The Transition to Capitalism in Modern France: Primitive Accumulation and Markets from the Old Regime to the post-WWII Era

The French economy performed poorly relative to its rivals due to noncapitalist social relations, such as peasants and artisans controlling lands and workshops, and merchants and manufacturers cornered markets. This was not until the state imposed distinctive features of capitalism in the 1960s, leading to France catching up to and surpassing its economic rivals.

Format: Hardback
Length: 230 pages
Publication date: 03 November 2023
Publisher: Taylor & Francis Ltd

Since the 1960s, historians have argued that the French economy performed as well as any economy in Europe during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, thanks to the opportunities for profit available on the market, particularly the large consumer market in Paris. However, this book challenges the foregoing consensus by showing that the French economy performed poorly relative to its rivals due to noncapitalist social relations. Specifically, peasants and artisans controlled lands and workshops in autonomous communities and did not have to improve labor productivity to survive. Merchants and manufacturers cornered markets instead of being subject to the competitive imperatives of the market. Thus, distinctive features of capitalism, such as primitive accumulation (the dispossession of peasants and artisans) and the competitive obligation faced by merchants and manufacturers to reinvest profits in order to keep the profits, did not prevail until the state imposed them in a process lasting for a century after the 1850s. For this reason, it was not until the 1960s that France caught up to (and in some cases surpassed) its economic rivals.

Since the 1960s, historians have argued that the French economy performed as well as any economy in Europe during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, thanks to the opportunities for profit available on the market, particularly the large consumer market in Paris. However, this book challenges the foregoing consensus by showing that the French economy performed poorly relative to its rivals due to noncapitalist social relations. Specifically, peasants and artisans controlled lands and workshops in autonomous communities and did not have to improve labor productivity to survive. Merchants and manufacturers cornered markets instead of being subject to the competitive imperatives of the market. Thus, distinctive features of capitalism, such as primitive accumulation (the dispossession of peasants and artisans) and the competitive obligation faced by merchants and manufacturers to reinvest profits in order to keep the profits, did not prevail until the state imposed them in a process lasting for a century after the 1850s. For this reason, it was not until the 1960s that France caught up to (and in some cases surpassed) its economic rivals.

Weight: 600g
Dimension: 234 x 156 (mm)
ISBN-13: 9780367553005