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INTERNATIONAL
ECONOMIC HISTORY
CONGRESS
BUDAPEST 1982
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CONTENTS
Agricultural University
Wageningen
The Netherlands
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made t0 refute some notions about these
viously mentioned? grate °pini°ns the two ^P63 °f long waves pre-
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1
The rather disconnected studies of the pre-industrial and the in¬
dustrial age and the different ways at which these ages have been
studied can be pointed out as the most important causes of the exis¬
tence of these ideas. The beginning of the industrial revolution has
rightly been interpreted as a fundamental change in history and as
the beginning of a new age. At the same time the attention given to
the process of industrialization has led to a disregard of the per¬
ception of continuity in history. In the existing literature the pro¬
cess of industrialization comes to the fore as a development without
precedent, as a fundamental break-through based upon a new technology
which influenced society as a whole and established new social rela¬
tions. Certainly, the technology which had come into existence at
the end of the eighteenth century was totally different from the tech¬
nology existing before that. However, one may wonder if the process
was really incomparable with the development which had taken place
some centuries earlier. It is with this question in mind that we
will discuss some recent research and try to integrate opinions
about the Kondratieff and the secular type of long waves.
2
In literature some attempts have been made to unite wave theories
into one interpretative scheme, but these efforts have not been very
successful. Mostly they have resulted in rather mechanical schemes
which are not in conformity with historical reality. These theo¬
retical models do not allow for integrated development of techni¬
cal and behavioural parameters. In any case, the state of affairs
with -respect to technique and conduct can not be presupposed to be
unvariable in the long run.
- In our opinion the final cause of waves in economic development lies
in the event of an initial disequilibrium, whatever its origin or
nature may have been.
- The survival of cycles stems from the system of adaptation that star¬
ted working at the moment when the initial disequilibrium occurred.
General equilibrium historically defined will never return again.
- The nature of the (dominant) cyclical movement (specified by its length
and amplitudo) is determined by the capacity of a society to react
upon disequilibria.
3
introduction at the end of Kondratieff baisses.
- in periods of secular rise countries and regions showed great differences
with respect to economic structure and economic growth, and these diffe¬
rences tended to become smaller during periods of secular decline.
- in essence the same is true with respect to periods of Kondratieff haus¬
ses resp. baisses, with the restriction that, as a consequence of the
shorter periods compared with the secular point of view, there existed
more overlapping.
When we try to pick up and join the loose threads of secular and
Kondratieff research Rostow's 'Stages of Economic Growth' deserves atten¬
tion. Although it was subject to a long-lasting discussion, Rostow's
study rapidly lost its character as being fitted to modern standards.
It was a new and perhaps the last great endeavour to progress along the
lines drawn by the classical stages theorists. Even more important than
this was that it was based upon a dynamic-statical interpretation
of economic development, which - in economics - was followed by the
modern theory of growth. This led to a rapid decline of the theoretical
importance of his study. In what can be called a model of economic growth
of industrial(izing) societies some historically interesting features re¬
mained unexplained, namely the transitions to the next phase of economic
development. Rostow, although describing these transitions, didn't ex¬
plain them. Within his theoretical framework he couldn't even explain
them, because this explanation needed - what we called earlier - an in¬
tegrated change of technical and behavioural coefficients.
The new importance of Rostow's study is caused by the change that took
place during the 1970's from a rising to a declining secular trend. Indi¬
cations of this declining trend are:
- the abrupt falling of prices of primary production during the last few
years in an environment which can be characterized as one of ever since
risine prices, although strong deflationary tendencies do exist. The
prices of primary production tend to be the first to react to market
changes.
- the great fluctuations and structural decline of economic growth, the
unstability of trade relations and the exchanges. The lack of balance
of the exchanges started already in the 1960's. Imbalance was also
an important feature of the period of secular decline between +_ 1650
and +_ 1750. The structurally declining prices led to an intensified
search for new openings.
- the tendency of governments towards a less inflationary policy, in
which they use deflationary instruments. This forms the turning-point
from the period in which governments said to strive for anti-inflationa¬
ry goals and were actually pressed to act in an inflationary way (1960's
and 1970's) towards a situation in which governments are forced to act
deflationary, although they ftver have to aim at anti-deflationary goals.
4
process was considerably more regionally confined than the latter. But
this is a matter of scale, not of essence. Just like modern industriali¬
zation the secular rise of the Dutch Republic was based upon a techno¬
logical break-through that affected a whole society. Great technical
progress took place in shipping, manufacturing, shipbuilding and agri¬
culture. Large investments were made in the building of towns and infra-
-structural works. Until about 1650 the country was a real technological
frontier nation. As long as the new technology was not exhausted as a
source of new techniques the country could afford the best paid workers
of Europe without loss of competitive power. It is not our intention
to make a full comparison, although this should open interesting per¬
spectives. Even Rostow's stage of high mass consumption-was not entirely
new. It was new as far as the absolute level of consumption is concerned.
It was not new as far as the depletion of the existing economic and tech¬
nological possibilities is concerned.
5
LONG-TERM TRENDS IN THE ECONOMY OF PRE-INDUSTRIAL ENGLAND
W. A. Cole
I
It is now widely accepted that the advent of the Industrial Revolution
in Britain at the end of the eighteenth century was preceded by a long
period of slow, but persistent, economic growth. Rates of growth of'
population, output and incomes undoubtedly varied in the course of the
century, although the change in trend of these variables in the 1740s
seems to have been much less sharp than was previously thought. But
economic growth, in the sense of a sustained increase of incomes per head
of the population, appears to have been fairly steady for the first seven
or eight decades of the century at an average compound rate of about 0.3
per cent per annum (Deane and Cole 1967; Cole 1981).
Exactly when this upward movement began, however, is another matter.
Perhaps the most popular opinion at present among students of English
economic development before the Act of Union with Scotland in 1707 is that
it should be dated from about the middle of the seventeenth century. This
is not to say, of course, that the sixteenth century, and more particularly
the century from 1540 to 1640, was not a period of considerable economic
expansion. But it is sometimes suggested that for much of this period
economic growth in England, as in many other parts of Europe, was inhibited
by the increase in population. Reviewing the period as a whole, one
recent student, for example, could find little evidence of economic growth
in either the sixteenth or the first half of the seventeenth century and
concludes that "only the years between the mid-1560s and the mid-1580s, and
the first two decades of the seventeenth century stand out as periods when
the growth of per capita incomes could have reached the upper limits of
0.2 per cent per annum suggested by Professor Kuznets" in a communication
to the third conference of the International Economic History Association
in Paris in 1968 (Clarkson 1971 : 213).
Conjectures about the course of economic growth in the pre-industrial
era are usually based on qualitative evidence and the inferences which may
be drawn from such information as we have about the movements of rents,
wages and prices. But the data on rents and wages must, of course, be
handled with extreme care. Apart from the obvious data problems and the
fact that many people were not wage earners or landowners at all, it seems
clear that an index of real wages, for example, can at best provide only a
very uncertain guide to the real incomes of even the substantial minority
of the population who received part of their income from employment. Thus,
the well-known index of Phelps Brown and Hopkins (1956) indicates a very
6
substantial decline in the real wages of labour between the end of the
fifteenth century and the first half of the seventeenth. Since foodstuffs
are given a weight of 80 per cent in the index of the price of consumables,
and the price of foodstuffs increased about sevenfold in the period, while
builders' wage rates and the prices of industrial products rose only about
threefold, this implication is scarcely surprising. Nor, given the avail¬
able information about consumption patterns, is it conceptually implausible
as an indication of the fall in the purchasing power of a day's wage. But
in an age when payments in kind were by no means uncommon and building
workers, like most other wage earners, usually produced part, at least, of
their own food, it is much less obvious that it gives an accurate impression
of the real changes in their standard of living during the period.
There are, however^ other data which can be used to supplement the
information on rents and wages and can also tell us a great deal about the
very large numbers of people of the 'middling sort' who were neither wage
earners nor landowners. These are probate inventories. Like other
historical data, they give rise to formidable problems of interpretation,
but in recent years they have been extensively used for local studies and
by agrarian historians for a variety of purposes. So far, however, no
systematic attempt appears to have been made, in Britain at least, to
extract their implications for a study of the long-term growth of the
economy as a whole. Since very many thousands of inventories have
survived, they are scattered in local repositories throughout England and
Wales, and there is no comprehensive catalogue or index of them, it is
clear that to do so would be a major undertaking which could probably not
be satisfactorily completed by a single individual even in the course of a
lifetime. Moreover, the present writer's work in this field has only just
been initiated. What follows, therefore, can best be regarded as a purely
interim report of an incomplete preliminary investigation; and the findings
which emerge are not intended as conclusions but rather as highly tentative
hypotheses which, it is hoped, may serve as a basis for discussion and
future research.
II
For this exercise, three areas of Southern England were selected
which display widely different economic and social characteristics and
for which there are published series of inventories covering a substantial
part of the period from circa 1540 to the early eighteenth century which
is the primary focus of interest in this paper. These areas are: a small
district in mid-Essex which was overwhelmingly agricultural in character;
the county of Devon which, though predominently agricultural also fell
within the south-western textile region and had important seafaring and
mercantile interests; and finally, four parishes in the West Midlands
which even at that time were in one of the most highly industrialised
parts of the country. Estimates of the distribution of the labour force
for these and other areas have been made by Clarkson (1971 : 88-9).
