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Retardation Thesis domestic output per capita in France could have increased more rapidly and the differential between French and British productivity narrowed if French economy undertaken more industrialisation. Beginning of the 18th century 30-40% of output in industrial form and France 26% - composition output changed rapidly in Britain 1905-13 12% British output agric. and 40% French agric.
Data suggests that 1780 to 1914 share labour force engaged prod. Of industrial commodities Britain double that of France.
Structural change in 19th century much quicker in Britain than in France, but France had more to gain from reallocation labour agric. to industry until 1870 output per worker British agric. above that of industrial workers, France industrial workers average product double that of agric. worker.
With given ratio of labour productivity in industry and an agriculture French economy obtained rel. large gains from slow structural transformation more rapid redeployment of labour in Britain exercised only marginal impact on overall increase labour productivity over 19th century.
French retardation analysed failure to industrialise more completely by 1914 struc. Change raises prod. Of labour as agric. subject to diminishing retuned and industry greater potential technical progress and increasing returns to scale structural change usually favourable increases the weight in the economy of sectors with higher productivity levels and with greater potential for prod. Growth.
BUT rise share labour in industry not raise levels of development, nor optimal growth path slower pace of French industrialisaion in France did not lead to levels of per capita consumption than fell below British standards only if it can be demonstrated that gradual reallocation of labour from agric. to industry was in some sense economically irrational can we see a failure in the French economy to undertake structural transformation.
If France reallocated labour between agric and industry like Britain and IF average product per workers remained at actual levels already measured by Brit. And France - then productivity of the labour force and income per capita would have exceeded British amounts BUT ideas that structural transformation is exogenous factor in growth process wrong allocation of labour is a reflection of patterns of demand for agric. and industrial commodities
Also redployment of labour not feasible for the French or any other economy seen agric. fall from 6 million 1780s to 2 million WW1. Emulation British model of i. Presupposed 45% workers engaged commodity production at start of 19th century failure France to catch up with neighbour roots back in 18th century.
French historians entertain idea French farms retain reserves underemployed labour if modernisation occurred earlier larger no. of farm workers released into industry and urban services what numbers what changes in output?
Attraction reorganisation tenruial institutions and consolidation French farmland bigger units + investment preconditions for modernisation along British lines assume that if plans into place France could have coped with labour force that left French farmers with same number of workers per hectare of cultivated land as British farmers.
New growth path French industry ASSUME: workforce employed French agric. same proportion over 19th century life Britain, HALF the surplus released from primary production could have been absorbed into industry without raising or lowering productivity industrys capacity to absorb surplus labour from agric. at constant level of productivity nd agric. capacity ro grow at a constant rate with smaller labour force.
More rapid rate of labour redeployment Overall gap in labour productivity would have disappeared structural transformation would have eliminated per capita income gap between the two countries boosted French commodity flows by 4% in1815-24 and 18% 1905-14 measures seen as loss sustained by French society for failing to undertake more rapid structural transformation between 1780 and 1914.
French retardation can certainly be conceived in terms of an unrealised potential for economic growth derived from a failure to transfer labour from a low-productivity agric. sector into industry LABOUR COULD NOT BE REALLOCATED BY FIAT critics assume barriers to structural transformation institutional and cultural in character and less to do with natural resources, location, climate and other geographical disadvantages ignore demand and other long-term advantages that Britain enjoyed through trade and commerce with the rest of the world ads. From 2 centuries mercantilism
NO EVIDENCE THAT INCENTIVES OR PREMIUMS OFFERED TO MIGRANTS FROM AGRIC. TO INDUSTRY WERE SUFFICIENT TO ATRACT FAR LARGER NUMBERS OF WORKERS INTO INDUSTRY PUSH FACTORS WEAKER
French agric. could have been reorganised in order to release labour while maintaining constant levels of production.
Agriculture
Labour Productivity
Retardation Theory: if French farms produced output per workers similar in value produced British farms then British retardation
Agric. productivity lower France as retained far higher share of its labour supply in the countryside wide and widening gap in productivity of labour employed in two systems does not imply that French peasants ignored or failed to take advantage of the new crops and new rotations which raised yields
Physical yields per hectare dependent on techniques of cultivation, teneurial institutions and human capital (education, skills, knowledge and capacity for work embodied in the agric. work force for Britain and France.
Contemporary Writings assign primary responsibility to institutional obstacles for slow diffusion of efficient techniques approach problem through analysis of quantity and quality of land and capital available per workers employed in B and F institutions affect rates of capital accumulation
- Labour Productivity depends on land-labour ratio and yields per hectare
- LP depends on crop mix and capital per hectare and R (residual institutions affecting the stock and productivity of capita as well as quality of labour engaged in agric).
