English Property Rights Vs French Peasant Farming

English Property Rights Vs. French Peasant Farming & Productivity Essay, Research Paper

The view that England.s advantage in terms

of agricultural productivity was related to its system of property rights and

agrarian institutions is far from new..

It was Arthur Young in the late 18th century that famously

cited enclosure as the major factor in the differing levels of agricultural

productivity the two countries.. To

Young big was beautiful and the agglomerated and enclosed farms of England were

far superior to the .infinitesimally small. peasant farms of

France.. Young furthered his arguments

by suggesting that partage, the opposite of English primogeniture, augmented

the creation of inefficiently small farms..

On the standard of living of the peasants who inhabited these farms, he

remarked: .In general they are poor and miserable, much arising from the minute

division of their little farms among all children... On the subject of agrarian institutions Young was equally

scathing.. He described the open field

system as .The Goths and Vandals of the open system. as well as

referring to French agricultural practices as barbarous.. The classic, pre-revisionist response to

this question is an unequivocal yes..

However a revisionist school has countered the tradition of Young and

others.. A reassessment of old data and

the formulation of new data have led to opposing answers to this question.. In this essay I will outline and discuss the

classic as well as the revisionist arguments.Allen terms the classic viewpoint on

property rights and agrarian institutions as Agricultural Fundamentalism.. Agricultural fundamentalism explains how and

why England.s agriculture developed more quickly than France.s.. This theory emphasizes how agrarian

institutions and property rights were crucial to the development of English

agriculture and the so-called retardation of French agriculture.. Enclosure, a concept that contains

institutional and teneurial facets, is central to this classic argument.. The enclosures of open-fields created

capitalist farming and extended markets..

Agglomerated farms allowed the accumulation of capital, which in turn

led to the rapid diffusion of more intensive mixed husbandry techniques.. With greater capital accumulation a greater

intensity of animals could be farmed, thus raising output from animal products,

and raising arable yields through the nitrogen-fixing properties of manure.. Young argued that larger, enclosed farms

were necessary for this intensification of livestock rearing.. Marxists and Tories alike agreed that

enclosure raised agricultural productivity and output, although only the

Marxists argued that it led to a fall in rural employment.. The enclosure movement in England,

especially the post 1750 Parliamentary Enclosure movement allowed now redundant

rural labour to move into urban areas to power the industrial revolution.. The agricultural revolution was a

prerequisite for the industrial revolution.Traditionally it has been argued that

France.s failure to match England.s agricultural productivity, or its failure

to reform its agricultural system, necessitated its much slower industrial

development.. The agrarian revolution

was delayed which in turn restricted industrial growth.. France.s failure to enclose its open fields

was seen by Young as the reason for France.s failure to improve agriculture

productivity.. There can be no doubt

whatsoever that France was slow to enclose..

By the end of 19th century 40% of French agricultural land

was still in peasant hands, whereas a mere 11% was in the hands of the English

rural poor.. France.s failure to enclose

has been linked to a wide variety of factors..

The strength and experience of the peasantry in maintaining their access

rights from the seigneurs went back decades, and historians have suggested that

ancien regime monarchs protected such rights in order to protect their tax

base.. The French revolution, which

occurred during the height of the third enclosure movement in England served to

strengthen the peasants. position..

Partage and other inheritance measures meant small farms persisted,

whilst judicial and tax reforms eased the peasantry.s economic burden.. The accompanying inflation of the period

served to eradicate peasant debt which augmented the peasant.s ability to buy

land.. The French peasantry, as O.Brien

describes, were wiling to trade the short run gains from enclosure for the

stability and wealth of landowning.. In

contrast rural workers in England continued to lose land.. The power of the French peasantry and their

penchant for landownership is directly contrasted with the seemingly helpless

and landless position of the rural population in England.. In England the enclosure movement, which

originated with tenant evictions in 16th century, had all but removed peasant

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