These suggest that in mid-Essex, nearly 79 per cent of the population
were engaged in agriculture and that among the rest, the most important
group was to be found in food and drink processing; while in the West
Midlands nearly half the labour force had significant economic interests
outside agriculture - an appreciably higher proportion than in most other
rural areas for which comparable estimates were made.
The most useful of the series, from our present point of view, are
those for the West Midland parishes, since between them they span the
entire period under discussion. The inventories for the parishes in
7
question - Belbroughton in North Worcestershire (1539-1647), and Dudley
(1544-1685), Stourbridge (1541-1558) and Sedgley (1614-1787) in South
Staffordshire - have been transcribed, edited and privately published in
six volumes by the late Mr. J.S. Roper (1960, 1965, 1966 (a), 1966 (b),
1967-8 and 1968). I am greatly indebted to Mrs. Margaret Roper, who very
kindly allowed me to photocopy several of her husband's series for use in
the preparation of this paper. Without easy access to these invaluable
volumes the paper could not have been completed. It should be added that
Mrs. Roper also provided me with a series for another North Worcestershire
village, Chaddesley Corbett (Roper 1971); but as this covered only the
first half of the seventeenth century, for which a reasonable number of
inventories have survived from Belbroughton and Dudley, it was reluctantly
decided not to include it at this stage in the composite series for the
West Midlands presented in Table 1 below. In none of these villages was
the range of wealth represented in the inventories unduly wide, and all of
them had a similar industrial structure. Not only were they relatively
highly industrialised, but in all of them the dominant industrial activity
was metal working, notably scythe-making in Belbroughton, and the product¬
ion of nails in the three Staffordshire parishes. Hence it was possible
to combine the evidence from all four villages in a continuous, composite
series, despite the fact that their surviving inventories were rather
unevenly distributed in time, and for the latter part of the period it
rests heavily, and after 1685, exclusively, on the data for Sedgley alone.
The other two series have both been published by local county record
offices. The inventories for Devon (Cash 1966), nominally cover the
period from 1531 to 1699. But unfortunately, no inventories have
survived after the first until the 1550s, and altogether there are only
seventeen for the six decades before 1591. Those for Mid-Essex (Steer
1950) do not begin until 1635 and there is a break in the series from 1640
until 1658. Their principal value is that they are relatively numerous
for the late seventeenth century, and continue into the first half of the
eighteenth when the series for Devon has come to an end. At the time of
writing, the analysis of the Essex inventories has not been completed, but
those for the beginning, middle and later part of the period they cover
have been analysed in detail in order to provide a rough check on the
trends indicated by the other series. Thus, we are comparatively well
served for the seventeenth century, but much less so for the sixteenth
century, and for the earliest part of the period we are dependent on the
evidence for the West Midlands alone. Partially to remedy this deficiency,
it was therefore decided to add a fourth series. This comes from the
peculiar of Southwell in Nottinghamshire, a district which, like mid-Essex,
and to a lesser extent, Devon, was predominantly agricultural in character,
but in which, unlike Devon (and some other parts of Nottinghamshire),
there were no great extremes of wealth and poverty. Unfortunately, the
published series (Kennedy 1963) ends in 1568, but for the years before
that it is unusually full and provides an important supplement and, as we
shall see, corrective to the West Midland series.
Ill
Before we turn to consider the implications of this material, there
are several problems to which brief reference must be made. Probate
inventories are detailed lists of all the goods, money and other assets
which made up a decedent’s movable wealth which were required to be
compiled by two or more of his neighbours soon after his or her death
before probate of the will could be granted, or in the case of a decedent
8
who died intestate, before letters of administration could be issued.
Specialists in the field differ about the accuracy with which the items
included were valued, but in general there seems no reason to doubt that
although many of the appraisers were illiterate, and arithmetical errors in
the inventories are legion, most of them carried out their duties conscien¬
tiously (Horn 1981 : 83-5). It is, of course, highly probable that there
were many cases of under - or in some cases, over - valuation, but these
would presumably tend to cancel each other out in the aggregate, and unless
it can be shown that the extent of them varied substantially over time, it
is reasonable to assume that they would not, in any case, seriously affect
the long-term trends exhibited by a given series.
A more serious problem concerns the items included in the inventories.
Since they were intended to provide a detailed account of a decedent's
movable wealth they include, in addition to his or her clothes, personal
effects and durable household goods, particulars of farm equipment, crops
and stock and, where appropriate, other capital equipment and stock in
trade, as well as cash in hand and financial assets, such as chattel
leases, but not real estate. They sometimes also include details of debts
owed by the decedent and of the expenses incurred in connection with his or
her funeral. Now clearly, all of this information is of considerable
potential interest, but for the purpose of this paper we shall concentrate
attention on the first category of clothing and durable household goods,
and exclude everything else. The process of separating all the items
included into their appropriate categories was certainly time consuming
and it was often impracticable to do so completely or satisfactorily,
since they were frequently not valued separately in the inventories.
Money in the decedent's purse, for example, was usually lumped together
with his or her wearing apparel, and in such cases it was generally ignored,
unless it appeared that the amount was large, when an attempt was made to
estimate it. Similarly, the distinction between household goods and
capital equipment is often a fine one, and at this time there were
numerous items which might well be placed in either category. In general
the practice adopted here was to treat all such items as household goods
unless it appeared from the context that they were mainly intended for use
in connection with the decedent's trade, and although it would be impossiUe
to defend all the decisions made, the amounts involved were in most cases
not large enough to have a significant effect on the end result.
The reasons for adopting this lengthy procedure, which were two fold,
seem compelling. In the first place, the proportion of a decedent's
wealth which was made up of purely household and personal goods could vary
enormously according to his or her occupation or status in life. If the
decedent was a substantial yeoman farmer, for example, the proportion of
his wealth which was tied up in his farm and financial assets could some¬
times amount to as much as 80 or even 90 per cent of the total and was
usually much higher than it was in the case of most craftsmen and traders.
Similarly, if the decedent was a labourer or servant the inventory might
contain little or nothing else besides personal effects and/or household
goods; and much the same could apply if the estate was that of a widow or
a male decedent who had retired from active production for the market.
Nor is there any guarantee that even in the aggregate, the proportions
involved were stable over time. Hence, whether we wish to compare the
material standard of comfort enjoyed by people in different classes and
occupations in different places at a given point in time, or whether we
wish to identify the changes in the standard of living of whole populations
9
or particular classes over time, the measure adopted here would appear to
be the most appropriate. Secondly, since tve also eliminated from the
count household provisions of food and drink, but not such items as raw
wool, flax, hemp and textile yarns, where it appears that these were
intended for purely domestic use, those which remained consist entirely of
manufactured goods and industrial raw materials. This meant that when we
came to allow for changes in the price level, we could reasonably afford
to ignore at this preliminary stage the problems of weighting which would
otherwise have arisen in view of the very considerable changes in the
relative prices of agricultural and industrial goods during our period.
But the major problem involved in the use of probate inventories
concerns the numbers of people for whom they were made. The question at
issue here is not primarily the percentage of the total population which
they cover, although even in the late seventeenth century, when the number
of surviving inventories is particularly large, it seems unlikely that the
proportion of decedents covered by inventories usually exceeded a third of
the total. This means, in effect, that those which survive were not
chosen for us, more or less at random, by the accidents of time but are
drawn from a self-selected sample which presumably depended on how many
executors and heirs were prepared to accept the trouble and expense
(though this was usually not great) of going through probate. Moreover,
a further possibility of bias creeps in in the case of our Devon sample:
the bulk of the inventories for the county were lost when the probate
registry in Exeter was destroyed by enemy action in the Second World War,
and most of those which survive did so because they had originally been
the subject of litigation, and had therefore been lodged elsewhere (Cash
1966 : VII). But the fundamental difficulty is that the inventories which
were made had never constituted a representative cross section of the
population as a whole. In the first place, the very rich usually chose,
and those who had property which fell within the scope of more than one
local probate jurisdiction were obliged, to have their wills proved at the
prerogative court at Canterbury; and they are not, therefore, included in
the series in this paper which were drawn from local repositories.
Secondly, although some very poor people did make wills, many did not do
so, with the result that the less prosperous sections of the community are
grossly under-represented. It has been variously estimated on the basis
of taxation records that in the sixteenth century two-thirds or three-
quarters of the population are represented in the inventories (Havinden
1965 : 3) and that in the late seventeenth century between a third and a
half of the population are either not represented at all, or at best, very
seriously under represented (Horn 1981 : 89). Hence it appears that
although probate records probably constitute a reasonable cross section of
the middle strata of the population, they certainly cannot be used without
adjustment to indicate the changing fortunes of the population as a whole.
This brings us to the final problem which we must consider. In
preparing this paper, estimates were made of both the mean and the median
values of the inventories occurring in our series for every two decades
throughout the two centuries under review. No attempt was made to
produce uniform samples for each sub-period: in most cases we made use of
all the surviving inventories, although for the late seventeenth century,
when they are relatively numerous, the data were sometimes sampled to
reduce the labour involved. But for Devon in 1631-50, 107 usable
inventories were all analysed, and were then split into five ordered
sub-samples. The mean of the whole group, and the mean of the means
of the sub-samples, both came to just under £34 (at current prices), but
10
those for the individual sub-samples varied between £19.6 and nearly £48.
