РефератыИностранный языкDiDid English Workers Have A Higher Standard

Did English Workers Have A Higher Standard

Of Living Then Their French Counterparts Or Vice Versa? Essay, Research Paper


Did English workers have a higher standard of living then their French counterparts or vice versa? What was the impact of the French


revolution and the British industrial revolution on living standards in the two


countries?The measurement of standards of living is a contentious


subject in the fields of both economic history and economic development.? Real wages are the most common measure of


standards of living, and the relative ease of their calculation makes their use


valuable.? However real wages do not


tell the full story.? Other


environmental and social factors heavily influence standards of living.? Factors such as access to clean air, clean


water and political representation are but a selection of a plethora of other


indicators.? These variables are often


difficult to quantify empirically and much of the evidence for these factors is


qualitative in nature.? Different people


place different values on non-monetary factors.? Williamson regards clean air as a luxury item, whereas others


would regards it as a necessity or even a right.? The subjective nature of such standard of life measures fits


uneasily with more precise quantitative real wage measures.? I hope to examine both real wage and non


monetary evidence whilst answering this question, before examining the effects


of two very differing revolutions on the relative standards of living in


Britain and France.If real wages are taken to be an accurate measure of


standards of living then almost all historians would agree that British workers


enjoyed a higher standard of living than their French counterparts.? Even O?Brien and Keyder admit that in some


periods of the 19th century French real wages were 45% below those


in Britain.? These figures corroborate


evidence from contemporary observers, such as Arthur Young, which suggested


French real wages were lower than British ones.? O?Brien and Keyder argue that real wages tell us very little


about welfare standards, especially when used for comparative purposes.? They suggest that real wage estimates are bias


in favour of England?s more heavily salaried and waged population.? In 1860 87% of Britain?s workf0orce were


salaried or waged, but in 1906 only 46% of the French labour force was waged or


salaried. The persistence of peasant, family run farms in France was the


primary reason for this much smaller percentage. Real wage levels tell us of


the standards of living of only a minority of the French population.? Demographic structure also distorts these


figures.? The slow rate of population


growth in France lessened the dependency ratio.? The real wage in England had to support more people than the real


wage in France.? Real wages are also a


poor indicator of average earnings.? The


proletarianisation of the workforce in Britain meant that urban workers


suffered more heavily from unemployment and a higher incidence of casual


labour.? In other words not everyone


received the real wage all of the time.?


Again, the persistence of a more peasant based agriculture ensured that


less workers were unemployed or casually employed. The slower separation of the


means of production in France whereby the peasants maintained control over land


and capital meant that wages were but one source of income.? Peasants in France accrued income from their


capital and land.? English workers were


largely landless and accrued income almost entirely from wages.? One cannot dispute that British real wages


were consistently and appreciably above those in France, but as we have seen


real wages, especially in France, are a poor indicator of both average earnings


and standards of living.? This finding


is further strengthened upon examination of contemporary accounts.? Birbeck talks of the: ?Superior condition of


the (French) working class? whilst Colman talks of the French as: ?more civil,


cleanly, industrious frugal, sober, or better dressed people?.? Indeed Colman contrasts his positive view of


the French workers with a more negative view of English agricultural workers:


?The very poor condition of a large portion of the English agricultural labouring


population must be acknowledged?.? These


contemporary accounts help us to conclude that real wage data is often


uninformative and indeed often misleading as an indicator of standards of


living.We see in the work of O?Brien and Keyder a revision of the


assessment of French living standards.?


French living standards were not dramatically lower than those of


Britain.? Crafts suggests that contrary


to the traditional belief (Kemp, Kindleberger etc) peasant farming was not a


restraint on the living standards of the French workers.? Traditionally the slower and later


industrialisation of France has been seen as a primary reason for significantly


lower standards of living in France.?


Crafts model shows that the fertility restraint in France in the 18th


and 19th century was enough to mitigate the adverse implications on


standards of living of slow structural change.?


Crafts modelled a situation whereby Britain retained a peasant system of


farming at the expense of industrial expansion and found that the utility of


the British workers would have increased at the expense of the utility of the


capitalists.? However this conclusion


was drawn with the strong assumption that Britain would have experienced a


population stabilisation via fertility restraint.? This switch from capitalist to peasant farming would have reduced


agricultural productivity, real GNP and the level of the capital stock.? Crafts therefore backs O?Brien in suggestion


