Agricultural to Industrial
Revolution in Europe
Visual Essay: Ashutosh Vanaparthi and Kabir Dev
Factors behind the rise of Capitalist Agriculture and Industrialisation
Over the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, England and in turn, subsequently, Europe was at the forefront of virtually an agricultural revolution of sorts which involved immense changes involving land tenure, the organisation of production on farms, techniques employed in farming, and ultimately the overall productivity levels of agriculture (Maček, J. (1993). Hence, the sixteenth century essentially represented a spectacular change in English rural life: primarily to do with the emergence of the capitalist farm at the expense of small scale peasant cultivators, the pointed intensification of market relations and concerns, an overall increase in population levels, and the eventual breakthrough to capitalist development in towns and countrysides. While, the social ramifications of this revolution were significant as well, in terms of hundreds of thousands of displaced peasants being plunged into virtual predicaments of day to day labour, firstly in farming and then consequently in manufacturing in towns and cities, increased farm productivity allowed more quick urbanisation and the growth of an urban, commercialised economy; and lastly higher real incomes provided for much higher levels of demand for finished goods which stimulated industrial development..
The Agricultural revolution played a massive role in bringing about the Industrial revolution through several innovations and inventions that ended up impacting how the farming industry on the whole operated. These new inventions in turn ended up creating a decline in both the overall intensity and ardor of the work as well as the number of agricultural labourers that were required. Owing to the decline in the requirement for agricultural workers, several started working in industrial units, which further fueled the Industrial Revolution. When the Agricultural Revolution began farm hands chose to migrate to the city in order to work industrial jobs: however, as and when with the subsequent decline in the need for agricultural workers rose, many were compelled to look out for work in the industries(Maček, J. (1993)(Faulkner, N. 2020).
Hence, the agricultural revolution was the inevitable prelude in short to the industrial revolution to come. As Brenner puts it quite succinctly that it was the growth of agricultural productivity, which was inherently ingrained in the transformation and evolution of the agrarian class or even with property relations, which essentially allowed the English economy to endeavour towards a path of development before its continental neighbours and subsequently be mirrored in the same areas. This same path was distinguished by the continuous industrialisation and overall economic growth throughout the period when a ‘general crisis’ was gripping other European Economies.
Economic historians like MM Postan and Emmanuel Le Roy Ladueie have stated that the cause of this process of change was an incremental increase in terms of either population or commerce or both. While on the other hand, Robert Brenner postulated that these explanations are wholly inadequate, since these large scale factors ended up impacting the whole of Western Europe. At the same time, Capitalist breakthroughs only occurred only in Britain. Brenner surmised that the determining factor is the specific character of social property relations in various disparate regions of Europe( specifically to do with the conditions of land tenure and linked forms of surplus extraction), the interests and incentives of these relations impose on the various actors and the relative powers of the classes which are in turn defined by those relations in particular regions.
Brenner’s analysis is rooted in some of the core concepts of Marxist analysis and historical materialism which is linked to class, property relations, productive forces, and systems of surplus extraction. Brenner extrapolated through his inferences and based his analysis on a micro class analysis of the agrarian relations of specific regions of Europe. Hence, the processes of agricultural modernisation nearly ended up favouring some class interests and inadvertently harmed others. Capitalist agriculture required larger units of production; the application or higher quantities of capital goods to agriculture; higher levels of education and scientific knowledge and so on. All this in essence mandated expropriation of smallholders and the destruction of conventional communal forms of agrarian relations. Higher agricultural productivity would, in turn, result in the end. However, the new agrarian relations would be the ones that would end up exuding more significant products out of control of the producer and into elite classes and larger urban concentrations. Subsequently, these very changes did not favour peasant community interests, in the medium run at the very least. Brenner further stated that in the regions in Europe wherein peasant societies were able to defend convention arrangements in the form of favourable rent levels, communal control of land, and patterns of smallholdings those arrangements persisted for centuries. In areas where peasants had been substantially deprived of tradition, organisation, and the overall power of resistance, capitalist agriculture was able ( through the means of an enlightened gentry and a budding bourgeoisie) to able to fundamentally revamp agrarian relations in the direction of profitable, scientific, rational and capitalist agriculture.
In terms of class structure, Brenner claimed that the relations of the direct producers towards one another, towards their tools and also to the land in the immediate process of production- what has been called the “labour process” or the “social forces of production”. Secondly, the conflicting relations of property as that are always guaranteed directly or even indirectly, in the last analysis, by force and by way of which an unpaid for part of the product is extracted from the direct producers by a class of non-producers which might be called the “property relationship” or the “surplus extraction relationship”. Hence, it is around the property or surplus extraction relationships that one can define the fundamental classes in a society which are the class(es) of direct producers on the one hand and the surplus extracting, or ruling, class(es) on the other.
