5. France Industrialization PDF

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5. France Industrialization...

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At this point, numbers don’t matter. I have just put the title numbers to keep everything ordered. Also, this is the first online lecture, so may be a bit different - hopefully better The Continent And Industrialization in the 19C ● At this point, Britain has all of these nice new technologies but the continent has not really gotten much of it themselves. ● Britain got ahead because mainland Europe was very occupied with the Napoleonic wars ● Industrialization begins to start in earnest in the 19C. There are 2 explanations for this: ○ It was a simple game of catch-up after the Napoleonic Wars ○ Also, there were institutional changes in Europe after the wars. 1. Game Of Catch Up ● The British did not want to give up the technology to the continentals ○ Actually made laws against exporting/selling technology ○ Laws against skilled artisans moving to France ● Europeans now had to get the technology and artisans very discretely - Smuggling, spying, recruiting, etc. ● The British kept it up until the 1840s until they gave up trying to stop the flow of tech ● So, from 1815 onwards there is a gradual flow of technology into mainland Europe from Britain. 2. Institutional Changes ● The entire political system and economies of Europe were changing rapidly during the napoleonic periods ● The French Revolution and Napoleonic Conquest of Europe (which spread revolutionary ideals) caused changes to legal and political codes ● There was an end to internal tariffs and serfdom ○ This caused bigger markets to become more predominant -Smithian Growth ○ Also, serfs could now go and earn wages ● Napoleon instituted a new legal system in most of his Empire ○ This was adopted across almost all of Europe - Made trade easier ○ Also a common metric system of weights introduced ● Improved Educational Systems: Primary and Secondary schools for everyone ○ Reflection of military conscription - Conscripts were dumb as shit and could not speak properly ○ With the new prevalence of ‘mass, professional armies’, needed the seemingly professional soldiers to be smart. ○ Universities and Scientific societies were also far superior to British ones ■ Most British ones were just for Rich assholes to go to Oxford and Cambridge to blow a few years off. ■ Germans and French begin to do proper research in metallurgy, mining, chemistry, etc. ● Patent Laws also became more prevalent - Debatable in how good they are

Contrast With Britain ● The continent is trying to catch up - They have a target and they need to hit it to be able to compete ● Large internal markets begin to be built up by eliminating internal tariffs and improving transportation networks ○ Especially vital in Germany: the use of railroads to connect all of the different provinces contributed to unification ● All of these countries set up infant industries in their own countries, but they needed to protect these industries with import tariffs and support in order to make them competitive with British firms ○ Friedrich List was a very influential guy in these times ○ Well into the 19C when Britain start to accept free trade ■ Used to have tariffs against basically everything. Also navigation acts ● Big banks were also developed ○ In Britain, all of the firms basically funded themselves and expanded slowly as a result ○ In Europe, they need to catch up - They want to rush things and need money right now. ○ State sets up large banks which will lend to industry, with state guarantees for loans ○ This causes investment and development to accelerate very quickly ● Introduction of universal primary education ○ ‘’Turning peasants into Frenchmen’’ - States wanted to build a strong and centralized country with a smart army and smart people. ○ Helped militarily as I discussed above, but also sparked innovation Brief Touch on Germany ● Prussia at this time of course ● Instituted universal primary education very early: Late 18C ● They Germans set up a Customs Union after Napoleon ○ Germany was not unified at this point - They were split up into many different states ○ Zollverein was the name of this customs union, and Prussia was the dominant power in this after 1818 ■ Prussia used to be just a poor Eastern German state, but was given the area around the Rhine after Napoleon - Heavily industrialised and important. ● Now we come back to railways: This connected the states together and made them more integralised ○ Helps Prussia to unify Germany and bring Germany under their economic control ○ Helps the German internal market to grow and smithian growth to take place ● Banks also began to build up, similar to above.

Share of World Manufacturing The Following table aptly shows how the world was progressing in the late 19C to just before WW1. 1880

1913

Britain

23

14

France, Germany, Belgium

18

23

USA

15

33

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Even as late as 1880, Britain is still dominant with almost a quarter of the worlds industrial output FGB is catching up, and the US is starting to look very formidable By 1913, the British share has fallen significantly FGB overtakes them and the US becomes a leviathan But the rest of the world that isn’t included is actually deindustrializing - they are producing a smaller and smaller share of world manufacturing

France in the Nineteenth Century ● The traditional view of France is that it was an economic failure in 19C ● France had a very large peasant agricultural sector with a very low productivity. ○ The peasants had an excessive attachment to their land ○ They don’t want to give up their farms and go to the cities to get industrial jobs ○ Full of small, conservative family firms that are reluctant to innovate and don’t want new technology ● But in the 1960s this view was challenged by Levy-Leboyer and O’Brien/Keyder ● O’Brien and Keyder argued that France was actually economically successful, but it merely took a different path to industrialization O’Brien and Keyder ● French industry had higher levels of capital per worker and productivity than England in the 19C ● Looking at consumption, they figured it was withing 15% of English levels by the late 19C ● They admit that the weakness of the French economy was agriculture. ○ England had developed a very large capitalistic agricultural sector ○ France had peasantry in agriculture - wrong pattern of demand and did not release labour into the industrial sectors ● Differences with England actually go all the way back to the Black Death ○ Disappearance of feudalism and serfdom in England ○ Opposite in France - But the peasants remained the effective owners of their land due to the state/monarchs supporting them against the nobility ○ In England, people were liberated from the land but the land was also liberated from them ● France recovered their population a lot faster after the black death ○ Living standards are pushed down

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More grain grown for people to eat, and thus there are less animals ■ Less manure and a bad cycle begins of low agricultural productivity French peasants acquired rights to land, whereas in England most peasants became wage labourers and rented land.

