------------ EH.NET BOOK REVIEW --------------
Published by EH.NET (January 2005)
Dominique Barjot, Eric Anceau, Isabelle Lescent-Giles and Bruno
Marnot, editors, _Les entrepreneurs du Second Empire_. Paris: Presses
de l'universite de Paris-Sorbonne, 2003. 224 pp. 23.75 Euros, ISBN:
2-84050-293-3.
Reviewed for EH.NET by Jean-Pierre Dormois, Institut d'Histoire
Contemporaine, Universit=E9 Marc-Bloch (Strasbourg)
This book is an interim report on a nation-wide project initiated
some twenty years ago; it offers summary findings from a collection
of twelve already published volumes with another half dozen announced
for the near future. Its avowed ambition is to match the _British
Dictionary of Business Biography_ (David Jeremy editor, 1984). This
particular volume (224 pp.), divided in four sections and thirteen
chapters, is the outcome of a one-day conference in Paris in 1999
where participants in the project presented their results and/or
prospects for forthcoming research. At the end, a formal conclusion
by Fran=E7ois Crouzet highlights a number of striking similarities
between nineteenth-century French and British entrepreneurs and an
alphabetical index lists the 770 individuals so far assembled in the
sample. The research strategy has consisted in building a random
sample of leading businessmen by regions in the period 1850-1870 and
collecting information on their lives and achievements from a variety
of sources (a sample questionnaire is provided).
As the authors admit, difficulties in collecting information were so
great that a rigorous selection process was not feasible but one may
consider, ex post, that the common lower bound is around the
half-million francs mark -- the drawback for historians of the
absence of a personal income tax is here again glaring. Questions
arise, however, as to the choice of the term "entrepreneurs"
(especially in its English meaning) in the title for describing the
main activity of the people collected in the sample. It was obviously
intended to emphasize the 'Promethean' dimension of the calling and
the introduction opens with a 'classic' attack on David Landes's
celebrated 1949 article -- a shibboleth among French business
historians.[1] But it is by no means obvious that the portrait
gallery assembled here presents the quintessence of
'entrepreneurship.' The project aims to reevaluate the role of what
was known in the 1960s-1970s under the infamous term of 'patronat'
with a view to convey the exploitative nature of industrial
capitalism. Here instead the 'wealth creation' dimension is
emphasized. But the sample also includes a sizeable share of assorted
businessmen or speculators (2.6%), and bankers, stock-exchange and
insurance brokers (14.5%), as well as wholesale traders (17.7%)
making up together a hefty 34.8%. Is this a reflection of the
heavy-handed 'pro-big business' stance of the Second Empire and
Napoleon III's acquaintance with sometime dubious business
personalities, or of the domination of money interests over the
production system, as some republican opponents claimed at the time?
Paradoxically, the old (?) Marxist term of 'capitalists' would have
been more appropriate, especially if one considers the inclusion in
the roster of large landowners (3%) -- particularly prevalent in
areas such as Burgundy, Bordeaux and the Nord.
The authors concur that the intermingling of business and politics
remained a marginal phenomenon. They note that businessmen's
involvement in politics generally stopped at accepting the local
mayorship. Little more than 5% pursued a career in national politics
as members of the legislature, mostly with an endorsement by the
imperial government. However, the mention that some, typically
Parisian, 'money-spinners' started their careers as civil servants
hints at political connections playing an important role in business
creation. The distribution of the sampled individuals by sectors of
activity (Table 1), when restricted to industry and transport, comes
out as closely related to that of value added (column 3 of Table 1)
-- an observation which plays in favor of the sample's
representativeness. Only metallurgy, mining and transport appear
underrepresented but, as the authors warn, these are industries where
the prevalence of joint stock companies (known in French as
'anonymous societies') implied fragmented (and opaque) ownership: the
sample is therefore skewed towards partnerships. At the other end of
the spectrum, it left out the vast majority of small family firms
(SME), which made up the backbone of French business in the
nineteenth century. Thus, among the silk-manufacturers of Lyons, only
19 out of an estimated total of 400 industrialists are represented.
Table 1 can be found at http://eh.net/bookreviews/library/0888.shtml#tabl=
e1
Self-made men appear to have been a rarity, at least among the very
successful, about half the proportion in Britain.[3] Conversely,
dynasties found it hard to take root. While 56 business families have
two entries or more (typically the founder and his son), only in
Alsace (and perhaps in the Nord), as N. Stoskopf and M Hau have
already shown, are they conspicuous; two out of the three families
with four representatives originated in the province lost in 1871.
The bulk of comments is devoted to examining the geographical and
educational background, the demographic and family behavior, the
religious and political affiliation, as well as the artistic and
cultural proclivities of the sampled individuals. As a result, the
study leans heavily towards social history and flirts sometimes with
the anecdotal: this self-professed 'essay in prosopography' (the
systematic collection of biographical evidence used by archeologists
and students of ancient history) does not always confront the crucial
issues of business management. As a result this approach will leave
many economic historians unsatisfied: ultimately, studying
businessmen without their firm(s) may offer glimpses on their
mentalities but little prospect of understanding their contribution
to industrial development -- a little like visiting the homes of
famous writers and musicians. Despite all the authors' precautions,
the identikit picture which emerges from this gallery reinforces the
pervasiveness of the conservative, risk-averse money makers reluctant
to invest in new technologies, only desperate to join the
upper-classes. And incidentally, the reader may have reservations
about the obligation under which historians should feel to defend
their national heritage.
Notes:
1. Landes's own 1963 revision of his earlier conclusions which is
assigned in the introduction to _The Unbound Prometheus_ appeared in
"New Model Entrepreneurship in France," _Explorations in Economic
History_ 1: 56-75.
2. As taken from Statistique G=E9n=E9rale de la France, _Enqu=EAte
industrielle, 1861-65_ (Paris, 1873).
3. James Foreman-Peck and Elisa Boccaletti, _French and British
Businessmen in the Nineteenth Century_ (forthcoming).
Jean-Pierre Dormois is author of _The French Economy in the Twentieth
Century (Cambridge University Press, 2004).
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Published by EH.Net (January 2005). All EH.Net reviews are archived
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