Brenner assumed a rudimentary framework of surplus extraction, which was in contravention to Marx’s dictum that “all history is a history of class conflict” as the core structure of economic organisation. Social systems involve a division between producers and non-producers; all social wealth is generated in the production process by producers, and subsequently, the property relations effectively separated the surplus product from the producer to the control and enjoyment of the non-producer. Classes, on the whole, are constituted by the structure of the property system; individuals fall into classes in tandem to their positions within the property system. This is a structural criterion of class membership; a serf is a serf in the sense that whether he regards himself as such or not, since his economic disposition is defined by limited property rights which he has in land and the obligations towards which he is subject concerning his lord. However, the theory of class might be elaborated in at least two further directions. Classes, on the whole, might become class conscious; that is, the members of a class might come to identify themselves as a class. Classes might come to constitute themselves as political agencies: wherein they might develop institutions of political organisation and the conventions of political consciousness which allow them to engage in collective class activities(Maček, J. 1993).
Brenner’s approach, however, cannot be classified in the sense of classical Marxism, since it is not an orthodox application of classical Marxism to economic history, in that sense, he was able to dispute the primacy of the forces of production in the historical process. He also denies the ultimate existence of large-scale “laws of motion” of a given mode of production. Specifically, he denied the fact that feudalism had one central tenet of a set of predispositions of development which were mandated by the overall structure in place linked to the feudal mode of production. On the contrary, feudal property and class relations showed variation across the spectrum of medieval Europe, and these differences gave rise to significant differences and dissonances in economic development on the whole(Young, J. 2020).
The Agricultural Revolution in Britain specifically proved to be a significant turning point, which allowed the population to exceed earlier highs and eventually sustain the country’s so called rise to industrial preeminence. The rapid increase in the overall food supply contributed significantly to the rapid growth of population in England as well as Wales, from around 5.5 million in 1700 to over 9 million by 1801, even though domestic production gave rise in turn to food imports in the 19th century since population also tripled parallel to over 32 million. The rise in productivity exacerbated the decline of the agricultural share of the labour force, adding to the overall load of the urban workforce in which industrialisation eventually depended. The Agricultural revolution, hence, inadvertently was one of the primary causes of the Industrial revolution. As with the advent of the concept of enclosures many were deprived of access to land or farmers were left with plots too small and of extremely poor quality, rising numbers of workers had no choice but to migrate to the city, altogether. Preceding the Industrial revolution,however, rural migration occurred primarily in localised regions. Pre industrial societies didn’t experience large rural urban migration flows, owing to the inability of cities to be able to sustain large populations. With the enhanced agricultural productivity ended up freeing up workers towards other sectors of the economy, it took decades of the Industrial revolution as well as development to be able to give rise to a truly rural to urban labour migration. As food supplies increased and established as well as industrialised centres moved into place, cities began supporting larger populations, which ignited the beginning of rural flight on a major scale. In England, the proportion of the population which was living in cities essentially jumped from 17% in 1801 to 72% in 1891(Boundless World History,2020).
The overall development as well as advancement of tools and machines decreased the demand for rural labour. Coupled with increasingly restricted access to land forced many rural workers to migrate to cities, which eventually ended up supplying the labour demand created by the Industrial revolution.
While, markets were widespread by 1500. These were highly regulated and not free. The most important development between the 16th century and the mid 19th century was the most significant marker of private marketing. By the advent of the 19th century, marketing was nationwide and the vast majority of agricultural production was for the market rather than for the farmer and his family. The 16th century market radius was about 10 miles, which could only tentatively support a town of 10,000. High wagon transportation costs implied economically un feasibility in terms of ship commodities which were far from the market radius by road, which ended up limiting the shipment to less than 20 or 30 miles to the market or to a navigable waterway. The subsequent stage of development was trading between markets, which required merchants, credit and forward sales, and knowledge of markets and pricing as well as the supply and demand in different markets. Subsequently the market evolved into a national one which was essentially driven by London and other expanding cities. By 1700, there was a national level market in place for wheat. Legislations which regulated middlemen mandated registration, and addressed weights and measures, fixing prices, and the collection of tolls by the government. Market regulations were relatively eased in 1663, when people were granted some sense of self regulation to be able to hold inventory, however it was forbidden to withhold commodities from the market in an endeavour to increase prices. In the late 18th century, the very idea of “self regulation” was gaining acceptance and validation. The very prevalence of a lack of internal tariffs, customs barriers, and feudal tolls made Britain “ the largest coherent market at the time in Europe(Moore, J. (2010)(Boundless World History,2020).”
Farming ended up becoming a business rather than primarily a means of subsistence. Under the ambit of free market capitalism, farmers had to remain competitive. In order to be successful, they had to become effective managers who ended up incorporating the latest farming innovations in order to be low cost producers(Boundless World History,2020).
The fundamental idea that the Industrial Revolution has made us not only more and more technologically advanced and materially furnished but also better for it is a powerful narrative and paradigm which is inevitably hard to shake off. It makes it practically difficult to diverge from the established norm/ idea that new technologies, economic growth, and a consumer-driven society are necessary. By criticising industrial modernity is somehow to criticise the moral advancement of humankind since a core theme in this very narrative is the idea that industrialisation was able to revolutionise our humanity, as well.
