Recent, Mainly Cliometric Historians? Essay, Research Paper
The retardation thesis postulates that,
during the 18th and 19th centuries, France failed to take
advantage of the economic opportunities available to it.? Traditionally historians looked to the
English industrial revolution and compared its features, as well as the
preceding political, social and economic conditions, with those of France.? By looking at the differences historians
highlighted features in the French economy and social institutions that were
different to those of England.? These
factors were then converted into causal factors for the slower development of
the French economy.? The retardation
thesis is very much a comparative theory.?
The word retardation implies some form of norm or comparative rate of
growth.? The French economy was retarded
because it did not grow as quickly, or as dramatically as the British
economy.? In this essay I will briefly
outline some of the fundamental features of the retardation thesis, before
reviewing a selection of the revisionist literature that downplays and even
disputes the validity of the traditional arguments.The empirical evidence for the retardation
thesis is well documented.? Perhaps the
most important statistic is that of per capita national income and, according
to Crafts and others, France was considerably and consistently below England
from 1830 to 1910.? The comparative
structural make-up of the two countries has been used to explain the more
general, GNP, based differences.? One of
the fundamentals of the retardation thesis is that the French economy was
encumbered with an overly large and unproductive agricultural sector.? The comparative lack of agricultural labour
productivity in France meant that little surplus was generated.? As a consequence capital formation was
slowed and few rural workers left the countryside to work in urban and
industrial contexts.? The difference is
agricultural sectoral share and productivity with Britain was marked.? By 1840 the percentage of agricultural
income as a share of national income in Britain was the same as the percentage
of the workforce in agriculture.?? In
1870 53.7% of the French workforce still worked in agriculture, whilst
producing only 33.5% of income.? The
reasons for this agricultural backwardness are seemingly engrained in the
historiographical tradition; small inefficient farms, peasant immobility,
open-field systems, failure to innovate and a distinct lack of capitalist
farming.? The importance of agricultural
productivity forms the backbone of the retardation thesis.? Structural change is directly linked to
economic growth.? Where were the iron,
cotton and coal industries that powered English economic development? Other major differences in the two
economies have also been interpreted as causes for France?s supposed economic
stagnation.? Kemp argues that France?s
failure to adopt modern industrial forms of organization hampered economic
development.? Most visibly the sparsity
of factories in France has been used to signify backwardness.? Landes sees this failure as a result of the
inability of French entrepreneurs to adopt British industrial practices.? He argued that technology diffused too slowly.? Others have cited the mentality of French
society as a reason for the slower process of industrialization.? Historians like Kemp and Landes suggest that
the French bourgeoisie were more interested in bureaucratic status and land
holdings than the more risky and less prestigious paths of business and
entrepreneurship.? The social and
economic milieu of pre and post-revolutionary France retarded economic
development.? The comparative dearth of
inventions and innovations in France is also cited as a factor behind the
differing levels of growth.? Hargreaves,
Arkwright and Darby were English and it was their innovations that
revolutionized English industry.?
Scholars and students alike have seen the English industrial revolution
the normal path to modern economic development.? Historians have looked to at other economies to find reasons for
their comparative lack of development.?
The retardation thesis is based on the question ?Why was France second??
rather than the question ?Why was England first??.In recent years a strong revisionist
tendency amongst economic historians of the 18th and 19th
century has developed.? O?Brien?s and
Keyder?s work is just one example of this new revisionist literature.? They refute the principle of the retardation
theory by suggesting that labeling the French economy as retarded in
relation to the English economy is too narrow an assessment.? They suggest that the English path to
development was not necessarily the optimal path to development and that the
more gradual transformation of the French economy was more suited to the social
structures of the 19th century.?
O?Brien and Keyder agree that a quicker structural transformation from
agriculture to industry would have aided economic development by generating
surpluses and urban labour.? But the
more gradual transformation form agriculture to industry can only be seen as
retarded if it was in some way economically irrational.? O?Brien and Keyder quite rightly tell us
that the rate of structural transformation is not exogenous and cannot be
changed by fiat.? Traditionalists would
argue for cultural and institutional reasons behind this slow transformation,
whereas Grantham and O?Brien and Keyder also highlight natural resources,
location, climate and other geographical disadvantages that precluded a more
rapid transformation.? O?Brien and
Keyder refute the extent of the productivity gap.? Their analysis points to natural endowments (soil, relief, climate,
quantity of land per worker) as providing the majority of the gap in agricultural
productivity.? Conversely they see the
gap in yields per acre as very small with France producing yields of up to 75%
of those of Britain.? French farmers
were relatively quick to innovate and increase yields given the context in
which they operated. ?It was the context
of a differing system of tenure, the revolution, the small size of farms and
natural endowments that held French agriculture back.? Given this context it is worthy of praise that French
agriculturalists progressed as far as they did.? Whilst O?Brien and Keyder accept French
agricultural backwardness hampered economic development, Grantham states that
no cliometric evidence exists for agricultural having hampered industrial
development.? Indeed studies by Postal
et al. suggest that the real agricultural wage in France was often higher than
the industrial wage
economically rational.? Grantham also
argues for a higher agricultural labour productivity that O?Brien and
Keyder.? The extra productivity is
accounted for by Grantham?s use of part time workers in his statistics.? Grantham, in his survey of cliometrics and
the French economy, disputes other traditional causes and symptoms of
retardation.? He uses evidence from
Mathias and O?Brien to show that the disruptive influence of the state was less
than traditionalists would believe.?
