The early stages of European industrialization: Economic organization under serfdom

Abstract

In Eastern Europe and Russia of the 17th to 19th centuries small-scale industrial activities proliferated with a labor force that was still enserfed. A major feature which has not been adequately explained is that while agriculture under serfdom continued with forced labor services, serf industrial work was often associated with an element of free contracting. An analytical framework is developed here to explain this contrast in the forms of extracting an income from serf ownership. Industrialization in 18th century continental Europe and in pre-reform 19th century Russia was mainly small scale in the sense at least that each stage of production did not involve large groups of workers cooperating as a team; such large-scale organization was restricted to iron, coal, and the finishing processes in textiles. For a long time the part-time production of textiles and utensils had been a feature of the peasant domestic economy throughout Europe, the product being consumed by the peasant family or surrendered as dues to the lord. From as early as the 16th century, there are increasing signs of these products appearing on local and regional markets, a process which seems to have accelerated from about the mid17th century. The frameworks provided by Jones (1968, 1977), Mendels (1972, 1980), and Mokyr (1976) view the period from the mid-17th century to the end of the 18th century, in broad terms, as one of increasing specialization as between industry and agriculture, accompanied and partly caused by productivity gains from improved crop rotation and the like in agriculture. The markets for industrial goods grow in size and the income (per hour, for example) derived by the relatively independent Western European peasant is a product of the competitively determined price and his own output (per hour). He switches his time to these