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Agrarian Class Structure and Economic Development in Pre AGRARIANCLASS STRUCTUREAND ECONOMICDEVELOPMENT IN PRE-INDUSTRIALEUROPE* GENERALINTERPRETATIONS OFTHE PROCESSES OF LONG-TERM ECONOMIC changein late medievaland earlymodern Europe have continuedto be constructedalmost exclusively in terms of what might looselybe called "objective" economic forces, in particular demographic fluctuationsand the growth of trade and markets. A variety of modelshave been constructedcentring on theseforces. But whatever the exact characterof the model, and whether the pressurefor changeis seen to arisefrom urbanizationand the growthof tradeor an autonomousdemographic development, a marketsupply-demand mechanismis usuallyassumed to providethe elementarytheoretical underpinnings. So, the response of the agrarian economy to economicpressures, whatever their source,is more or less takenfor granted,viewed as occurringmore or less automatically,in a direction economicallydetermined by "the laws of supplyand demand". In the constructionof these economicmodels the questionof class structuretends to be treatedin a varietyof ways. Typically,there is the statementthat one is abstracting(for the moment)from the social or class structurefor certainanalytical purposes.l The fact remains that in the actualprocess of explanation,that is in the "application" of the model to specific economic historical developments,class structuretends, almostinevitably, to creep backin. Sometimes,it is inserted,in an ad hocway, to comprehenda historicaltrend which the model cannot cover. More often, however, consciously or unconsciously,class structureis simplyintegrated within the model itself, and seen as essentiallyshaped by, or changeablein terms of, the objective economicforces aroundwhich the model has been constructedin the first place. In the most consistentformulations the very fact of class structureis implicitly or explicitly denied. Long-termeconomic development is understoodin termsof changing * This paper was originally presented at the Annual Convention of the AmericanHistorical Association, December I974. An earlierversion was given at the Social Science Seminar of the Institute for Advanced Study Princeton, New Jersey,April I974. I wish to thankProfessor Franklin Mendeis, Professor T. K. Rabb, Professor Eleanor Searle and Professor Lawrence Stone, for the substantial time and effort they gave in commenting on and criticizing this paper. I owe a special debt to Mr. Joel Singer for the great amount of help he gave me, including both information and analysis, in trying to understand German developments. 1 See for example below, p. 34. M. M. Postan, "Moyen Age", IXe Congres Internationaldes SciencesHistoriques, Rapports, i (Paris, I950), pp. 225 ff. AGRARIANCLASS STRUCTUREAND ECONOMICDEVELOPMENT IN PRE-INDUSTRIALEUROPE* GENERALINTERPRETATIONS OFTHE PROCESSES OF LONG-TERM ECONOMIC changein late medievaland earlymodern Europe have continuedto be constructedalmost exclusively in terms of what might looselybe called "objective" economic forces, in particular demographic fluctuationsand the growth of trade and markets. A variety of modelshave been constructedcentring on theseforces. But whatever the exact characterof the model, and whether the pressurefor changeis seen to arisefrom urbanizationand the growthof tradeor an autonomousdemographic development, a marketsupply-demand mechanismis usuallyassumed to providethe elementarytheoretical underpinnings. So, the response of the agrarian economy to economicpressures, whatever their source,is more or less takenfor granted,viewed as occurringmore or less automatically,in a direction economicallydetermined by "the laws of supplyand demand". In the constructionof these economicmodels the questionof class structuretends to be treatedin a varietyof ways. Typically,there is the statementthat one is abstracting(for the moment)from the social or class structurefor certainanalytical purposes.l The fact remains that in the actualprocess of explanation,that is in the "application" of the model to specific economic historical developments,class structuretends, almostinevitably, to creep backin. Sometimes,it is inserted,in an ad hocway, to comprehenda historicaltrend which the model cannot cover. More often, however, consciously or unconsciously,class structureis simplyintegrated within the model itself, and seen as essentiallyshaped by, or changeablein terms of, the objective economicforces aroundwhich the model has been constructedin the first place. In the most consistentformulations the very fact of class structureis implicitly or explicitly denied. Long-termeconomic development is understoodin termsof changing * This paper was originally presented at the Annual Convention of the AmericanHistorical Association, December I974. An earlierversion was given at the Social Science Seminar of the Institute for Advanced Study Princeton, New Jersey,April I974. I wish to thankProfessor Franklin Mendeis, Professor T. K. Rabb, Professor Eleanor Searle and Professor Lawrence Stone, for the substantial time and effort they gave in commenting on and criticizing this paper. I owe a special debt to Mr. Joel Singer for the great amount of help he gave me, including both information and analysis, in trying to understand German developments. 