“At the time of the Spanish conquest the Texcoco, Chaco, and Xochimilco lakes had about 12,000 ha of chinampa fields. Their construction required at least 70 million man-days of labor. The average peasant had to spend no less than 200 days a year to grow enough food for his own family, so he could not work more than about 100 days on large hydraulic projects. As a good portion of this time had to be devoted to the maintenance of existing embankments and canals, seasonal labor of at least 60 and up to 120 peasants was needed to add 1 ha of a new chinampa. The means were different—but the pre-Hispanic basin of Mexico was clearly as much a hydraulic civilization as Ming China, its great Asian contemporary. Long-term, well-planned, centrally coordinated effort and an enormous expenditure of human labor were the key ingredients of its agricultural success” (Smil 2017, p. 99).
The complication of activity implies an increase in mediation, i.e. a growing mass of meanings materialized in the means of activity. A growing meaning mass per unit of product affects both the production of consumer articles and the making of means of production (investment). The prerequisite for increasing mediation is accumulation—saving surpluses and investing them in means of production. Accumulation implies that both the means of production and their making become more complex and the composition of meaning is higher. More complex means of production require broader cooperation and more sophisticated administration.
“Undoubtedly the most important, and lasting, contribution to intensified cropping in China was the design, construction, and maintenance of extensive irrigation systems. The antiquity of these schemes is best shown by the fact that nearly half of all projects operating by the year 1900 had been completed before the year 1500. The origins of perhaps the most famous one, Sichuan’s Dujiangyan, which still waters fields growing food for several tens of million people, go back to the third century BCE. … The construction and unceasing maintenance of such irrigation projects (as well as the building and dredging of lengthy ship canals) required long-range planning, the massive mobilization of labor, and major capital investment. None of these requirements could be met without an effective central authority. There was clearly a synergistic relationship between China’s impressive large-scale water projects and the rise, perfection, and perpetuation of the country’s hierarchical bureaucracies” (Smil 2020, pp. 93-4).