The reason, of course, is that the range of wealth represented in the
inventories is so wide - from £1.1 to no less than £431 in this particular
group - and the distribution in the upper parts of the range so haphazard
as to rob &ie means of such small samples of any individual statistical
significance. A similar exercise for the medians produced slightly
better results, but as they varied between £14.4 and £24.6, the margins of
error still seemed unacceptably large. Fortunately, the problem is
unlikely to be so acute in the other areas, where the series suggest that
wealth was more evenly distributed than it appears to have been in Devon.
Moreover further analysis indicated that the behaviour of the medians in
all four areas was both plausible and, in general, mutually consistent,
and hence that they might reasonably be used as a rough indicator of long¬
term trends. But the same cannot be said with confidence about the means,
and as it could well be argued that the mean wealth of the somewhat
indeterminate middle strata of a whole population is a less meaningful
concept than the middle man of the middle part of the range, only the
median values exhibited by the series will be reproduced in detail here.
It would undoubtedly be desirable to be able to estimate the means
accurately, if an adequate allowance could be made for those sections of
the population that are under represented in the inventories. But as we
shall see, there are grounds for believing that the medians are likely to
give a rather less distorted impression of trends in the average wealth of
the community as a whole than the unadjusted means.
IV
* 1671-90 was chosen as the base for the final sub-period because the
data for 1691-1710were disappointingly meagre, and those for the West
Midlands, like Devon, all relate to the years 1691-9.
11
Table 1. Median Values of Household Inventories
in Southern England. 1531-1730
(in the prices of 1531-50)
Overall
Nottinghamshire West Midlands Devon Mid-Essex
Index
Effective Effective Effective Effective
(1531-50
Sample £ Sample £ Sample £ Sample £
100)
1531-50 32 3.69 17 4.21 100
1551-70 69 4.65 24 3.49 4 (5.54) 105
1571-90 38 3.18 12 (2.77) 95
1591-1610 25 4.02 26 6.39 120
1611-30 27 4.22 23 5.71 117
1631-50 33 4.91 107 7.73 22 (6.58) 146
1651-70 33 5.73 34 6.76 149
1671-90 37 6.25 33 9.15 32 9.01 180
1691-1710 11 4.89 13 8.30 151
1711-30 16 8.48 38 9.74 219
12
250
200
150
100
1540/1 60/1 80/1 1600/1 20/1 40/1 60/1 80/1 1700A 20/1
Fig.l. The growth of household wealth
Source : As for table 1.
13
2 B 3
fluctuations are simply the result of errors in our underlying estimates,
as a result of the small size of most of the samples. On the other hand,
since they appear to be reflected for most of the period, by variations in
the rate of growth of the West Midland series, they may also indicate the
presence of long cycles of some forty-years in duration. But whatever
the explanation, they virtually disappear when a forty-year moving average
is taken of the figures in Table 1; and, as can be seen from the diagram,
where the smoothed series have been plotted with bold lines, the secular
trends stand out even more sharply. These confirm the impression that
after an uncertain start, a general upward movement began towards the end
of the sixteenth century which gradually accelerated in the ensuing decades,
was temporarily checked at the end of the seventeenth century and finally
reappeared at the beginning of the eighteenth. They imply that in the
last forty years of the whole period, the median values of the household
goods of the middle strata of the population were about 80 per cent higher
than they had been in the mid-sixteenth century. This in turn would mean
that in the very long term they had increased at an average compound rate
of 0.37 per cent per annum, and between c.,1610 and c.,1670, when the rate
of growth was at its peak, it reached nearly 0.55 per cent.
This general advance in the household wealth of the middle strata of
the population was accompanied by marked changes in its distribution.
Space precludes us from reproducing in detail here the cumulative distri¬
bution tables which were prepared from the data, but these indicate that
in the West Midlands, for example, where the series are most complete,
there was a steadily increasing inequality in the distribution of wealth
in the early part of our period. This movement was temporarily arrested
from 1591-1610 and continued thereafter, before being very sharply reversed
in the late seventeenth century and the early eighteenth. The result was
that the bottom 50 or 60 per cent of decedents in 1651-70 were relatively
worse off than they had been in 1531-50, and the share of total household
wealth enjoyed by the lowest semi-quartile had fallen by more than 50 per
cent, whereas by 1711-30 all these groups were significantly better off in
both relative and absolute terms than they had been 180 years earlier.
Broadly similar changes are indicated by the series for the other
areas considered, and it is not altogether surprising that insofar as it
is possible to deduce anything from the mean values which were estimated
from the data they would imply that at the beginning of our period the
average wealth of the middle classes increased rather faster than that of
the median, but that after about 1680 it may have declined. But as was
suggested earlier, it would be most unwise to infer that the same applied
to the population as a whole. In the first place, it should be noted
that in the mid-seventeenth century the lower quartile of the inventory
population were not merely relatively poorer but were also marginally (and
those below them substantially) worse off in absolute terms than they had
been a hundred years earlier. Now if the fate of these sections is
assumed to be typical of fortunes of the great mass of the poor who were
greatly under-represented in the inventories, and if, as seems likely,
the proportion of the poor was increasing, it is highly probable that the
average wealth of the population as a whole increased less rapidly than
the mean values estimated from the inventories, if indeed it increased at
all. Furthermore, if we subscribed to the once-fashionable view that in
the century after 1540 the substantial yeomanry and the lesser gentry who
are represented in the inventories gained in wealth at the expense of the
great landed aristocracy, who are not, this point would be reinforced.
Conversely, it is clear that in the second half of our period the lot of
14
the poor improved substantially, and it is also widely believed that after
about 1680, as a result of the strict settlement of great estates, the
pressures of the land tax and slowly falling grain prices, the yeomanry
and lesser gentry were squeezed, while the landed magnates once again
increased their wealth, thus suggesting that the average wealth of the
community as a whole rose, even if that of the middle strata did not.
V
Much further work clearly remains to be done before firm conclusions
can be drawn from the evidence of probate inventories about the long-term
trends in the economy of pre-industrial England. In this preliminary dis¬
cussion of the material so far assembled, it has not been possible within
the time and space available to explore all the fascinating possibilities
opened up by this storehouse of information. But before we leave the
subject, it may perhaps be worth referring to some recent estimates (Cole
1981) of the per capita domestic consumption of industrial goods in
eighteenth-century England, which are at present the most nearly comparable
eighteenth-century data with those considered here. These estimates imply
an average rate of increase in the first seven decades of the eighteenth
century of 0.4 per cent per annum. Now if, as we have suggested the
median values of the household wealth of the population represented in the
inventories can provide even a rough clue to the changing fortunes of the
community at large, two inferences might be very tentatively drawn. First,
it would appear that the data tend to support the view that the process of
"self-sustained growth in a pre-industrial context", as it was half-
jestingly described in an earlier paper (Cole 1973 : 330), was by no means
peculiar to the first few decades of the eighteenth century. Secondly,
it seems that at least as far as "Mr. Middleman" is concerned, this process
had begun well before the mid-seventeenth century, even though, as most
studies of the period suggest, it did not at first benefit the poorest
sections of the community as a whole.
REFERENCES
Cash, M. 1966. Devon Inventories of the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centur¬
ies. Devon & Cornwall Record Society, Torquay.
Clarkson, L.A. 1971. The Pre-Industrial Economy in England. 1500-1750.
Batsford, London.
Cole, W.A. 1973. 'Eighteenth-Century Economic Growth Revisited', Explora¬
tions in Economic History. 10. 327-348.
1981. 'Factors in Demand, 1700-1780', in Floud, R.C. and
McCloskey, D.N. (eds.), The Economic History of Britain since 1700.
Cambridge University Press, Cambridge (in press).
Coleman, D.C. 1977. The Economy of England, 1450-1750.
Deane, P. & Cole, W.A. 1967. British Economic Growth. 1688-1959. Second
Edition, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.
Havinden, M.A. 1965. Household and Farm Inventories in Oxfordshire,
1550-1590. Oxfordshire Record Society & Historical Manuscripts
Commission, H.M.S.O., London.
Horn, J.P.P. 1981. 'The Distribution of Wealth in the Vale of Berkeley,
Gloucestershire, 1660-1700', Southern History. 3, 81-109.
Kennedy, P.A. 1963. Nottinghamshire Household Inventories. Thoroton
Society, Nottingham.
Phelps Brown, E.H. 1956. 'Seven Centuries of the Prices of Consumables.
& Hopkins, S.V. Compared with Builders' Wage Rates Economica.
N.S.23, 296-314.
1957. 'Wage-Rates and Prices: Evidence for Population
15
2* B 3
Pressure in the Sixteenth Century', Económica. N.S. 24, 289-306.
Roper, J.S. 1960. Sedgley Probate Inventories. 1614-1787. Privately
published, Dudley.
1965. Dudley Probate Inventories. 1544-1603. Privately published
Dudley.
1966 (a). Dudley Probate Inventories. Second Series. Privately
published, Dudley.
1966 (b). Stourbridge Probate Inventories. 1549-1558. Privately
published, Dudley.
1967-8. Belbroughton Wills and Probate Inventories. 1539-1647.
Privately published, Dudley.