Quantity and Quality of Land
Most of the century agric. production continued to be constrained by the quantity, quality and accessibility of cultivable land agric. strongly conditioned by soil, climate and topopgraphy need to give primary emphasis to supplies of cultivable land
British farm more land per workers 0 also obtained higher yield per hectare separate the amount of cultivable land from crop mix, efficient use of land as causes in the gap of output per workers
SUPERIORITY OF BRITISH AGRIC. APPEARS FAR LESS PRONOUNCED WHEN YIELDS PER HECTARE ARE TAKEN AS THE INDEX FOR COMPARISON FRANCE 75% BRITAIN YIELDS PRODUCTIVITY WENT AS LOW AS 42%
Gap in labour productivity would remain even if yields per unit were the same superior land endowment enjoyed by British farmers explains between 58 and 71% of differential in value between British and French agriculture not more than 40% is left to be accounted for by variations in physical yields and crop mix.
RELATIVE BACKWARDNESS OF FRENCH AGRICULTURE CANNOT BE PROPERY UNDERSTOOD WITH REFERENCE TO THE LOWER PRODUCTIVITY OF LABOUR EMPLOYED IN THIS SECTOR BUT GAP IN YIELDS PER HECTARE STILL WIDE ENOUGH TO SUPPORT VIEW THAT FRENCH FARMERS FAILED TO FULLY EXPLOIT TECHNIQUES AVAILABLE TO THEM FOR RAISING AGRIC. OUTPUT
Most of the period 1780 1914 even slight differences in natural endowment could be significant simply because the technology available to compensate for such variations had not emerged.
France possesses a greater diversity of soils than Britain FAO Soil Map does not lend much support to the view that French agriculture had the advantage of better-quality soils France 4% more unproductive soil and 4% less secondary soil
The French farmed within a physical environment that was inferior to the natural endowment available to British agric. workers 19% French land unfit for farming cf. 7% Britain land of secondary potential: larger proportion of the land seems to best suited for forest and low grade polyculture Britain a larger share of that land possesses adequate capacity for arable, mixed farming and good pasture., 7% France mountainous cf. 2% Britian
Quality of land available to British farmers was hectare for hectare far superior to the quality of French farmland
Product Mix and Value Added Per Hectare
Large part gap in LP due to superior yields per hectare Britain higher share animal produce net output (42% 1815-24, 68% 1905-13) cf. 30 and 43 France.
British farmers allocated higher % of their land to root crops and oats than French farmers who favoured wheat cultivation if French allocate this way yields would have declined
Yields or value added per hectare of all land allocated to animal farming in Britain was probably not greater than land deployed in France. It was not the higher yields or greater efficiency of the animal sector of British agriculture that stands in marked contrast to France nor is it that French farmers allocated land inefficiently RATHER allocation of a far greater share or farmland and other resources to rearing of stock esp. sheep that distinguished British farming 19th Century animal products more valuable, density of animals per hectare arable land critical determinant of level physical yields achieved cultivation grains, vegetables and other crops.
Farm Animals as Capital Goods
Animal power available to agricultural work force for the cultivation of arable land in Britain exceeded the amount used by French workers 0 horse more efficient and French tended to use more ox and other boeufs travail
Value added per worker went up as product mix shifts in favour of higher value output assoc. with anial farming, saves labour units per output agric. capacity to release labour for industrial employment is of course related to the availability of substitute forms of draught power for ploughing, cartage and transport of all kinds interesting to know what proportion French labour force retained cside to cope more cyclical work rhythms of cultivating arable lands cf. more regular work involved rearing livestock.