1 See for example below, p. 34. M. M. Postan, "Moyen Age", IXe Congres Internationaldes SciencesHistoriques, Rapports, i (Paris, I950), pp. 225 ff. AGRARIANCLASS STRUCTURE AND ECONOMICDEVELOPMENT 3I institutionalizedrelaiionships of "equalexehange') between eontraet- ing individualstrading different,relatively searce "faetors"under changingmarket eonditions.2 It is the purpose of this paper to argue that such attempts at economic model-buildingare necessarilydoomed from the start preciselybecause, nzost crudely stated, it is the structureof class relations,of classpower, which will determirlethe mannerand degree to which particulardemographie and eommercialehanges will affect long-runtrends in the distributionof ineomeand economic growth and not vice versa. Classstructure, as I wish here to use the term, has two analyticallydistinct, but historicallyunified aspects.3 First, the relationsof the direct producersto one another,to their tools and to the land in the immediateprocess of production what has been calledthe "labourprocess" or the "socialforces of production". Seeondly,the inherentlyconflictive relations of property- always guaranteeddirectly or indirectly,in the last analysis,by force-by which an unpaid-forpart of the productis extractedfrom the direct produeersby a class of non-produeers whieh might be calledthe "propertyrelationship" or the "surplus extractionrelationship". It is aroundthe propertyor surplusextraction relationship that one definesthe fundamentalclasses in a society the class(es)of direct producerson the one hand and the surplus-extracting,or ruling, class(es)on the other.4 It wouldbe my argumentthen that different class structures, specifically "property relations" or "surplus extractionrelations", once established,tend to impose ratherstrict limits and possibilities,indeed rather specifie long-term patterns, on a society's economie development. At the same time, I would contend,class structurestend to be highlyresilient in relationto the impact of economicforces; as a rule, they are not shaped by, or alterablein termsof, changesin demographicor commercialtrends. It follows thereforethat long-term eeonomie ehanges, and most cruciallyeeonomie growth, eannot be analysedadequately in termsof the emergeneeof any partieularconstellation of "relativelyscarce 2 For a recent attempt to apply this sort of approachto the interpretationof socio-economic change in the medieval and early modern period, see Douglass C. North and Robert Paul Thomas, The Rise of the Western World (Cambridge, I973). 3 The following definitions derive, of course, from the work of Karl Marx, especially: "Preface" to A Contributionto the Critique of Political Economy (New York, I 970 edn.); "The Genesis of Capitalist Ground Rent" and "Distribution Relations and Production Relations", in Capital, 3 vols. (New York, I967 edn.), iii, chaps. xlvii and li; and "Introduction" to Grundrisse (London, I973 edn.). 4 This is not necessarily to imply that classes exist or have existed in all societies. Classes, in my view, may be said to exist only where there is a "surplus extraction"or propertyrelationship in the specific sense implied here, that is in the last analysis non-consensual and guaranteed either directly or indirectly by force. 32 PAST AND PRESENT NUMBER70 factors" unless the class relationshipshave first been specified; indeed, the opposite outcomes may accompanythe impact of apparentlysimilar economic conditions. In sum, fully to com- prehendlong-term economic development, growth and/or retrogres- sion in the late medievaland early modernperiod, it is criticalto analyse the relativelyautonomous processes by which particular class structures,especially property or surplus-extractionrelations, are establishedand in particularthe class conflictsto whichthey do (or do not)give rise. Forit is in the outcomeof suchcl<ass conflicts the reaffirmationof the old propertyrelations or theirdestruction and the consequentestablishment of a new structure that is to be foundperhaps the key to the problemof long-termeconomic develop- ment in late medievaland earlymodern Europe, and moregenerally of the transitionfrom feudalismto capitalism. Put in suchgeneral terms, the foregoingpropositions and definitions likelyappear vague. WhatI shouldlike to do is to try to give them substanceby
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