Reply to Professor D. Ringrose

Abstract

PROF. Ringrose's article is a welcome addition to the growing interest in developing a systematic approach to European history constructed from new developments in the social sciences. We find ourselves in agreement with some of his analysis. Moreover we have substantially elaborated the theory1 since we presented it in preliminary form in this journal, and we believe we can explain a number of the difficulties inherent in our first tentative presentation. We do, however, take exception to the following points in Ringrose's comment. (i) Much as we respect Prof. Slicher van Bath's pioneering study of European agrarian history, our model was neither drawn from his study nor is it essentially similar to one he employs. His model is in fact difficult to specify. The exact interaction between population, relative prices, and the absolute price level is never clearly spelled out. We, on the other hand, employ a general equilibrium model that specifies that relative prices are a function of population and invariant to the quantity of money or the absolute level of prices. Prof. van Bath considers the latter important and is interested in the absolute level of agricultural prices. We feel that it is the change in relative prices-the price of agricultural produce compared to the price of non-agricultural goods-that is important in inducing institutional change. (2) We make no apology for our assumption of economic man for two reasons. First, some assumptions are necessary for any explanation. Second, the assumption appears to be a good starting-ground since irrational and uneconomic behaviour throughout most of history doomed man to starvation and death. He could not afford the luxury of undertaking activities that made him worse off. This is increasingly true the further back in history we go since the tolerances within which man either survived or starved were much narrower than today. Furthermore, we in no way imply that our model explains all historical institutions. Clearly there were many institutions founded for non-economic reasons, and equally human behaviour was frequently motivated by other human drives. Yet it is difficult to counter the argument that those institutions, whatever their goals, that were economically most efficient survived. Few persons and no institutions ever escape the scarcity problem-all are continually faced with financial constraints. The ultimate test is whether the model we have developed