French industrialisation as seriously retarded by the agrarian structure, but


also suggests, again like O?Brien, that this structure aided the utility of the


peasants.? A more rapid


industrialisation in France would have been more painful for the majority of


the French population.? It must be


stressed that the demographic implications of large peasant agricultural sector


are vital in explaining this model.? We can use O?Brien?s and Crafts findings to help analyse the


effect of the French Revolution on living standards.? The French Revolution strengthened the position of French farming


in a number of ways.? Peasant property


rights were fortified and a large portion of biens nationaux were sold to


peasants at low prices.? Indeed in the


new De

partment Nord the share of the land held by the peasantry increased from


3 to 42% after the revolution.? The


inflation that accompanied the revolution allowed peasants to invest more


heavily in land and capital as previous debts were heavily devalued via newly


depreciated money.? The strengthening of


the peasants? position helped to maintain the peasant hold on agriculture,


which according to Crafts and O?Brien not only retarded industrialisation, but


allowed for a higher standard of living than a more rapid structural


transformation.? The standard of living


gains from increased income for increased landholdings and the removal of debt


burden can be seen as more static income accruing gains.The optimistic view of the effects on standard of living of


the industrial revolution is that industrialisation increased real wage gains


and welfare.? Williamson?s and Lindert?s


measure of real wages sees a near doubling of real wages between 1820 and


1850.? They conclude that average


workers were much better off from the 1830s onwards than at any time before


1820.? However the start of the


Industrial Revolution is traditionally positioned in the mid to late 18th


century.? Williamson explains this


apparent paradox by suggesting the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic wars


hindered capital accumulation and growth to the extent that real wages remained


relatively constant.? Williamson and


Lindert defend these impressive gains by maintaining that these increases were


not at the expense of a decline in real wages for women and children and by


stating that no conceivable level of unemployment could have cancelled out the real


wage improvements.? The co-authors also


provide an answer to the question of the effect of more qualitative urban


disamenities.? They see a premium being


added to industrial wages to compensate for the problems of urban squalor.? Statistically they rate the value put on


these human costs as ?not large enough to cancel even a tenth of blue collar


worker?s real wage?.? Williamson also


warns historians not to assess 19th century living conditions by 21st


century standards.? We gain an insight


into the level of importance that Williamson places on the so-called urban


disamenities when he states that: ?clean air, water and uncongested space are


luxury goods?.Feinstein?s own real wage figures paint a much more


pessimistic view of the effects of the industrial revolution on standards of


living.? Feinstein?s cost of living


index differs from Williamson?s in that it fails to highlight a post 1820


decline in prices.? The inclusion of a


more realistic rent measure, a more appropriate textile factor and a more representative


food bundle all serve to increase the cost of living index after 1820.? This leads to a reduction in the real wage


increases proposed by Williamson.?


Indeed Feinstein believes that it was only after 1850 that British


workers enjoyed substantial and sustained advances in real wages.? Feinstein calculates that between 1778/82


and 1853/57 the increase in average weekly earnings was barely 30%.? This relatively meagre increase is combined


with a dependency ratio increase and the 1834 decline in poor law provisions to


reduce the improvement to a mere 10-15%.?


Feinstein places more emphasis on qualitative factors.? He cites Huck, who saw an increase in infant


mortality from 1813-46, and Wrigley and Schofield, who ?suggest the possibility


of a substantial worsening of mortality in infancy and childhood in the early


19th century?, as studies consistent with a significant


deterioration in the standard of living of the urban industrial working


population.? Feinstein?s view is that


the majority of workers enjoyed a century of hard labour with little or no


advance from an already low standard of living before they began to experience


the true benefits of the economic transformation that they had helped to


create.? Allen sheds a different light


on the standard of living question by suggesting that the difference in real


wages seen between northwestern Europe (including Britain) and continental


Europe were a result of economic developments in the 17th and not


the 18th century.? He sees


the minor increase in real wages of the early 19th century as a


minor cycle within a bigger trend.? The


industrial revolution did not substantially increase real wages, but Britain?s


position as the most productive manufacturer in the world allowed her to


maintain her relatively high real wages.?


The industrial revolution allowed the maintenance of an existing level


of standards of living, and it was not until the 1870s that real gains in


living standards were achieved for the workers.Using real wages alone we can safely say that Britain?s


workers were better off than their French counterparts for the majority of the


19th century.? However, as


contemporary accounts show real wages are but one part of a proper standard of


living analysis.? The maintenance of a


peasant farming system lessens the value of real wages as a measure of


standards of living in France.? It is


also improper to suggest that British style industrialisation would have raised


French living standards.? Both Crafts


and O?Brien show that the maintenance of a peasant farming system, whilst


retarding industrialisation, allowed for a greater standard of living for the


peasantry.? Yes, the standard of living


may well have been lower in France than in Britain, but the standard could have


been significantly lower if France had adopted the British path to


industrialisation.? Comparing the living


standards of the two countries is perhaps less valuable than analysing the


possible effects of the adoption of differing paths of economic development.? The welfare effects of the industrial


revolution in Britain are less clear-cut than they once were.? The real wage statistics have been


pertinently revised and show a downgrading of improvement, whilst Williamson?s


rather right-wing dismissal of urban disamenities is inappropriate.? Urban conditions were poor and Feinstein


successfully argues for deterioration in mortality rates and general


health.? It would be harsh to suggest


that the industrial revolution lessened standards of living, but overly


optimistic to say that they were greatly improved in the short to medium term.

Сохранить в соц. сетях:
Обсуждение:
comments powered by Disqus

Название реферата: Did English Workers Have A Higher Standard

Слов:2159
Символов:15132
Размер:29.55 Кб.