Like Rousseau, it is imperative to acknowledge the objective advancement of technology, but it isn’t necessary to assume that the critical values of the Industrial Revolution are beyond any reproach:
social inequality for the sake of private wealth economic growth at a trade-off everything else, which included the integrity of the environment the underlying assumption that mechanised newness is always a positive thing .
Mass production reliant on mechanical power, labour saving machineries, and a cheap workforce of semi skilled operatives which encapsulated women and children, as well as made possibly immense advances in labour productivity and output. Competition driven pressure decreased the wages of hand loom weavers and also squeezed the profits of cotton merchants who were reliant on putting out altogether. The workers were subsequently forced into the mills. The merchants then invested in steam engines and spinning frames. Manchester for instance changed altogether from a city of workshop dwellings, canals, and waterfronts into a city of back to back tenements, textile mills, and railways. As it did, life for several of its fast rising population ended up becoming inherently oppressive. This darker, relatively more ominous side of the Industrial Revolution on a 22 year old German, Frederick Engels, who was sent by his father to work in the family firm at the time, which owned a textile mill in Manchester. Writing about the city in 1844, he surmised that ‘350,000 working people of Manchester and its environs live, most of them, in wretched,damp, filthy cottages. The streets which surrounded them were mostly miserable and in a deplorable state, without any sense of ventilation; the primary focus and motive for the contractor being his profit(Faulkner, N. 2020).’
Critics of industrialisation have lived throughout the industrial revolution as well, even if the sounds of primitive engines often drowned out their very message. Thinkers and activists as diverse as Thomas Malthus, Fridrich Engels, the Luddites, John Stuart Mill, Henry David Thoreau, William Wordsworth, and John Muir criticised some or all aspects of the Industrial revolution. The Luddites questioned the necessary incorporation of machines that would put so many people out of work. Engels questioned the dismal living and working conditions which are experienced by the working classes and drew on links between economic changes, social inequality, and environmental destruction. Communist and left-wing scholars, therefore, engaged with the idea and prism that Irish immigrants in as a substrata of the British proletariat who were docile and willing to accept starvation wages. In strict opposition to these scholars who have witnessed the socio-economic behaviour of the Irish in Britain during the Industrial revolution characteristic of industrialisation, while many communist and authoritarian socialist scholars have traced the strike-breaking activities of the Irish immigrants back to the inherent racial or character defects(Young, J. 2020). EP Thompson’s seminal work on the history of the British working class shows the working class was coerced of sorts to work with sub-human wages and be exploited further, coupled with other discriminatory exigencies which in turn exacerbated the predicaments of the working classes. In the end, it is worth pondering over the question of whose purpose in the long as well as short-run did the Agricultural and Industrial developments serve. With the boom of technological advancements and other materials, it merely enabled and facilitated the exploitative nature of the class structures prevalent in a society already or led to a more universal and utopian picture which the conventional histories and stories have told us about the benefits of these ages.
Sources
BBC — History — British History in depth: Agricultural Revolution in England 1500–1850. (2020). Retrieved 18 October 2020, from http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/british/empire_seapower/agricultural_revolution_01.shtml
Brenner, R. (1977). The Origins of Capitalist Development: a Critique of Neo-Smithian Marxism.
Byer, R. (2003). The genesis of the capitalist farmer: towards a Marxist accounting history of the origins of the English agricultural revolution.
Effects of Agriculture on the Industrial Revolution — Foundations of Western Culture:. (2020). Retrieved 18 October 2020, from http://foundations.uwgb.org/agriculture/#fn-235-8
Faulkner, N. (2020). A Marxist History of the World part 50: The Industrial Revolution. Retrieved 17 October 2020, from https://www.counterfire.org/a-marxist-history-of-the-world/15060-a-marxist-history-of-the-world-part-50-the-industrial-revolution
Heller, H. (2018). The Birth of Capitalism: A Twenty-first-century Perspective (The Future of World Capitalism). Pluto Press.
Maček, J. (1993). T. H. Aston, C. H. E. Philpin (Editors), The Brenner Debate. Agrarian Class Structure and Economic Development in Pre-Industrial Europe. Cambridge (etc.)…1990. [Ljubljana: Zveza zgodovinskih društev Slovenije].
Moore, J. (2010). The End of the Road? Agricultural Revolutions in the Capitalist World-Ecology, 1450–2010.
The Agricultural Revolution | Boundless World History. (2020). Retrieved 19 October 2020, from https://courses.lumenlearning.com/boundless-worldhistory/chapter/the-agricultural-revolution/
Young, J. (2020). Marxism, Liberalism and the Process of Industrialisation by James D Young 1969. Retrieved 17 October 2020, from https://www.marxists.org/history/etol/writers/young/1969/liberalism-industrialisation.htm