Crafts 1983 ● Nick Crafts attacks O’Brien Keyder and their numbers ● 2 big problems: ○ Badly underestimate the labour force in industry - Point 1 above was simply not true ○ Secondly they ignore the British services sector such as retailing while France had next to none of this ● Look at economies for when they reach British levels of income that the Brits had in 1840. ○ France and Germany did this in 1870 ● Crude Death Rate (CDR) in England was very low compared to F/G. 22 vs 28 ○ This is a very basic measure of living standards - Britain was ahead of them even with similar incomes ● Crude Birth Rate (CBR) in England and Germany were quite high ○ But France was extremely low birth rate - Distinguished feature of France for years and years - Enables them to maintain fairly good standards of living ● Looking at the percentage of the population in agriculture, ○ Only a quarter was engaged in Agriculture in Britain ○ In F/G, it was closer to 50% - Very low productivity. ■ This continues right up to WW2. Big weakness in Germany especially ● Interesting to compare to above is the % of GDP that agriculture produces ○ In Britain, they are sufficiently productive. 25% of the workers give 25% of the GDP. ○ But in F/G, it is a different story. In France, with 50% of the population in agriculture, they provide only 34% of GDP. That’s bad. Very low productivity ● By 1870, we can see that there are actually quite a few people in the manufacturing sectors of F/G and obviously Britain. ○ But the big difference was that Britain was developing a sizeable services sector at this point Per Capita GDP ● In 1820, Britain was way ahead. ● Just before WW1, both F/G have done very well. ○ They more than tripled their GDP per capita, but Britain almost did too ○ They did good, but did not catch up to Britain ● This was a big deal when it came to fighting WW1 ● Germany became very industrialised but was still quite backward in many ways

Agriculture in France - Haywood ● Did the peasantry actually impede French industrialization? ● 80% of French farms were small, but they only accounted for about 20% of land area ○ These small farmers (extremely small) could not actually support their families on their own farms ○ They thus relied on wage labour by working on their larger neighbouring farms OR by engaging in proto-industrial activities in cottages ● High quality goods were produced in towns, with low quality in the rural areas ● Question: Did they fail to release labour? Haywood says no. ○ What’s going on, there seems to be no demand at all for French industry ○ If the traditional view was true, there should be a big difference in urban wages and rural wages ■ This is because urban firms would have had to pay big to entice the French farmers off their land that they were supposedly so attatched to. ○ But there was basically no difference between urban and rural wages ● Slow expansion of agriculture was merely due to stagnant demand ○ Stagnant demand was due to the low CBR ○ There was merely no reason/incentive for French farmers to innovate at all. ● Little mechanization in agriculture and high external tariffs caused food prices to be quite high Optimistic View of France in 19C ● Agriculture in France did perform adequately well ● Industrialization was merely different to what Britain did - They did not develop heavy industry like Britain and Germany did ○ This reflects the restraints that the French economy was facing at the time: ■ Two severe military defeats: Napoleonic times and by the Prussians again in 1870-1 ■ Severe shortage of coal ● The war in 1870 was very bad for France. They lost Alsace-Lorraine which was home to a vigorous steel industry, and most of their coal ● The optimistic view is that France did not lack entrepreneurship or have bad fundamentals - They just had constraints placed on them as above ● This lack of industrialization might have actually increased people’s quality of life: ○ No industrial cities means there less shit on the roads and in their food. People could be healthier in rural places or even in French cities without heavy industry polluting ● Coal: In 1900, French coal output per capita was actually close to 1/3 of German and 1/7 of Britain’s ● Very little steam power was thus used in French industry. There was a very heavy reliance on water power ○ They develop a ultra efficient water turbine which is actually a very influential invention in the French economy in the 19C ● By 1899, 56% of newly installed power sources were water powered. In G/B steam machinery and electrical machinery were becoming more and more widespread ● This then resulted in most French firms being small in size and were very heavily geographically influenced - They needed to be dispersed and near water

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France then began to specialize in labour intensive, high skill production. ○ In Britain they went for cotton and wool - Easy to mass produce and mass sell ○ But in France they go for silk and worsted. High quality, high labour, high price. ○ North East France does however have a cotton industry

Pessimistic View ● The French economy did ok until the 1870s ○ This is the time when Germany really kicks off ● Looking at %share of world exports. ○ In 1860 they have 13%. By 1913 this is halved to 7% ● Traditional industries in France were starting to stagnate - Metal, textiles, etc, begin to slow down ● 1892: French begin raising very heavy tariffs and managed to accelerate growth in various industries. ○ Also as a result of this acceleration was increased electricity use ● France also began to develop some new industries ○ Electrical and chemistry industries, but these were reliant on foreign technology. ○ One area that France does very well in was Car manufacturing and Aircraft manufacturing. ● French economy actually performed well during WW1 ● However, the distinctive feature of France was that they grow economically modestly, but even this modest growth was only possible due to very low population growth ● ●

Between 1850-1913, the population of England/Wales doubled from 17.8m to 36.3m ○ In the same time, France grew by 10%: 35.6m to 39.7m Low population growth was a response to poor economic prospects and caused France to turn from a continental super power to become second to Germany...