JSTOR Journey Episode 3: The French Revolution, Peasants, and Capitalism
The link between the French Revolution and the subsequent rise of capitalism in France has confounded historians, as it contradicts the traditional blueprint of capitalist development based on the English transition to capitalism, wherein land was expropriated by the owners of merchant capital (the proto-bourgeois) and peasants who formerly worked the land and paid feudal dues were reduced to wage earners. This process of land enclosure in England encouraged capitalist enterprise because landowners were incentivized to develop the land as efficiently as possible and create a surplus for investment, meaning they would employ less of the former peasantry, who could now supply an urban workforce for enterprises in cities. However, in the French Revolution, land shifted from feudal property to largely being owned in small plots by peasants. This paper argues that these small plots were also well-suited to commercial development because the peasants were relieved of the feudal dues they traditionally had to pay their lords, giving them leeway to engage in different agricultural enterprises to compete with other farms, as they no longer had to worry about starvation due to excessive rents. The new agricultural enterprises adopted by French peasants along with the variable quality of land contributed to rising inequality between richer and poorer peasants, eventually creating many landless laborers. The paper document many instances of peasant plots growing so successful that they were able to create a surplus and invest in solely one industry, buying grain and other staples from different farms and presumably employing laborers. Though the process was different, the end results is essentially the same as capitalism in England. The author masterfully uses both primary sources and contemporary examples of smallholder farms in the developing world to showcase his argument. From this paper, it is also clear the role that revolutionary ideology played in establishing capitalism in France. The rural democracy allowed individuals private ownership of land for the first time and established common lands that could be used for experimentation. The sans-culottes, the urban workers who drove the revolution, were placated by the increase in agricultural output. In fact, what made agricultural output comparatively lower in France than in England was the maintenance of some feudal estates and dues, as farmers under such institutions were not able to innovate. This article also offers a new reading of history where seemingly progressive land redistribution agendas ultimately contributed to capitalist development and explains why the "peasants" (scare quotes because they're essentially private landowners at the time) were opposed to the Paris Commune and French Worker's movement.
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