1968. Dudley Probate Inventories. Third Series. Privately published,
Dudley.
1971. Chaddesley Corbett, Worcestershire: Probate Inventories.with
Abstracts of Wills. 1601-1652, Privately published, Dudley.
Steer, F.W. 1950. Farm and Cottage Inventories of Mid-Essex. 1635-1749.
Essex Record Office, Chelmsford.
16
Long Waves and Leading Sectors in the Belgian Industrialization
Process: 1831-1913
Jos Delbeke
1. Introduction
were its ability to establish a clear wave movement and to provide the pos¬
reflect the market situation (1). The great difficulty here, however, is
the continuous rise in prices since the 1930's. Rostow tried to resolve
this problem by studying the relative prices for primary versus industrial
goods (2). Apparently, this did not provide a definitive solution to the
moment on the goods method: one studies the fluctuations in volumes, quan¬
ries. Nevertheless, one necessarily gets a much less clearly defined wave
17
planation of the long-wave phenomenon. Therefore, one searches primarily
endogenize (3).
erable in almost all the theories, irrespective of the school with which
they are associated (4). This study may be seen as an initial phase in a
larger study on the coherency of the economic system over a long period of
uneven growth.
a. The Data
The data used here are the production indices for 52 industrial sectors
which are of particular importance in Flanders, and construction are not in¬
cluded in his index. The omission of the construction sector is a major de¬
ment structure of 1896. In addition, no corrections are applied for the di¬
figures show a dampened pattern with respect to the actual economic evolu-
18
tion because of inventory buffers. Finally, it appears inevitable that one
will have to work with still more disaggregated figures, since a sector is
b. The Method
most suitable approach, we will not use this method. For long-wave re¬
search is then concentrated on the residual, i.e., the deviations from the
will we use spectral analysis, since the time series must first be made sta¬
ical long wave is very limited, so that one must speak of a movement rather
than of a cycle.
Given the available data, research into the acceleration and decelera¬
the condition that no moving averages are calculated on the raw data (6).
We consider the local minima in the growth of industrial output as the low¬
est turning points of a Juglar. Then, following the practice of Van Duijn,
we take one long wave to consist of two prosperity Juglars (possibly exten¬
ded by war), one recession Juglar, one depression Juglar, and one recovery
Juglar (7). The long wave, in fact, can only be observed through the busi¬
distinguish "growth sectors", i.e., those for which the average annual
growth per Juglar is greater than the industrial growth average, both in the
19
downswing and in the subsequent upswing. Indeed, leading sectors arise in
the downswing after which they flourish and stimulate the economic growth in
the average over the entire period but not in each Juglar, then this sector
they are those that, first, provide a rapidly increasing proportion of the
added value in the total industrial product, and, second, possess signifi¬
the "second-best" solution since we may presume that a leading sector has a
terion, we accept that the particular growth sector must have more than 1%
3. The Results
average annual growths. The growth figures require some explanation, par¬
ticularly for the first and last Juglars. The exceptionally high growth in
the period of 1831-37 must be attributed to the strong recovery after the
growth, which must be ascribed to the arms race and, primarily, to the fact
that the recession ended prematurely. Apart from these figures, the growth
20
pattern seems to follow a wave movement as is described in the literature.
Table II gives the growth sectors of the first wave together with the
average annual growth over the entire period of 1831-66. In Columns 2 and
3 are given the relative size of the sectors determined by means of indus¬
trial censuses (10), although it must be stressed that these are not reliab¬
ly comparable over time. Moreover, they fall randomly in the long wave time
schema: 1846 comes at the end of the downswing, and the data for 1866 can
only be approximated on the basis of the data for 1880. We can presume,
however, that a sector that has become relatively important by the end of
the upswing remains important for a while. Finally, the 4th column gives
the iron industry, and the metal processing sector (primarily steam machin¬
ery) are the three principal leading sectors. The qualitative literature
tween these sectors and of the rapid acquisition of the latest technology
from Great Britain. Moreover, these leading sectors are predominantly situ¬
The two remaining leading sectors are sugar production and printing and
21
Table II: The growth sectors: 1831-66 (cf. Gadisseur, op. cit., pp.
2350-2423; Debrabander, op • c i t vol. 3, p. 151)
Extractive sector 98
Coal mining 5.0 16.3 26.9
Quarrying 9.1 3.9 5.5
Textiles
Hemp 7 • 13 0.8 0.8
(Wool processing) 8.63 6.9 6.7
Iron industry 89
(Manufacturing of iron 7^6
and cast iron)
6 (
Iron production 8 •5 c i> 3. 1 6.3
Foundries 8.65 J
Non-ferrous metals
Zinc rolling 0.02 0.2
9’46
(Zinc production) 7.2° 0. 1 1.0
(Lead production and 1 £ /, 5
desilvering) 0. 1
7
Copper production 6.27 - 0. 1
Metal processing 58
Mechanical construction 11.3 15.0 7.0
(Weapons and munitions) 4.83 1.1 1.3
^After 1855. ^After 1847. 3After 1834. 4After 1850. 5After 1845.
6After 1843. ?After 1832.
publishing. Although they obviously did not have the same growth potential
as did the Walloon sectors, they slowly pushed forward Flemish industriali¬
have had occasion to describe as Flemish growth centers where the tertiary
22
c. The Leading Sectors of the Period of 1866-1913
Table III gives the growth sectors for the period of 1866-1913. The
at the beginning of the upswing, and of 1910 at the end of the period.
The leading sector pattern is much less pronounced than in the 1831—
66 period. At the top are the steel industry and zinc production, which
were situated primarily in Wallonia. The chemical sector does not appear
very strong, but this picture, which is constructed primarily on the basis
tions. The extractive sector has disappeared from the picture, and metal
processing already belongs to the cycle sensitive sectors. This is the re¬
Belgian success of the first long wave (13). In regard to the rapid imple¬
hind, in contrast with the earlier period. This would ultimately lead to
a leading sector, while the textile sector scored high growth percentages,
though it could not resist the strong cyclical influence. The food indus¬
try weakened with respect to the previous period, although smaller new sec¬
dustry. This is shown by, among other things, the predominance of the
23
Table III: The growth sectors: 1866-1913 (cf Gadisseur, op. cit., pp.
2350-2423; Debrabander, op. cit , vol. 3, p. 151)
Textiles 27 20
(Linen spinning) 4.0 2.3 2.7
(Linen weaving) 4.0 3.7 1.6
(Cotton spinnning) 3.8 1.1 2.3
(Cotton weaving) 3.7 2.0 3.9
Chemicals
Rubber 9.8 0.2 0.4
(Soda) 4.0 0.2 0.3
(Wax) 3.6 0.2 0.1
Non-metallic minerals „
(Coal agglomerates) 4.0 0.2 0.4
Non-ferrous metals
Zinc production 3.8 0.9 1.5
(Silver and gold
10.63 0.0 0.0
production)
(Copper production) 4.3 0.0 0.1
Metal processing 62 60
(Mechanical construction) 4.9 11.4 13.9
ployment situated in the growth sectors. While the latter accounted for
more than half of the employment in the first long wave, the proportion is
only about a third in the second. The industrial growth did not consist of
the rise of new leading sectors, but rather resulted from the renewal of al¬
24
4. Conclusions
in the growth of Belgian industrial production in the 19th century that fit
the long-wave pattern. At the same time, several indicators point to a rel¬
ative decline in Belgian industry during the second long wave, 1866-1913,
supportive economic policy during the first long wave, for example,
based on the tertiary sector and not on heavy industry. Further research
relation to the long wave and the growth of Belgian industrial production.
References
(1) Dupriez, L.H., Des mouvements économiques généraux, 3rd ed., Leuven,
1966, 2nd volume.
(2) Rostow, W.W., The World Economy, History and Prospect, New York, 1978;
Rostow, W.W., "Kondratieff, Schumpeter, and Kuznets: Trend Periods Re¬
visited", in: Journal of Economic History, vol. 35 (1975), pp. 719-753.
(3) Mensch, G., Das technologische Patt. Innovationen überwinden die Depres¬
sion, Frankfurt am Main, 1975; Kleinknecht, A., "Basisinnovationen und
Wachstumsschübe: das Beispiel der westdeutschen Industrie", in: Konjunk-
turpolitik, 25 (1979), pp. 320-343; Van Duijn, J.J., De Lange Golf in
de Economie, Assen, 1979.
(4) Delbeke, J., "Recent Long Wave Theories: A Critical Survey", in:
Futures, 13 (1981), pp. 246-257.
25
tion, Liège, 1980, 9 volumes.
(7) Van Duijn, J.J., De Lange Golf in de Economie, Assen, 1979, pp. 90-94.
(13) Van der Wee, H., "Investment Strategy of Belgian Industrial Enterprise
between 1830 and 1980, and Its Influence on the Economic Development of
Europe", in: Belgium and Europe, Proceedings of the International
Francqui-Colloquium, Brussels-Ghent, 1981, pp. 75-94.
26
Leads and Lags in an Escalation Model of Capitalist
Development: Kondratieff Cycles Reconsidered
Thomas Kuczynski
Institute of Economic History of the Academy of
Sciences of the DDR. Berlin
1. Oh.lect of investigation
The term "long waves" or "long cycles" of economic develop¬
ment applies, at least, to three different phenomena: Secular
trends (la longue durée), hyper-long cycles or logistics (c.
