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Date:
Fri Mar 31 17:18:38 2006
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From:
[log in to unmask] (Anthony Brewer)
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===================== HES POSTING ====================== 
 
> One can find examples in Ancient Greece, in Rome, in Florence, in 
> Muscovy, and throughout Japan, China, and Europe, of INDIVIDUALS who  
> made fortunes in commerce and rose in society.  But one cannot find,  
> prior to the 19th century, any society in which the MAJORITY OF THE  
> POPULATION'S STATUS AND LIFE-CHANCES WERE DETERMINED BY THEIR SUCCESS  
> IN A FREE MARKET FOR LABOR.  
 
I am not sure about much earlier periods, but the labour market surely  
dominated long before the nineteenth century in England. Serfdom  
was gone before the end of the medieval period. Agriculture was  
thoroughly commercialized by the sixteenth/seventeenth century. There  
was a spectrum of farm size, but smallholders worked for others to  
supplement their incomes and larger farmers hired help. The labour  
market penetrated deeply from early on. I have seen it claimed that a  
considerable proportion of the rural labour force worked for wages as  
early as the thirteenth century in England. (Memory says 30% of the  
labour force, but I haven't checked that. The only reference I have to  
hand is to Banaji, Capital and Class, 1977, which is about India but  
draws the comparison with medieval England.) There was a fair bit of  
social mobility in early modern England. It is, incidentally, still  
true that many people in the countryside, at least in England, have  
their fingers in many pies. I think of people I know who may have some  
entrepreneurial role, maybe in high technology modern industries, but  
who also raise a few animals, let rooms/cottages to tourists, and help  
out on neighbouring farms. Different roles in lots of different  
markets. That is a tradition which goes back a long way. Oversimple  
capitalis/pre-capitalist distinctions aren't very helpful. 
---------------------- 
Tony Brewer ([log in to unmask]) 
University of Bristol, Department of Economics 
 
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