoded theoretical formulations.