Nothing like opening an old wound, or picking at a scab, but....
I think it might be worth everybody's while to actually read the paper
by Robert Allen on agricultural productivity, actually read it
carefully, and read it alongside Brenner's own paper on: Property
Relations and the Growth of Agricultural Productivity in Late Medieval
and Early Modern Europe." Sorry, I don't have a url for the paper.
Allen himself, I believe, would be surprised to find out that he had
delivered a devastating critique of the "Brenner thesis." Particularly
writing in the early pages of his paper: "Wrigley's calculations thus
corrobrate...estimates of the labor production gap {between French and
English agriculture} and show that it emerged in the 17th and 18th
centuries."
And writing again "What I shall show in this paper is that the increase
in English labor productivity between 1600 and 1800 had two causes. The
first was the rise in crop yields. This cause operated across
northwestern Europe causing labor productivity to rise throughout the
region. The second was the shift to large capitalist farms. This
reorganization increased productivity by reducing employment per acre.
Moreover, that increment to efficiency was about equal to the
Ango-French productivity gap. The English superiority...was due to
England's peculiar agrarian institutions--in particular, large farms
operated with wage labor."
And what does Brenner say? "With labor productivity in agriculture on
the increase, the English economy brokeke definitively from the feudal
pattern over the course of the 17th century. Despite the steady growth
of population, there were no significant subsistence crises after 1597.
By 1700 at latest, more than half the population was out of agriculture
(Wriglye, 1985; Clarke, 1991)."
And earlier: "1. ...by 1600 English farmers disposed of large holdings
averaging about 60 acres (Allen, 1992, pp. 73-74)" {yes, this is the
same Allen cited by Proyect}. 2. Larger farms (above say 100 acres)
made greater use of wage labour and could thereby adjust labour
requirement to productive need, seasonal or otherwise."
Earlier Brenner states: "From 1450 through to the latter part of the
16th century, the French economy enjoyed a growth phase... Aided by the
peasants' accession to unusually large holdings on the morrow of the
population catastrophes andd the lords' initially restrained tax levies,
population growth took place exceptionally rapidly.....
...On the basis of their initially large holdings, much of the French
peasantry had, at first, commanded sufficient surpluses to enter urban
food markets in a big way. But as plots and thus surplus diminished
undder the impacct of subdivision, a proccess of de-commercialization
soon ensued and by 1550 shipments to the towns were in decline, despite
rising prices.... Lacking other alternatives, they {the French
peasantry} had little choice but to intensify labor on their own plots,
seek employment as agricultural wage labourers and take up leases. By
deploying their family labour force more fully, they once again raised
productivity of their holdings at the expense of the productivity of
labor."
Now this last distinction is key for Brenner, for Brenner is last,
first, and foremost examining, analyzing, the conditions of labor, the
social relations of property that encapsulate labor and either advance
or inhibit its productivity. Brenner analyzes the emergence, the
origin, of the new social relation and finds it in the "late 15th and
16th centuries..as peasants who had won their freedom from serfdom lost
possession of their means of subsistence." Thus the emergence of
"commercial tenants." And we're on the road to capitalism, where
capital exists as the separation, in ownership, in property, in
relations of production, of the means of subsistence, from the means to
labor.
>From this will emerge an acceleration in productivity, based not on
mercantilism, primitive accumulation, the Atlantic slave trade, looting,
etc , but the inherent conflict/need of capital to simultaneously expand
and consolidate-- to reproduce-- by the simultaneous aggrandizement and
expulsion of ever more wage-labor.
But of course, it is Allen's conclusion that seems to hold the
"devastating critique" of Brenner. Allen says: "We can conceive of
productivity growth in early modern English agriculture as a two-part
development. First was the rise in corn yields in the 17th century.
Enclosure and capitalist agriculture made no contribution to this
advance, which also raised labor productivity. Second was the further
rise in labor productivity in the 18th century due to the ship to large
farms. The release of labor from agriculture was the sole contribution
of large farms to England's economic development."
And indeed, the release of labor from agriculture is the critical
contribution of wage-labor capitalism to capitalist reproduction. But
look back at table 15, 16 in the paper-- output per worker in 1700--
2.97 and 3.44 respectively. Allen tells us-- "..half the proportional
increased occured in the 17th century. That growth in labor
productivity was almost entirely due to the increase in grain yields
since farm size increased little. Of the rise in labor producitivity in
the 18th century, most was due to the amalgamation of farms. Not much
was due to the yield increases that followed enclosure."
Taken together, what do the these statements tell us? Quite simply that
both "phases" of increased productivity required a fundamental change in
the social relations of agricultural production in the English
countryside. I think those, longing to see the devastating critique of
Brenner, regard large-scale capitalist agriculture as the "only"
capitalist agriculture, disregarding the emergence of capitalist
relations of production that determine, inform, allow for the increased
productivity.
