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Has The Retardation Theis Been Overthrown By Recent, Mainly Cliometric Historians? Essay, Research Paper

The retardation thesis postulates that,

during the 18th and 19th centuries, France failed to take

advantage of the economic opportunities available to it.? Traditionally historians looked to the

English industrial revolution and compared its features, as well as the

preceding political, social and economic conditions, with those of France.? By looking at the differences historians

highlighted features in the French economy and social institutions that were

different to those of England.? These

factors were then converted into causal factors for the slower development of

the French economy.? The retardation

thesis is very much a comparative theory.?

The word retardation implies some form of norm or comparative rate of

growth.? The French economy was retarded

because it did not grow as quickly, or as dramatically as the British

economy.? In this essay I will briefly

outline some of the fundamental features of the retardation thesis, before

reviewing a selection of the revisionist literature that downplays and even

disputes the validity of the traditional arguments.The empirical evidence for the retardation

thesis is well documented.? Perhaps the

most important statistic is that of per capita national income and, according

to Crafts and others, France was considerably and consistently below England

from 1830 to 1910.? The comparative

structural make-up of the two countries has been used to explain the more

general, GNP, based differences.? One of

the fundamentals of the retardation thesis is that the French economy was

encumbered with an overly large and unproductive agricultural sector.? The comparative lack of agricultural labour

productivity in France meant that little surplus was generated.? As a consequence capital formation was

slowed and few rural workers left the countryside to work in urban and

industrial contexts.? The difference is

agricultural sectoral share and productivity with Britain was marked.? By 1840 the percentage of agricultural

income as a share of national income in Britain was the same as the percentage

of the workforce in agriculture.?? In

1870 53.7% of the French workforce still worked in agriculture, whilst

producing only 33.5% of income.? The

reasons for this agricultural backwardness are seemingly engrained in the

historiographical tradition; small inefficient farms, peasant immobility,

open-field systems, failure to innovate and a distinct lack of capitalist

farming.? The importance of agricultural

productivity forms the backbone of the retardation thesis.? Structural change is directly linked to

economic growth.? Where were the iron,

cotton and coal industries that powered English economic development? Other major differences in the two

economies have also been interpreted as causes for France?s supposed economic

stagnation.? Kemp argues that France?s

failure to adopt modern industrial forms of organization hampered economic

development.? Most visibly the sparsity

of factories in France has been used to signify backwardness.? Landes sees this failure as a result of the

inability of French entrepreneurs to adopt British industrial practices.? He argued that technology diffused too slowly.? Others have cited the mentality of French

society as a reason for the slower process of industrialization.? Historians like Kemp and Landes suggest that

the French bourgeoisie were more interested in bureaucratic status and land

holdings than the more risky and less prestigious paths of business and

entrepreneurship.? The social and

economic milieu of pre and post-revolutionary France retarded economic

development.? The comparative dearth of

inventions and innovations in France is also cited as a factor behind the

differing levels of growth.? Hargreaves,

Arkwright and Darby were English and it was their innovations that

revolutionized English industry.?

Scholars and students alike have seen the English industrial revolution

the normal path to modern economic development.? Historians have looked to at other economies to find reasons for

their comparative lack of development.?

The retardation thesis is based on the question ?Why was France second??

rather than the question ?Why was England first??.In recent years a strong revisionist

tendency amongst economic historians of the 18th and 19th

century has developed.? O?Brien?s and

Keyder?s work is just one example of this new revisionist literature.? They refute the principle of the retardation

theory by suggesting that labeling the French economy as retarded in

relation to the English economy is too narrow an assessment.? They suggest that the English path to

development was not necessarily the optimal path to development and that the

more gradual transformation of the French economy was more suited to the social

structures of the 19th century.?

O?Brien and Keyder agree that a quicker structural transformation from

agriculture to industry would have aided economic development by generating

surpluses and urban labour.? But the

more gradual transformation form agriculture to industry can only be seen as

retarded if it was in some way economically irrational.? O?Brien and Keyder quite rightly tell us

that the rate of structural transformation is not exogenous and

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