150-300 years), Kondratieff cycles (c. 45-60 years); moreover
it is sometimes applied to medium cycles of the Kuznets or
Hansen type (c. 18-25 years). Investigating the precapitalist
development, we have to consider Simiand's phases A and B
too. In my paper I will only deal with such phenomena which
apparently grow with fluctuations of c. 45-60 years.
Since Kondratieff (1924) we distinguish between irre¬
versible developments (as the growth of production and trade)
and reversible developments (as the movement of prices and
interest rates) which return to former levels. This paper is
concerned with irreversible processes. Although some econo¬
mists conjecture that price movements are also irreversible,
1. e. the general tendency of prices during the last 700 years
is an increasing one (Lipsey I960; Csikós-Nagy 1979)» I ex¬
clude these movements, because I am not in a position to ex¬
plain them.
The data base for a statistical investigation of precap¬
italist developments is restricted to prices. Regarding the
socialist economy, the period for an investigation is too
short. Therefore I will investigate only the capitalist mode
of production. For reasons earlier named (Kuczynski 1978a) I
concentrate upon the capitalist world economy.
2. Phenomenological summary
One main argument against Kondratieff's hypothesis has been
the random character of the wave-like movement (Oparin 1928).
Nowadays e.g. Milward (1979) and Abelshauser/Petzina (1981)
pointed out that the different movements at different times
and in different countries have different causes. All these
arguments could be summarized in Sluckij's (1927) theorem on
cyclical movements as a result of the summation of random
causes. However, if we have such a crowd of random events it
would have to be an extraordinary accumulation of accidents.
Let us take just twelve of these accidents:
27
a) The growth rates are oscillating, e.g. those of capitalist
world industry (sources: Kuczynski 1967» UNO Statistics):
Phase Average annual growth rates (p.c.)
la. 1830-1847 4.16 (+)
lb. 1847-1872 4.31
2a. 1872-1894 2.77
2b. 1894-1913 4.67
3a. 1913-1939 2.13
3b. 1939-1973 4.72
4a. 1973-1980 (§) 3.10
(+) Too large since the first years of depression
(l,825ff.) are missing.
(§) Current (unfinished) phase.
(For England we compute from Hoffmann's index for the A
phase 1760-1793 2.20, for the B phase 1793-1825 3.30.)
b) During the A phases the most comprehensive cyclical crises
of the time occured (in 1825, 1873, 1929, and - till now -
in 1973).
c) The A phases and their main crises are c. 50 years apart
from one another.
d) Within the A phases the irregularity of growth (measured
by means of the variation of growth rates) is much higher
than in the B phases (Kuczynski 1979).
e) Within the A phases interim and partial crises and reces¬
sions occured (Spiethoff 1923).
f) Within the A phases agrarian crises occured (Kondratieff
1922; Studensky 1930).
g) Within the A phases most of the basic innovations were
made (Kondratieff 1928; Simiand 1932; Mensch 1975).
h) Within the A phases particularly deflationary processes
went on, within the B phases particularly inflationary
ones (Wicksell 1898; Parvus 1901).
i) During the A phases the transitions from one to the next
stage/phase of capitalist development occured (Spektator
1926; Studensky 1930).
k) During the A phases revolutionary currents of a new quali¬
ty arose within the workers' movement, during the B phases
reformist movements gained more influence (Parvus 1896ff J.
l) Consequently, the darkest predictions on the impending fi¬
nal crash of the capitalist mode of production were made
during the A phases.
m) We may add that we find the main discussions on "long
waves" going on during the inter-war period (the 3rd A
phase), and today, in the 4th A phase, whereas during the
after-war period (3rd B phase) most of the economists and
historians simply forgot Kondratieff's hypothesis. Even
those economic historians who believe the "Kondratieff" is
dead (e.g. Spree 1981) should call to mind how vividly and
wave-like these discussions move.
Summing up all these "single" events, we get the (very
roughly drawn) picture of general social crises within the A
phases and of relatively steady upward movements within the
B phases. But this summation gives us no explanation. We have
to keep in mind what Oskar Lange (1969: 77) said: "Even
though historical facts cited above are not subject to any
serious reservations, they are not sufficient proof of the
28
existence of long-range cycles. To prove this theory it would
be necessary to show that there exists a causal relation be¬
tween two consecutive phases of the cycle . ..w
3. Remarks on the mathematical apparatus
The main methods for the empirical analysis of "long waves'*
are
- the visual inspection of the diagrams
- the construction of moving averages
- the^ decomposition of time series into trend and fluctua¬
tions (e.g. by means of regression analysis)
The first method is purely descriptive and very seldom gives
us uniform results (cf.e.g. the pros and cons in Lêvy-Leboyer
1970 and Bouvier 1974). The second method involves automatic¬
ally Slutzky effects (Nullau 1976), i.e. the method itself
produces (or annihilates) waves. The third method, often com¬
bined with very sensitive techniques like spectral analysis
(e.g. Spree/Tybus 1978; Kuczynski 1978a), has one rather
doubtful assumption - the possibility and permissibility of
the decomposition itself (cf. Anderson sen. 1929), Moreover,
it is impossible to validate the usually choosen kinds of
trend (esp, linear, polynomial, and exponential trend).
Is it possible to analyze cycles without trend elimina¬
tion, i.e. without a decomposition of the time series? That
is eo ipso impossible; but it has been shown (Kuczynski 1978b)
that the diagrams resulting from the superposition of a trig¬
onometric function on an isotonic linear trend and from a se¬
quence of logistic functions (an escalating function) are
Cphenomenologically) too similar to distinguish one from the
other. However the eeonomico-historical essence of the two
functions are absolutely dissimilar. I will deal with this in
the next paragraph. Let us first look at some mathematical
attributes of logistic and escalating functions.
_ V J,
29
3 B 3
of the i-th logistic function: tw (ai + In
■i-i 2i+1
K,. Consequently, "between the
30
tors - and not very accurate ones - for declining rates of
profit, and (even today) decreasing prices are even less ac¬
curate ones. But perhaps the following consideration is ad¬
missible: The ratio of produced surplus value and advanced
capital, the average rate of profit, has a long-range de¬
creasing tendency; that was, at least, Marx's opinion. He
even sard that the law of the tendency of the rate of profit
to fall is "from the historical point of view the most impor¬
tant law" of the capitalist economy (Marx 1858: 634). The
ideal is to stop this tendency. Technological progress is
one of the main instruments against this tendency - but its
effects are only short- or medium-term. At first the single
company will try to stabilize or even raise its rate of prof¬
it by improvement innovations. Yet each technological system
is capable for improvements only within its own limits, and
when the effects of the improvement innovations cease the
rates of profit will fall again, except when basic changes
within the sphere of production set in, i.e. basic innova¬
tions are made.
Since introducing basicly new products and methods is a
risky undertaking they occur above all under bad conditions
of capital utilization. So, economic depression is one main
source for economic progress within the capitalist economy
(Mauro 1971: 12). But economic progress leads later on to
economic depression: Such main indicators for economic and
technological progress as the increase of durable equipment
and of production (labour productivity) per capita effect a
decreasing rate of profit. The following tautological equa¬
tion shows the mechanism:
p‘ = m/(Cf + °f + cz + v) = m/(Cf + P - m)
31
3* B 3
functions (as introduced into the historiography of sciences
by de Solla-Price 1963).
The movements described by an escalation model are by no
means cycles or waves. In this sense the term "Kondratieff
cycles" is misleading and, moreover, it suggests that Kon-
dratieff was the discoverer of these movements, while in re¬
ality they have been discussed ever since the Great Depres¬
sion in the last third of the 19th century. There is no need
to oppose the use of the term "Kondratieff cycle" (as well as
Iceland moss is neither moss nor from Iceland) as long as one
keeps in mind the decisive difference between word and notion.
5. Part and whole
The results obtained by applying escalating functions are
given in the appendix. The results refer to world economy.
The analyses of time series of the single countries show
similar results, but to all appearances they are "produced"
by different factors (causes). Does this mean that the re¬
sults referring to world economy are generated by a summation
of random processes?
In his excellent study (so far as it has been mimeo¬
graphed) Milward (1979) for instance came to the conclusion
that although the change of trend during the 1890s actually
happened in most of the developed European countries it was
caused by factors so different that to attempt a generalized
explanation seemed to be quite useless. In other words: A
generalized explanation could refer only to the random char¬
acter of the development.
But perhaps the different factors were only produced by
the different behaviour of different countries in a general
(world economic) situation - just as different industries be¬
have differently in a general (national economic) situation?
Within a totality (e.g. the world economy) the behaviour of
one part influences the behaviour of the others, while the
general situation remains the basis for the different kinds
of behaviour. We have to distinguish between laws and tenden¬
cies on the one hand, and the conditions under which they
work on the other. Different factors therefore may even refer
to one totality.
The prehistory of the change of trend during the 1890s
is - as I see it (cf. Kuczynski 1982) - the Great Depression.
The measures taken against it, against the deterioration of
the conditions of capital utilization, differed from country
to country.
