One of the enduring historical questions is why the Industrial Revolution started in England, rather than somewhere else. One theory—that of Robert Brenner—gives a lot of credit to England’s agricultural revolution.
Thanks to agriculture, England developed the ability to provide enough food for a growing population (famines ended completely by 1700). At the same time, the changing agriculture reduced the need for so many people on farms. The former manor tenants moved to the towns and cities and became the human engines of the industrial revolution.
For a class this fall, I read a 1976 article by Robert Brenner explaining how this agricultural revolution came about.[1] By the way, I may have earlier overstated the case when I said that historians don’t take Marxism all that seriously. Brenner was either a Marxist or a neo-Marxist, and his paper is laced with Marxist references to “class,” “class consciousness,” and “surplus-extraction.”
But it’s well worth considering.
Brenner’s fundamental points are fairly simple. He says that former serfs in England tried to become freeholders (landowners rather than tenants) but landlords prevented them. The collapse of population after the Black Death (around 1350) meant that some tenant holdings (“fiefs”) were left empty, and Brenner says landlords simply took them over.
In addition, with fees or rent having replaced in-kind and work requirements, landlords could often jack up the fees to the point where tenants simply departed. Once landlords owned large holdings outright and needed to earn money from their produce, they began steady improvements in their management of land. The agricultural revolution was “on.”
Brenner Compares England and France
Not so in France. There, says Brenner, French landlords were restricted by laws and customs requiring that land remain inheritable and that fees be controlled. So peasant freeholding developed and expanded—achieving what the English tenants would have liked.
But the result was tragic: Owners of very small properties did not have the incentive or ability to change agricultural practices significantly. Says Brenner: “Thus, ironically, the most complete freedom and property rights for the rural population [the case in France] meant poverty and a self-perpetuating cycle of backwardness.”[2]
To me, Brenner’s argument has a lot in common with the “new institutional economics.” That is the economic approach that starts (as most economics does) with individual self-interest, but sees in an era’s institutions—its customs, laws, and traditions—forces that shape and change individuals’ behavior. New institutionalists don’t use terms like Marx’s “transformation of feudal exploitation into capitalist exploitation.” But they do see how people who are otherwise very similar (serfs in France and England) can succeed or fail because of the rules of the game they live under.
Controversial, of Course
Brenner’s thesis, that landowners took possession of lands that were emptied by the Black Death, and thereby obtained highly efficient holdings, is controversial, of course.
One of my favorite historians, Joyce Appleby, thinks that Marxists like Brenner assume landlords to be “more prescient and disciplined than they were.” She thinks the English agricultural revolution took place “over five or six generations of experimentation and resistance,” and it involved landlords, gentry, freeholders, tenants, and cottagers. They had to respond to the sometimes harsh vagaries of the market—but not, for the most part, to exploitation. [3]
Brenner’s thesis also assumes a lot of facts about how large estates in England developed and also assumes (as some historians do not) that the agricultural revolution was key to the Industrial Revolution. I still find it worth paying attention to.
Notes
[1] Robert Brenner, “Agrarian Class Structure and Economic Development in Pre-industrial Europe,” Past & Present, no. 70 (Feb. 1976), 30-75.
[2] Brenner, 75.
[3] Joyce Appleby, The Relentless Revolution: A History of Capitalism (New York: W.W. Norton, 2010), 78.
The Inclosure Acts, mainly in the 17th C, created an agricultural revolution in England. As with all such radical changes, some people suffered, while it led to a permanent trend of increasing nutrition for almost all.
The idea that having small pieces of land for the “peasantry” has failed all over–Mao’s return to the countryside, Pol Pot, and the silly idea that many well meaning Americans used to propose in “land for the campesinos” of Central and South America. They meant a hectare or two.
The campesinos I knew down there didn’t want a future hacking away at a small piece of land. I doubt that a low income Brit in the 17th or 18th C would choose that in lieu of a trade or a factory job. Both farm and factory work was often brutal until labor laws and enlightened manufacturers began to change conditions. A small period of history.
Meanwhile the Industrial Revolution energized by rural to urban migration was building the foundations for an affluent country far more prosperous and peaceful and democratic than most of Europe.
There’s actually a deep and interesting alternative explanation of the why the Industrial Revolution happened in England first, by Gregory Clark, A Farewell to Alms. I highly recommend his book.
I don’t think it is any mystery why the Industrial Revolution began in England. There were huge political changes in the country in the years around 1690 which turned England into what we would call the first truly “free country.” The common law created a firm basis for property rights and personal security. The English Bill of Rights dates to 1689, and religious toleration (which attracted skilled people from all over Europe) began around that time also.
Freedom of the press in England (which included the communication of commercial information) dates to expiration of the censorship law in 1694. In addition, England’s overseas interests and carrying trade sparked an enormous increase in trade, commercial activity, and capital. (Incidentally, these changes were accompanied by other major social changes, from the standardization of orthography to the warming of family relationships.)
In France the government soaked up economic surplus in a series of fruitless wars. Italy and Germany were disunited and also subject to internal strife. Spain was a corrupt absolute monarchy.
There’s no reason to be more obscure than that. The far more interesting question is just why the great political changes occurred in England in the years around 1690.
Great comment, Rob. If England was a free country by 1690, how did that come about? In 1628, the Parliament (in the Petition of Right) gave credit to the Magna Carta (1215) for the Englishman’s right to due process. But the libertarian scholar Leonard Liggio told me that the freedoms started with Anglo-Saxon or Germanic tribes. In fact, he was chiding me for accepting Thomas Sowell’s view that the conquest of Britain by Rome was a great civilizing benefit. The idea that English liberties go back to pre-Conquest times and perhaps to Germany used to be widely held, I believe, but then lost favor, probably because of its WASP-ish overtones. (Leonard was, of course, neither Anglo-Saxon nor Protestant.)
The power of the Individual (Economic) Self interest arguement has always been a formidable one. However, Ms. Appleby has a valid point. Often times things are more complex than they seem. Simple exploitation or blatant bulldozing of tenants off the land is far too simple of an explanation for me. I am interested in Brenner’s segway/bridge between the Agricultural and Industrial revolution. Well done Jane!
Thanks, Caleb! I always assumed that the agricultural revolution freed up workers for factories, but I’ve heard that such a connection is too simplistic. More to investigate!