Indeed he provides us with statistics that show England?s rate of output
taxation to be double that of France?s, and that the average tariff in England
was higher than that of France.?
Grantham disputes, with empirical evidence, a variety of factors that
followers of the retardation thesis used as symptoms and causes of economic
stagnation in France.More controversially O?Brien and Keyder
argue for higher for a high industrial labour productivity than followers of
the retardation theory have suggested.?
The implication being that industry was far from retarded and that
labour productivity was growing at a comparable rate to that of Britain.? However there are certain controversies
about their use of statistics.?
Kindleberger believes the British sources of their statistics to be more
reliable than the patchwork of French sources, whilst Crafts highlights other
key problems.? He believes the
discounting of services places an unduly heavy bias toward French industry as
Britain was much stronger in this sector.?
He disputes the notion that measuring services would represent a double
counting phenomenon.? Crafts also
combines research from Carre, Dubois, Mainvaud, Markovitich, Feinstein and
Hoffman to show that O?Brien and Keyder?s labour input figures are too
low.? Thus we see O?Brien and Keyder
over estimating labour productivity in industry, as well as capital ? labour
ratios.? Crafts asks whether French
labour was really 42% more effective than the European norm or simply 42%
underreported.Other revisionists go further than O?Brien
and Keyder in promoting the virtues of the French economy.? Roehl uses an inverted Gerschenkronian model
to show that far from being retarded France was actually an early
industrialiser.? Gerschenkron produced a
series of features that characterized late developers.? Roehl inverted these features in an attempt
to show that France was in fact an early industrialiser.? Roehl sees the gradual growth of France, the
reliance on her own technology and capital, the lack of virulent
industrializing ideologies, the growth in agricultural productivity and the
lack of a noticeable growth spurt as evidence for this inverted theory.? Roehl also remarks that French
industrialization developed along proto-industrial lines in contrast to
Mantoux?s English definition of an industrial revolution which included large
and visible signs of growing iron, cotton and textile sectors.? Roehl?s Gerschenkronian interpretation is
not without its detractors.? Crafts
disputes Gerschenkron?s theory itself, and more worryingly for Roehl, Grantham,
an arch cliometrician, describes Gerschenkron?s theory as an ?impressionistic
generalization? which ?empirical contradiction has thoroughly
discredited?.? As Crafts put it, does
Roehl?s paper text Gerschenkron?s taxonomy in relation to France or the
taxonomy itself?? Crafts own work also
sheds new light on the retardation thesis.?
He questions the ability and advisability of describing French
retardation in terms of Britain?s primacy.?
How can one isolate and test potential causes of French retardation, or
differences with Britain?s primacy, when the experiment can only be run once?? Thus he dismisses the views of Kemp at al.
as unfounded.? He doubts that historians
can isolate a single factor or a variety of factors that led to England?s
primacy.? Without the chance to run
further empirical tests this approach is extremely unreliable.? Crafts uses the example of innovation to further
his point.? Crafts sees the process of
invention and innovation as stochastic.?
France may have had a more responsive social milieu and the economic
environment to innovation, but English inventors got lucky.? England may have been first, but this does
not mean that the factors that aided its development were necessarily more
pronounced than those in France.? As
Crafts himself says it could be the case that the country ?with lowest ex ante
likelihood of achieving ?decisive innovations? may be observed as the
winner!?.? Crafts concludes by stating
that many of the features of the English economy have not been proven to be
superior, although he tempers this by reaffirming his belief that, empirically
at least, England?s economy was generally superior to that of France throughout
the period.It would be wrong to state that the
revisionist interpretation of French economic development had overthrown all
parts of the retardation thesis.? Whilst
many now agree that gaps in productivity and income per capita were less than
first thought, there can is no doubt that France lagged behind England in terms
of income per capita and productivity.?
Crafts would argue that it is almost impossible to prove individual
facets of the retardation thesis due to the non-repeatable nature of the
industrial revolution ?experiment?.?
However there seems to be a consensus that the relatively gradual
structural transformation of France slowed the growth of industry in France.? But the word retardation is
inappropriate.? French farmers were not
inefficient and economically stagnant.?
The cliometricians are useful in providing micro evidence for their
economic rationality.? The word
retardation seems outdated.? A
comparison with the English industrial revolution is unfair.? The differing natural endowments, legal,
cultural and political heritages provided different opportunities in different
countries.? It would appear more
appropriate to judge an economies development, if doing so over a given period
of time, by considering its pre-existing features.? The retardation thesis necessarily examines the French economy in
terms of the successes of the English economy.?
As Crafts and others show the Britain was the first industrialiser, but
the English path was by no means standardized.?
The retardation thesis, by concentrating on the English path, is too
narrow a concept.? A true economic
historian would surely study the development of the French economy in a fashion
that concentrated more on French than English experiences.