Agrarian Capitalism and Poor Relief in England, 1500-1860

Abstract

‘It is striking’, the author of this short and argumentative book tells us, ‘that a profound recasting of class relations, one that left most people bereft of property as well as control over their lives, occurred without inducing a protracted and violent revolution’ (p. 203). This profound recasting was England's transition from feudalism to agrarian capitalism—a longstanding cornerstone of Marxist history—and the explanation offered here for its peaceable nature is the unique social-welfare provision offered by the English Poor Laws. Indeed, rather than seeing welfare spending as inimical, or at least in fundamental opposition, to capitalism, the author sees it as a necessary precondition, smoothing the transition to the market economy by curbing the worst effects of the competitive society. The argument is based on the author's secondary reading and is heavily theoretical in approach, aiming to locate the development of English social policy within an avowedly Marxist framework, albeit one that draws as much inspiration from the work of Robert Brenner as from Marx himself. The book is unabashedly teleological, aiming to trace the ‘origins of the welfare state’, which developed out of the early modern English experience (the author argues, reasonably) more than that of nineteenth-century Germany. There is also a hint of present-centredness, with the final section incorporating a stinging critique of the welfare policies of the Clinton administration of the 1990s. Despite the anglocentrism of the title the scope is refreshingly broad, covering some five centuries and five different countries (England, Scotland, Ireland, France and Germany—especially Prussia), and the comparative dimension is prominent through much of the book. Thus, the author can see the precocious adoption of social-welfare programmes by the English state (most notably the Tudor Poor Laws) as a function of the country's early departure on the path to agrarian capitalism. By contrast, in Scotland, Ireland, France and Germany such developments had to wait until the nineteenth century, at which time these countries too began formulating national strategies for welfare provision. Access to land is seen as critical: in England a landless proletariat developed early on, whereas elsewhere a landholding peasantry survived until much later.