Great Britain hunted "for new markets for old products",
and accordingly the structure of her foreign trade changed
completely: The export share into industrial countries de¬
creased while it increased into the Empire countries; on the
other hand the import share from the industrial countries in¬
creased while it decreased from the other (non-Empire) coun¬
tries. That development was caused by the specific position
of Great Britain within the world economy of that time. Be¬
cause of the possibility to export "old" products into the
Empire there was no need to look for new products. The enor¬
mous growth of the capital export improved the conditions of
capital utilization too. On the other side the relatively
32
declining level of British, technology caused a decreasing ex¬
port share into, and an increasing import share from, the
industrial countries.
The French endeavours at improving their situation went
into similar directions: French capital investment abroad
rose too (but chiefly in eastern Europe), and it was only
then that the French colonies were built up into a true colo¬
nial empire.
German policy differed essentially from British and
French (and also from American) policies. At the beginning
of the Great Depression Germain products were "cheap and bad"
(as characterized by Franz Reuleaux in 1877)» there were no
foreign markets for them. There was no colonial empire and
(with regard to French foreign policy after the German-French
War 1870/71) no possibility to erect one. The Germans had to
look "for new products for old markets", and that was what
they did: The story of German industry in the last third of
the 19th c. could be written under the headline "From 'cheap
and bad' to 'Made in Germany'". Germany brought up to top
standard not only the new (esp. chemical and electrical) in¬
dustries but also older industries like iron and steel and
machine-building. This development was not due to any special
quality of German workers or German labour (so-called deut¬
sche Wertarbeit) but to a specific position of Germany within
the world economy of that time.
Regarding these different policies it is no wonder that
their continuations differed too. But does that mean there
was no general (world economic)situation? On the contrary,
the different policies arose from different positions within
the same (the world economic) situation.
This very sketchy description of three different poli¬
cies against the Great Depression also shows that a "theory
of long waves" alone can never explain the economic policy
and economic development of a single country. The batch of
innovations did come during the world-wide Great Depression -
but not in each country. The question why it came esp. in the
USA and Germany cannot be answered in terms of pure theory,
but only by a theoretically founded historical investigation.
Is that a disadvantage? Only in the sense, I believe, Joan
Robinson put it: A theory that takes all historical factors
into consideration is a3 useful as a map in a 1:1 scale. A
correct theory containing formulated laws and tendencies
shows historical possibilities (possible histories and ...
futures). However laws and tendencies alone do not determine
historical realities: the historical conditions of their
workings must be considered too.
b. References
Abelshauser, W./Petzina, D. , in: Historisch-sozialwissen-
sciiaftliche Forschungen, Vol. 11, Stuttgart 1981; Anderson,
0., Zur Problematik der empirisch-statistischen Konjunktur-
Tor schung, Bonn 1929; Bouvier, J,, in: Hommage â Ernest La¬
brousse, Paris/The Hague 1974; Csikós-Nagy, B., Towards a
New Price Revolution, Budapest 1979; Griliches, Z.t in:
Econometrica 1957, pp. 501ff.; Hansen, A.,' Full Recovery or
Stagnation? Washington 1938; Haustein, fet.-D,, Prognoseverfah-
33
ren in der sozialistischen Wirtschaft, Berlin 1970 » Klein¬
knecht, A., in: Probleme des Klassenkampfes (PROKLA), No._
'31 ^79 Yondratieff. N.D., Mirovoe chozjajstvo i ego kon"-
junktury vo vremja i posle vo jny, Vologda 1922; id., in: So-
cialistiéeskoe chozjajstvo, No. 2/1924; id., in: id./Oparin,
Bol 'Me cikly konMjunktury, Moscow 1928; Kornai, J. , Anti-
Äquilibrium, Budapest/New York/Heidelberg 1975; Kuczynski,
J., Die Geschichte der Lage der Arbeiter unter dem Kapitalis-
mus, Vol. 38, Berlin 1967; Kuczynski, Th., in: Proceedings
of the 7th International Economic History Congress, Edin¬
burgh 1978, Vol. 2; id,, in: Jahrbuch für Wirtschaftsge¬
schichte, No. 4/1978X^7» id., in: Historisch-sozialwissen¬
schaftliche Forschungen, Vol. 5# Stuttgart 1979; id., in:
Geschichte der Produktivkräfte in Deutschland, Vol. 2:
1870-1917/18, Berlin 1982; Kuznets. S., in: Journal of Eco¬
nomic and Business History, No. 3/i9¿9; Lange, 0., The Theo¬
ry of Reproduction and Accumulation, Warsaw 1969; Lévy-Lé-
boyer, M., in: Revue historique, No. 1/1970; Lipgey, R.G.,
in: Lloyds Bank Review, No. 58/1960; Marchetti, C.t in:2nd
Status Report of the IIASA-Project on Energy Systems, Laxen¬
burg 1976; Marx, K., Grundrisse der Kritik der politischen
Ökonomie (1858;, Berlin 1953; Mauro, F.. Histoire de l'écono¬
mie mondiale 1790-1970, Paris 1971 : Mensch. G., in: Zeit¬
schrift für Betriebswirtschaft 1972, pp. 291ff.; id., Das
technologische Patt, Frankfurt/Main 1975; Milward, A.3.,
Cyclical Fluctuations and Economic Growth in Developed Eu-
rope 1870-1913, Manchester 1979 (mimeo); Nullau, B,, in:
Wirtschaftsdienst, No. 4/1976; Oparin, D.I., in: id./Kondra-
tieff, Bol'éie cikly kon"junktury, Moscow 1928; Parvus (A.
Helphand), Die Gewerkschaften und die Sozialdemokratie, Dres¬
den 1896; id., Die Handelskrisis und die Gewerkschaften, Ber¬
lin 1901; icT7, Die kapitalistische Produktion und das Prole¬
tariat, Berlin 1908; Simiand, F., Les fluctuations écono¬
miques á longue période et la crise mondiale, Paris 1932;
Sluckij, E. E., in: Voprosy kon"junktury (Moscow), Vol.
3719¿7'i ë'olla-Price, D. de, Little Science - Big Science,
Cambridge 1963; Spectator (M.Nachimson), K voprosu o "stabi-
lizacii kapitalizma*',' Moscow 1926; Spiethoff, A., in: Hand¬
wörterbuch der Staatswissenschaften, 4th ed., Vol. 6, Jena
1923, pp. 8ff.; Spree, R,, in: Historisch-sozialwissenschaft¬
liche Forschungen, Vol. 11, Stuttgart 1981; id./Tybus, M,,
Wachstumstrends und Konjunktur zyklen in der deut sehen Wirt -
schaft von 1820 bis 1913, Göttingen 1978; Steindl, J,, Matur¬
ity and Stagnation in American Capitalism, Oxford 1952; Stu-
densky, G.A., in: Journal of Farm Economics, No. 4/1930; Van
Duijn, J,J,, De lange golf in de économie, Assen 1979; Wick-
sell, K., Oeldzins und Güterpreise, Jena 1898.
34
SUR LA THEMATIQUE ET L’HISTORIOGRAPHIE DES AINSI DITS
MOUVEMENTS DE LONGUE DUREE: POUR UNE RECONSIDERATION
Michel MORINEAU
Université de CLERMONT II
Institut d’Histoire. 29 Boulevard Gergovia
63000. CLERMONT-FERRAND. France.
35
tout compte fait, affecte l’ensemble de la vie économique, de
son observation et de la manière d’en suivre l’histoire.
Pour être aussi clair que possible, nous exposerons nos
résultats dans l’ordre où ils sont apparus. Commençant par les
découvertes en histoire moderne, déjà anciennes; continuant par
l’analyse critique: historiographique, épistomologique et maté¬
rielle de la notion de mouvement de longue durée; ébauchant,
snfin, le dessin d’un programme pour une étude de l’évolution
économique appréhendée dans sa plus longué durée et dans sa
teneur la plus dense et la plus concrète.
36
gendre d’eux-mêmes la hausse des prix; ils n’en ont pas provo¬
qué, par défaut, la baisse.
c/^la notion de "cycle" appliquée au mouvement des prix
des céréales a l’époque moderne est dépouillée de sa pertinence,
soit comme concept, soit comme instrument d’analyse. Celle de
"sequence" doit lui être substituée. Elle correspond a un dé¬
coupage brut et élémentaire, de simple morphologie. Elle n’im¬
plique ni régularité, ni retour au point d’origine /contraire¬
ment au cycle qui, d’ailleurs, ne satisfaisait pas à ses hypo¬
thèses de construction/. Elle est la plus propre, parce qu’elle
ne mutile pas la réalité, à permettre la mise en évidence, sous
le phrasé des prix et des récoltes, de phénomènes circonstan¬
ciels, météorologiques ou climatologiques, éventuellement ré¬
guliers .
d/ la nouvelle analyse offre une solution simple aux vari¬
ations concomitantes des prix dans l’espace géographique, par
le biais des pôles de cherté qui apparaissent ici et la, selon
les aléas du temps, par l’effet d’appel créé dans l’aire d’ap¬
provisionnement et par la diffusion "téléphonée" des hausses
qui en résulte.
e/ la nouvelle analyse remet sur le métier le problème de
la résonnance sociale du mouvement des prix en renvoyant à une
étude concrete pour savoir qui, réellement, a profité de la
hausse ou, symétriquement, pâti de la baisse.
f/ de manière identique, les effets des hausses et des
baisses des prix des céréales sur le reste de la vie économique
ne peuvent être déduits par application d’un théorème mais
doivent être recherchés in vivo.