Output per hectare in physical terms
It was on the arable eland that British farmers obtained results way ahead of those achieved by the farmers of France1862 to 1913 British superiority in all grains and potatoes (1992 Britian 69% above the French yield) even if yields up to British level most of the differential would have remained not backward animal husbandry outer bound estimate of share in gap in labour productivity that could be attributed to some sort of entrepreneurial failure comes to about 30%
Claret and Olives: Utterly ignorant boors are allowed to plod on from generation to generation wrapped up in the most dismal mists of agricultural superstition
.. infinitesimal patches of land are cultivated in the most rude and uneconomical fashion
Dispersion about the mean may have been far wider in France 0 France cereals and potatoes continued to be grown on elevations and climatic conditions long since abandoned in England to animal husbandry
On land of comparable quality French farmers could achieve yields in grain production not very far below British levels IN SCALE AND TENURE does not differ widely form the rest of France not widey enough to invalidate our point that our basic point that even in the late 19th century quality of land was a more important determinant of physical yields per hectare
Systems of Tenure
Even young admitted that property in land, is of all others, the most active instigator to severe and incessant labour not disposed to accept as self-evident the proposition that French institutions and French farmers were peculiarly and perversely resistant to new techniques of cultivation THOSE WHO TILLED THE SOIL OF FRANCE PROBABLY SCHEIVED A LEVEL OF PRODUCTION NOT FAR SHORT OF OPTIMUM GIVWEN THE SUPPLIUES OF LAND CAPITAL AND OTHER INPUTS AVAILABLE TO THEM
France retained more of its workforce in the cside, conc. More on the cultivation of cereals obtained lower output per worker employed in agriculture French retardation stemmed far more from land-labour ratios reflects fact that Frenchmen preferred to stay remain on their farms led to pressure of population on the land and to the cultivation of soils of inferior quality
Larger stock of farm animals in Britian could have raised average yields on the arable by anything from 16 to 47% above French yields
Climate and land important over long-run contrasts in systems of property righs established in the two countries may have been more significant BRITAIN FAVOURABLE CLIMATE TO PASTURE
Young: vehemently opposed to peasant tenure because it leads to sub-division and more widespread ownership of land units of production too msall to accumulate capital at anything but a slow rate the profit of a large farm supports the farmer and his family and leaves a surplus which may be laid out in improvements liked arger farms as they employed advances tech, minimised labour input per unit cultivated land sustained more livestock.
Lower productivity of workers employed in French agric. over the 19th century can be explained in institutional terms product of a system of land tenure that encouraged labour to remain on farms badly endowed with capital per hectare and depressed the rate of investment required to compensate for lower endowment of cultivable land per workers itself a reflection itself a reflection of slow rate structural change.
Peasants normally price-responsive, profit-maximisers, open to new crops and techniques larger faremrs and landlords simply possessed greater capacity to save and invest agric. gestation periods long and risks high smaller farms disad. Investible surplus to small + capacity to borrow too limited un relation to lumpy indivisble investment required to move from one mix of crops to another.
Lavoisier: 1787 it is in our institutions and and laws that agric. finds its most palpable obstacles late 19th century 11% land peasant hands cf. France 40%
Bloch: weaker juridical and political control over tenure exercised by the seigneurs cf. England lords of manor Royal power used to protect peasants Britain State steadily transferred land into private ownership British Kings few attempts to resist effort large and powerful me extending their properties King France protecting Peasant tax base British govt. less need as more lucrative sources trade and industry.
Hypothesis of Soboul that rural communities of France far more cohesive and capable of joint action to defend their communal land and rights of access against seigneurial encroachment when did enclose did so more fairly
Massive differences B and F systems of land tenure BUT LR trend both societies to transformation of property rights in land into full private ownership + greater inequality land distribution - French revolution checked rehabilitation of the large estate distribution grew more unequal in Britain post 1789 1873 80% of land owned by 7000 individuals.
Agrarian laws of the revolutionary era operated basically to strengthen and consolidate peasant proprietorship - penumbra of measures: seigniorial dues, tenancy and land ownership, layout of fields, grazing rights effectively precluded any fundamental or rapid transformation of traditional system of land tenure in France. In a technical sense the overall distribution of land became more equal
Communal property survived the revolution agrarian policy of the Revolution favoured medium proprietors and larger tenant farmers over seigneurs who lost power to appropriate a disproportionate share of common land
Revolution abolished seigneurial dues thus transferred income back to those who owned and farmed the land of France FR peasantry far greater share of the produce from their lands, burdens lightened at a stroke, capacity to survive and prosper small plots enhanced.
NO IMPLICATION PRECONDITIONS BRITISH SYSTEM OF TENURE French landowners were rentiers sucking as much out of land as possible, no sense partnership between landlord and tenant. Consistent agrarian policy to strengthen and increase estates such magnates and consolidate larger fieds might have generated rates of investment cf. those in Britain ancien regime worried about peasant revolt and the loss of their tax base.
BY THEIR ACTIONS DURING A DECADE OF REVOLUTION FRENCH PEASANTS CHECKED ATTEMPTS TO REFORM ABOVE THAT HAD GATHERED MOMENTIUM DURING THE 2ND HALF OD THE 18TH CENTURY ENSURED SOLUTIONS TO PROBLEMS OF INEFFICIENCY ASSOC. WITH PROPRIETORSHIP, FIELD LAYOUT, SCALE OF FAMRS NOT BE POLITICAL
Signficant changes dist. Of land ownership not until after WW1 Bloch: Peasant proprietorship has been conspicuously successful in maintaining its ascendancy over much of the soil.
Supplies of domestically produced fertiliser available for application on to the arable land of France around 45% of amount available per hectare in Britain relatively high availability of fertiliser in Britain reflects the fact that a far greater proportion of land utilised consisted of pasture and rough grazing.
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