French industrialization: A reconsideration

Abstract

*I have benefited from having had the opportunity to present versions of this paper to the members of the Columbia University Seminar on Economic History and the University of Pennsylvania Workshop in Economic History; I particularly thank Professors Rondo Cameron and Franklin Mendels for their detailed and much valued comments. In addition, my expression of thanks is extended to Professors Murray Brown, Robert Gallman, George Grantham, Tom Kemp, M. M. Knight, W. W. Rostow, William Shipman, and most especially to Professors Francois Crouzet and Charles Kindleberger. As I have not in every instance accepted proffered advice, I emphasize that responsibility for any errors is mine. I want also to acknowledge a special debt of gratitude to the members of my Spring 1973 graduate seminar in economic history at the University of California, Berkeley, who joined me in testing the premier edition of this paper’s argument. Financial assistance in support of this work from the Institute for Business and Economic Research and the Institute for International Studies, both of the University of California, Berkeley, is gratefully acknowledged; the views expressed here are of course solely my own. Finally, my thanks go to Virginia Linkovich for her careful and conscientious preparation of the manuscripts. ‘Economic historians in France have not been as troubled by the record of economic growth performance in the 19th century there, as have the Anglo-American writers. Landes has noted this, and suggested an explanation: “In general, the French have concerned themselves little with questions of national income and economic growth. Their lack of theoretical training does not predispose them to this kind of approach, and the absence of comparative background has tended to conceal the problem from them. To my knowledge, not one orthodox economic historian even posed the question of French industrial retardation until very recently, and then only to comment in passing on the efforts of American scholars to analyze the problem” (Landes, 1958, p. 80). Certainly the French traditions in this area of historiography seem rather bipolar. On the one hand, there is an abundance of high-quality and highly useful monographic work, as surveyed, for example, by Dunham (1949), who nonetheless bemoaned the inadequacies of our understanding of French economic history. On the other hand, there are the works of very broad scope, which offer extensive detail but much less by way of analysis; this genre is perhaps typified by the ongoing effort directed by Braudel and Labrousse (1970). At times in the past, however, the French have shown some concern for the implications from their economic basis for national viability and international standing; a survey is contained in Liebowitz (1970). Additional surveys of the literature on French economic history, and comments as to its areas of weakness, can be found in the work of Fohlen (1958,1962) and Leuilliot (1953).