B. La deuxième série d’observations se rapporte à l’ali¬
mentation de l’Europe en métaux précieux.
Il a été possible, à 1*aide de documents hollandais, fran¬
çais , espagnols, etc... de reconstituer la totalité des arri¬
vages d’or et d’argent, ou peu s’en faut, en provenance de
l’Amérique de la fin du XVe siècle au début du XIX siècle.
Les courbes qui en ont été tirées diffèrent assez profon¬
dément du schéma auquel l’on s’était habitué depuis les travaux
d’Earl J.Hamilton. Les retouches qui pourraient leur être ap¬
portées éventuellement, par exemple avec certaines archives in¬
exploitées de Rio de Janeiro, ne devraient pas modifier sub¬
stantiellement le résultat acquis .
Les trésors américains n’ont pu avoir qu’une faible inci¬
dence sur le stock et la circulation métalliques en Europe, au
début, en raison de la minceur des premières livraisons, de la
persistance de l’exploitation européenne et des fournitures
africaines. Leur impact n’est devenu important et dominant que
dans la seconde moitié du XVIe siècle.
E.J.Hamilton avait cru pouvoir affirmer une panne grandi¬
ose au XVIIe siècle. Il se fondait plutôt sur une conviction
intime que sur des documents, les événements survenus en Es¬
pagne lui ayant interdit de continuer ses investigations au-
delà de 1660. Le redressement à opérer, ici, est drastique. Il
n’y a pas eu de tarissement presque absolu des trésors comme
on en décrit encore souvent mais, par-delà des crises passa¬
gères provoquées par les guerres qui interdisaient les trans¬
ports maritimes, un flux très honorable et supérieur, dans ses
moyennes comme dans ses records, aux résultats du XVI siècle.
37
On savait déjà que le XVIIIe siècle avait été marqué par
le plein rendement des mines brésiliennes puis par la reprise
de l’activité dans les filons argentifères mexicains. Mais on
ne s’était pas préoccupé d’additionner les résultats. La som-s
mation faite, on s’aperçoit qu’un haut niveau a ete attein" des
1730, grâce a l’or et qu’il ne sera dépassé, ensuite, tardive¬
ment, qu’aux environs de 1780.
A toutes les époques, le profil des arrivages est fortement
déterminé par les conditions politiques. Les guerres provoquent
de brusques amenuisements des rentrées suivis quasi immédiate¬
ment par des dégorgements massifs. Une distinction est donc^
toujours à maintenir entre la courbe de la production en Amé¬
rique et le débit en Europe, celui-ci n’étant pas le calque
exact de la précédente.
Le rythme réel retrouvé de l’alimentation en métaux pré¬
cieux s’oppose â son insertion dans un système de cycles dé¬
coupés dans la trame des prix ainsi qu’on faisait précédemment.
De la meme manière, la division en grandes phases, A et B,
qu’avait suggérée F.Simiand, ne saurait etre retenue.
En fait, la courbe des arrivages américains apparaît comme
un paramètre important en lui-même, ayant eu certainement une
influence sur la vie économique mais dont l’incidence doit être
recherchée indépendamment d’une application mécanique /cette
exigence se manifestant pour la seconde fois/ .
La recherche s’est longtemps trouvée bloquée par la
croyance à des automatismes posés dans l’abstrait. Les articu¬
lations du commerce ibére-américain restent ainsi largement a
découvrir malgré les thèses d’A.Girard, de H.E.S.Fisher, de
J.Everaert et, dernièrement, de A.Garcia Baquero-Gonzalez. Pro¬
duction en Amérique des métaux, participation des nations euro¬
péennes aux affrètements, retours et ventilation des trésors,
mode d’écoulement de l’or et de l’argent à travers le continent,
beaucoup est à mesurer.
Il existe donc tout un arrière-plan a faire apparaître,
sans la connaisce duquel les conclusions ne pourront jamais
être définitives et les spéculations sur les "mouvements de
longue durée" resteront sans consistance. Cette nécessité rend
â l’analyse historique ses droits a l’explication ultime, au
moins à titre d’asymptote. Il va de soi que cette conclusion
n’est pas limitée au commerce entre l’Europe et l’Amérique.
Elle vaut pour l’ensemble de la vie économique.
C. La troisième série d’observations, actuellement en
cours, exploite les renseignements obtenus dans les deux “pre¬
mières, en vue de mieux saisirj précisément, les conditions de
fonctionnement et de développement de cette vie économique, en
général.
On peut, par exemple, a présent que l’on dispose d’une
courbe et de statistiques valables pour l’arrivée des métaux
précieux en Europe, tenter de mesurer, par comparaison, ce qui
en a été frappé dans divers pays. Nous avons entrepris ces cal¬
culs pour l’Angleterre, la France et les Provinces-Unies . Rien
n’empêchera de les étendre ultérieurement a d’autres nations.
Ils permettent de fixer une base solide d’appréciation du de¬
gré de monétarisation atteint dans chaqune, du degré d’utili¬
sation monétaire des métaux, principalement, bien entendu.
38
La réserve qui vient d’être énoncée montre que l’on a con¬
science de la complexité des problèmes et qu’au delà des pre¬
miers résultats, il conviendra de procéder k une reconstitution
au plus près de toute la circulation monétaire dans toute sa
complexité. Mai s i1 y a des progressions à respecter dans la
recherche. En outre, l’analÿse des frappes monétaires comporte
parfois d’elle-même et en elle-même des révélations. Ainsi, en
France, au XVIIIe siècle, le volume des émissions dépend large¬
ment des besoins créés par la guerre et sa signification pour
la vie économique doit être reconsidérée en conséquence.
Autre but assignable aux investigations: le rôle exact de
l’or et • de l’argent dans les transactions et, singulièrement,
dans les transactions internationales pour lesquelles les
moyens d’approche sont plus abondants. Une quantification des
sorties de métal à destination de l’Asie soit par l’intermédi¬
aire des Compagnies, soit par le transfert aux Echelles du
Levant aboutit à ramener à ses véritables proportions - mo¬
destes - la fameuse hémorragie de substance dont presque tous
les historiens ont fait état.
Plus délicate dans sa détection, l’appréciation de la part
des métaux dans le commerce intra-européen comporte tout de
même de nombreux enseignements. Il semble bien que, dans cer¬
taines zones, l’aire balte nommément, les mécanism et les termes
de l’échange en aient assez notablement réduit l’importance.
Ailleurs et notamment dans le commerce entre l’Allemagne,
l’Angleterre et la France, le déséquilibre entre les importa¬
tions et les exportations suggère l’existence de moyens de com¬
pensation financiers. Il est à peu près acquis que les dépenses
de la diplomatie et de la guerre y ont largement contribué.
L’observation des frappes monétaires françaises conflue ici
avec les autres données.
Ces remarques pourraient être développées encore à propos
d’autres régions ou à propos du commerce intérieur à chaque
pays. Mais, déjà, elles attirent l’attention sur la spécificité
du phénomène monétaire qu’il faut distinguer absolument de
l’approvisionnement en métaux précieux et traiter pour lui-
même. Dans cet ordre d’idées et compte tenu des mécanismes de
la formation des prix que l’étude des marchés des grains a ré¬
vélés, il faut envisager de donner à la célèbre formule
d’Irving Fisher les développements adéquats.
La relation Q.P=M.V est, en effet, trop sommaire et té¬
lescope plusieurs opérations. L’égalité posée s’établit, dans
la réalité, sur le marché, entre plusieurs membres successive¬
ment et, d’abord, sur le plan comptable.La valeur du couple
QP s’identifie en première instance avec une somme “S exprimée
en monnaie de compte. C’est par le biais de cette sommation
qu’une égalité est induite, ensuite, avea une somme Se, de
meme niveau, réalisée avec une masse de monnaie M, animée de
sa vitesse V. La décomposition des opérations permet d’appré¬
hender plusieurs conséquences et plusieurs faits d’importance.
Elle reconnaît et elle souligne l’indépendance relative
de la formation des prix qui obéit, comme nous l’avons consta¬
té, à des poussées provoquées par les fluctuations des récoltes.
Elle pose, même, ainsi, le principe d’un circuit lévogyre des
échanges. C’est a dire d’une situation dans laquelle la monnaie
39
est aspirée en direction du marché par la hausse des prix /qui
figure à gauche dans notre schéma/ jusqu’à ce qu’elle constitue,
aidée de sa vitesse, la somme Sa qui viendra au niveau de la
somme 'S qui était à égaler pour que la transaction ait lieu.
Ce circuit lévogyre est celui qui s’établit pour les produits
de première nécessité et, a fortiori, en période de disettes.
Il est dominant à l’époque moderne.
Ce circuit laisse néanmoins la place a un autre, dextro¬
gyre. L’ensemble des disponibilités monétaires, métalliques ou
autres, n’est jamais entièrement absorbé dans le circuit levo-
f yre. Il reste danc une masse secondaire qui peut être portee
l’achat de produits relativement superflus. C’est la somme
^S*) ’ ainsi obtenu qui va commander à son tour les échanges,
provoquant ou l’élévation de P’ pour arriver à la somme equi¬
valente (J*S) /dans le cas d’une offre de marchandises rare/ ou
l’accroissement de la production et, donc, de la quantité de
marchandises Q’ lorsque les producteurs sont incités à produire
par l’aubaine et la conjoncture.
