Too Much Revolution: Agriculture in the Industrial Revolution, 1700–1860

Abstract

The existence of the agricultural revolution has profound implications for the thinking about the rate of overall economic growth in the Industrial Revolution, the level of industrialization in England before the Industrial Revolution, and about the cause of the Industrial Revolution. This chapter argues that there was no agriculture revolution in England in the Industrial Revolution period, or indeed any time between 1600 and 1914. Karl Marx argues that enclosure indirectly speeded industrialization and urbanization in Britain by creating an impoverished, landless rural proletariat that was rapidly displaced from the countryside. The productivity estimates ascribed to M. Overton are derived from his estimates of land and labor productivity giving land and labor equal weight. Indeed production depends on huge inflows of nitrogen, potassium, and other nutrients which are either manufactured using petroleum or mined from soil deposits.