Further, there are problems with the concept of productivity. Labor productivity is not easy to compare between countries, especially between crops.
I would invite PEN-L'ers to read the article that contains the agricultural comparisons between England and other nations. I should add that while France was ahead of England in 1700, England jumped ahead later on. The author, Robert C. Allen, actually wrote the article to demonstrate the *increased* productivity of English farming but not in the time-frame that is typical of Brenner, Wood and company who find all sorts of miracles taking place in the late middle ages. The article is titled "The Growth of Labour Productivity in Early Modern England" and appeared in the April 1988 "Explorations in Economic History". I make it available below since it is only available to those who have university email accounts. http://www.marxmail.org/robert_allen.pdf I should add that I learned of the article in Robert Albritton's "Did Agrarian Capitalism Exist", which appeared in the April 1993 Journal of Peasant Studies. It is a totally devastating critique of the Brenner thesis that I will return to when I get a chance.
