Comparing and Contrasting the Two Articles I Read

For this sixth blog post, I’ve decided to reflect on the significance of the claims made in the JSTOR two articles I read. The first advocated the methodology of global labor history, considering a variety of arrangements across the globe where one’s labor power is exploited as work and highlighting the exploitation of workers on the periphery who produce raw materials that are refined in the industrial core. The second argued that the French peasants who regained control of their land were soon transformed into entrepreneurial farmers. I think the significant difference between the claims of the two articles is that the former considers some of those who own the means of production as work while the latter documents that the French peasant’s status as cultivators of their land gave them the goal of becoming private landowners instead of the social ownership desired by industrial workers. In addition, coercion and state power is a factor. The French peasants could easily escape their feudal coercion because they had access to means of subsistence while this was considerably more difficult for urban workers. One also has to wonder whether it was the mindset of the peasants or the property-focused ideology of the French Revolution that led to agricultural enterprise in early modern France.

Image: The Countryside of Brittany in France (Photo by Nathan Cima on Unsplash)