Chapter 6 Part One Development Chapter One The World of the 1780s 4

4 From a social perspective, the rural structure in the rest of Europe is no different.That is to say, for farmers and hired labor, anyone who owns land is a "squire" and is a member of the ruling class. It is still nominally the only route to the highest echelons of government), that is inconceivable.The feudal order implicit in this way of thinking remained politically viable in most Western European countries, even as it became increasingly obsolete economically.Indeed, because of its economic decline, the growth of the incomes of the nobility and gentry lagged farther and farther behind the rise of prices and expenditures, and it was this which made the nobility more vigorous than ever, using its An inalienable economic asset, taking advantage of his status and birthright.Everywhere on the Continent, from Sweden to France, nobles squeezed lowly rivals out of the king's pockets.The proportion of Swedish civilian officials fell from 66% in 1719 (42% in 1700) to 33% in 1780.In France, this "feudal reaction" hastened the Revolution (see Chapter 3).But even where some aspects of the social order were visibly shaken, as in France, it was fairly easy to join the landed nobility.It is more convenient in England, where landownership and nobility are the rewards of wealth of all kinds, if the wealth is great enough.The link between land ownership and ruling-class status still existed then and actually became stronger later.

Economically, however, the rural societies of Western Europe were very different.typical The peasantry in the late Middle Ages had been released from most of the obligations of servile status, although legally they still retained a large number of annoying traces of dependence.The typical estate has long since ceased to be a unit of economic activity and has become a system for collecting ground rent and other currencies.The more or less free peasants, whether kulak, middle or small, were the unique cultivators of the land.If he is a tenant of some kind, then he pays rent (in some districts a grain share) to the landlord.If he is a free farmer in the legal sense, then he may still have various obligations to the local lord, which may or may not be convertible into cash (such as his obligation to send his grain to the lord's mill processing), taxes to the princes and nobles, tithes to the church, and certain servitude, all in contrast to the higher social classes, who were relatively exempt from their obligations.But if these political shackles were lifted, much of Europe would become an agricultural region run by farmers.Generally speaking, within the region, a small number of well-to-do farmers tended to become commodity farmers, who sold often surplus grain in urban markets.Most of the small and medium-sized peasants depend on the land they own and live a life similar to self-sufficiency, unless they own so little land that they have to find some odd jobs in agriculture or handicrafts to earn some wages.

Only some areas have pushed agriculture further to the stage of pure capitalist agriculture, and Britain is one of the main areas.In the UK, land ownership has been highly concentrated, but the typical tiller is a medium-sized, commercially run tenant who usually employs help to cultivate the land.They were lost in a sea of ​​small landowners, cottagers, and the like.But once this cover is lifted (roughly between 1760 and 1830), what appears here is not smallholder agriculture but a class of agricultural entrepreneurs and farm owners, and a large agricultural proletariat. class.Some areas of Europe, such as northern Italy and the Netherlands, where commercial investment is customary to invest in farm operations, or specialized cash crops produced there, also show strong capitalist tendencies, but this is only the exception .Yet another exception is Ireland, an unfortunate island that combines the disadvantages of a backward region of Europe with the disadvantage of being close to the most advanced economies.There, a small group of big landowners, similar to those of Andalusia or Sicily, extorted rents and exploited the vast number of tenant farmers.

From a technical point of view, except for some advanced areas, European agriculture still belongs to traditional agriculture, and the efficiency is surprisingly low.Its products are basically traditional products: rye, wheat, barley, oats, and Eastern European buckwheat; beef cattle, sheep, goats and their milk products; pigs and poultry; a certain amount of fruit and vegetables; wine; Industrial raw materials such as flax, hemp for ship cables, and barley for beer production.Food in Europe is still local, and food produced in other climates is scarce, bordering on luxuries, with the exception perhaps of sugar - the most important food import from the tropics, the sweetness of which has caused human misery more than anything else.In the 1790s, Britain (the most advanced country at the time) consumed an average of 14 pounds of sucrose per person per year.But even in this country, in the year of the French Revolution, the consumption of tea per person per month was scarcely two ounces.

Some progress has been made in introducing new crops from the Americas or other tropical regions.In southern Europe and the Balkans, maize (the food of the Indians) was already fairly widespread—which helped to keep migratory farmers anchored in small Balkan plots—and in northern Italy rice production made some progress.Tobacco was grown on various aristocratic estates, and much of it was monopolized by the government for fiscal purposes, although consumption was negligible by modern standards.In 1790, the average Englishman smoked, smoked or chewed about one and one-third ounces a month.Sericulture is already quite common in parts of southern Europe.Potatoes are just beginning to flourish as a major crop, except perhaps in Ireland.An acre of potatoes feeds more people in Ireland than any other food, and potatoes are already grown there in large numbers.Systematic cultivation of root crops and forage crops (as opposed to hay) is fairly rare outside of Great Britain and the Low Countries.It was not until the Napoleonic Wars that sugar beets were produced on a large scale.

The 18th century was certainly not a century of agricultural stagnation, on the contrary, it was an era of population expansion, vigorous urbanization, and long-term growth in trade and manufacturing, all of which contributed to, and did require, agricultural improvements .It is a characteristic phenomenon of the modern world that population growth began in the second half of the century and has continued since then: For example, between 1755 and 1784, the agricultural population of the Belgian province of Brabant increased by 44%.From Spain to Russia, there were numerous promoters of the agricultural progressive movement, who expanded their organization and distributed government reports and propaganda publications.However, in their impressions, the most profound thing was the huge obstacles encountered by agricultural development, not the progress of agriculture.