[PEN-L:8760] Re: Re: disutility of work

["Ricardo Duchesne" <RDUCHESN@xxxxxxxx>]

RD:

> >Recent comparative research on the peasantries of England and France
> >questions this old view: 1) through the medieval period there were
> >regions in England where a peasantry free of any feudal obligation
> >prevailed and where higher yields per seed were achieved. And it was
> >these prosperous small farmers who later became the tenants of
> >large estates, and who consolidated their farms through a process
> >known as 'engrossing'. 2) copyholders, not just freeholders, had a lot
> >more security of tenure against enclosing landlords than previously argued,
> >with Parliament many times intervening in their favor against landowners.
> >3) the agricultural revolution of the 16th-17th centuries - associated
> >with increases in total grain output and yields - was in many ways
> >initiated and led by  this well-to-do (yeomen) peasantry.
>

Brad:
> Yes. But the not well-to-do peasantry? The rate of population
> increase--and of rural poverty increase in eighteenth and early
> nineteenth-century England is astonishing.

RD:

According to Craft's calculations, English agricultural output
increased per year over the periods 1710-40, 1740-80, and 1780-1800 by
0.9, 0.5, and 0.6 respectively. Wrigley (1987), who cites these
figures from Craft, provides a detailed table on this same question with
similar conclusions, adding (1) that this "implies a total increase in output of
almost exactly 80% over the 90-year period as whole", and (2) that if
we agree that the agricultural population increase by 13% over the
century, then, the increase in per capita output could be calculated
at 59%.

Yes, England was unique among European powers in its *intensive*
agricultural growth during the 18th century. Just compare its 59% increase
in output per man over this century to France's, which saw a 20%
increase in total agricultural output (through the 18th century),
associated with an increase in population from 20 million in 1700
to 26 million in 1789.

This, of course, does not refute your argument on disutility, but you
need some other example, which you may still find within
England and France, in terms of  regions, or specific industries.