The Politics of Subsistence: The Liberalization of Grain Commerce in Austrian Lombardy under Enlightened Despotism

Abstract

Historians of early modern Europe agree that control of food provision and distribution was one of the chief concerns of governments in the preindustrial era. Grain policy was particularly important, as bread constituted the food staple for the bulk of the population. The fear of grain scarcity and the potential threat to political stability stimulated European authorities to subject the trade in grain and bread production to strict regulations aimed at securing cheap bread for the people, primarily the urban dwellers. The main regulations included restrictions on grain export and internal circulation, prohibition of wholesale buying, obligatory sale at designated markets, and close control of prices. Around the middle of the eighteenth century the grain supply system faced a serious crisis in many European countries. A steady rise in cereal prices, caused primarily by an increase in population,l called the effectiveness of the system into question. At the same time economists, most notably the Physiocrats, and reforming ministers began to advocate lifting the old restrictions, and an intense struggle developed between proponents of free grain trade, who favored the interests of grain producers, and opponents of grain liberalization, who favored those of consumers. Several European governments, including those of France,2 Spain, and Tuscany,3 began abolishing many of the old restrictions on the grain trade in the 1760s and 1770s. The enlightened Habsburg despots Maria Theresa and Joseph II also launched a program of reform to deregulate the grain trade in various parts of their empire. In Austrian Lombardy the deregulation of trade in grain should be understood both as an important illustration of the efforts of the Austrian