Le schéma développé de la formule de Fisher peut encore
être amélioré en faisant intervenir, au sein de l’ensemble des
consommateurs, les différences relevant des conditions sociales
et qui ne placent pas tous les acheteurs dans la même dépen¬
dance quant au circuit lévogyre ou dans la même aisance quant
au circuit dextrogyre. Il est facile d’imaginer des variations
et des diffluences dans le fonctionnement de ces deux circuits
associés. De la sorte, le schéma se prête remarquablement a la
projection des divers cas de figure se produisant effectivement
dans la vie économique.
Ce schéma constitue la toile de fond. Il nous faudrait
encore y intégrer ou lui superposer d’autres phénomènes qui
jouent leur rôle dans la vie économique réelle et ont commencé
à faire l’objet d’observations. Par exemple, les guerres, leurs
exigences budgétaires, leurs conséquences sur le pouvoir d’achat,
leur rôle dans le gonflement de la Dette Publique... Faute de
place, nous n’en dirons pas plus. Signalons seulement qu’il a
été vérifié, pour la France,, et qu’il est des plus plausibles
pour l’Angleterre, que l’évolution financière ait été coulée,
à cause des guerres, dans des modules évoquant des mouvements
ou des "séquences" de moyenne et de longue durée, parfaitement
axplicables .
Nous sommes fort loin, cependant, fût-ce dans le dernier
cas, des mouvements de longue durée tels que l’économie poli¬
tique en parle depuis Kondratieff. Ceux-ci sont en quelque
sorte avalés ou dissous dans la vie économique telle qu’elle
nous est restitué après les observations ci-dessus. C’est dans
la mesure ou leur quasi-élimination qu’un réexamen de la théo¬
rie s’est imposé, loyalement, pour savoir si la démarche pré¬
cédente n’avait pas dévié quelque part en les escamotant.
A. Historiographie
Il est très difificile et il est presque aussi décevant
de prendre une vue d’ensemble de la littérature consacrée au
sujet. Cela tient d’abord, à la masses des ouvrages publiés.
40
Cela tient ensuite a la qualité différente de ceux qui s’y
sont interesses: historiens, économistes, économetres, mathéma¬
ticiens, voire hommes politiques. Les méthodes jurent, entre
elles, les indicateurs ne sont pas les memes, les opinions et
les conclusions divergent presque à l’infini.
Si Von entreprend de classer ces dernières, nous trouve¬
rons a l’une des extrémités du spectre, das auteurs, en majori¬
té des historiens de l’époque moderne, qui adhèrent a la théo¬
rie des mouvements de longue durée avec la foi du charbonnier,
n’apportant aucune démonstration particulière mais reprenant
et reproduisant avec conviction ce qu’ils ont collecté ailleurs.
A l’autre extrémité, des économistes, des historiens encore,
mais plutôt de l’époque contemporaine qui nient l’évidence de
ces mêmes mouvements et estiment pouvoir se passer de leur hypo¬
thèse dans la description des faits et de la vie économique.
Entre les deux se répartit le gros des partisans, séparés
en fait par de grandes distances. Les uns raisonnent spontané¬
ment, par la force de l’habitude, à l’intérieur du cadre de la
théorie et sont préoccupés surtout de ses implications. D’autres
en sont au dépistage de ces movements qu’ils voudraient sous¬
traire aux aléas et aux objections et auxquels ils apportent
leur assentiment, finalement, avec beaucoup de circonspection
et beaucoup de circonlocutions.
Mis a part ces derniers, pourtant, ce qui domine dans le
discours sur les mouvements de longue durée, c’est l’affirma¬
tion et l’affirmation péremptoire. Pro aussi bien que contra.
Ce qui ne favorise pas la compréhension puisqu’en définitive
presque personne n’est d’accord avec le voisin. Et les raffine¬
ments mathématiques fréquemment introduits ne font qu’aviver
l’insatisfaction par le contraste avec la rigueur et avec la
certitude que l’on en aurait attendues légitimement. Tout ceci
laisse l’impression d’une démarche qui, en dépit des moyens
scientifiques employés, a péché, par quelque endroit, à l’en¬
contre des principes et de la méthode.
L’histoire de cetie théorie et de ses développements suc¬
cessifs n’a jamais été faite de manière détachée, ceux qui s’y
sont essayé ayant toujours l’arrière-pensée d’entrer a leur
tour dans la melée. Ce qui suit n’a pas la prétention d’être
autre chose que des jalons posés .
On admet, en général, que l’idée de mouvements de longue
durée traversant l’histoire économique a émergé, parmi les éco¬
nomistes, dans la deuxième décennie du XXe siècle soit avec
Lescure, soit avec J.J.Fedder van Gelderen. Le moment mérite de
retenir l’attention. A cette époque, la bataille pour le cycle
est terminée. Les fluctuations périodiques et les crises, que
Juglar avait eu tant de mal à défendre contre les tenants a la
Say du bel ordre sans rides, ont été acceptées. C’est de là
que vont partir les recherches sur des mouvements plus longs.
Dans un sens, même, les mouvements de longue durée ne sont
au début que des "Juglar" allongés et transposés. Le mimétisme
est flagrant chez van Gelderen et restera sensible chez ses
émules, y compris Kondratieff. Les mouvements de longue durée
sont concus somme des cycles avec une périodicité, une associa¬
tion de pentes ascendantes et descendantes, un caractère iné¬
luctable et fortement prégnant. Ils sont établis à partir du
41
même matériel soit primaire, soit elabore, et privilégient, en
conséquence, le XIXe siècle comme période d observation..Enfin,
les causes qu’on leur attribue appartiennent; elles aussi, a
l’arsenal classique: découvertes_de métaux précieux, facteurs
psychologiques, guerres, innovations technologiques,^etc...^
L’évolution historiographique de la question a ete semee
d’accidents. Le premier avatar a sans doute été la controverse
ouverte en U.R.S.S. sur la réalité et sur la nature desdits
mouvements, Kondratieff étant désavoué sur la premiere par des
staliniens, sur la seconde par Trotsky, le problème principa
apparaissant pour les uns et pour les autres de savoir si 1 axi
ome de la marche à la catastrophe du capitalisme n était pas
contredit. ,
Du côté liberal, l’attention aux mouvements de longue du¬
rée a été a éclipses et trahit plutôt la dilection de certains
auteurs pour elle qu’une preoccupation universellement répandue.
La crise des années 1930, puis l’euphorie des années 1960 en^
ont détourné. La dépression économique actuelle lui a redonne
du lustre, certains renouant à l’occasion avec 1 objet de leurs
études d’antan et d’autres se risquant è des pronostics, d ail¬
leurs contradictoires, de reprise imminente ou de plongée aux
abîmes. . „ . . . , ,
Sur le plan du contenu, la discussion a.gagne incontestable
ment en sophistication et en maniement d’outils mathématiques.
Une tentative importante de classement et d’ordonnance a ete
accomplie par Schumpeter, entre autres, qui sert assez souvent
de guide. On continue cependant de raisonner à 1’intérieur^du
même nombre de données et de causes, les sélections a, y operer
dépendant toujors de l’orientation de chaque chercheur. Deux
extensions principales ont été réalisées, toutes les deux dans
le temps. L’une, vers l’aval, qui inclut dans le descriptif des
Kondratieffl’époque la plus contemporaine, de.1920 a 1980.
L’autre, vers l’amont, frayée par Simiand, qui annexe l’his¬
toire moderne, comme ci-devant dit. a x x
Cette historiographie n’est par elle-même.guere révéla¬
trice. L’avance en ordre dispersé, le relatif. isolement de
chaque auteur, l’absence de véritable discussion-dialogue, cer¬
tains prurits universitaires et extra-scientifiques, analogues
à ceux dont Raymond Aron a témoigné pour la sociologie.alle¬
mande apres la Premiere Guerre Mondiale, la contamination d’ob¬
jectifs divers: vérification de théories économiques, poli¬
tiques, recherche de modeles de prévision, toutes ces causes
expliquent partiellement, néanmoins, la déception qu’un lecteur
honnête est condamné à ressentir. Pour aller plus loin, il faut
soumettre la notion de mouvement de longue durée et la littéra¬
ture y afférente à une analyse épistomologique.
B. Epistémologie
Comme les cycles Juglar, dont ils sont solidaires par le
mode de construction, les ainsi dits mouvements de longue du¬
rée sont tributaires du matériel statistique qui a servi de
base a leur définition. Celui-ci n’est pas sans faiblesses, et
les faiblesses étaient encore plus accusées^à l’époque de van
Gelderen et de Kondratieff. Elles tiennent à la fois 'â l’in¬
souciance du chiffre des administrations anciennes /moins pous¬
sée qu’on ne l’a dit, toutefois/ et à la nonchalance des histo¬
riens face aux lacunes . Le rattrapage a été inégal selon les
42
pays. L’Angleterre et les Etats-Unis dominent les autres de
loin en ce domaine.
La conception des cycles et des mouvements de longue durée
s’est donc appuyée sur une documentation fragmentaire. Elle a
été souvent réduite pour la période moderne, à se nourrir ex¬
clusivement des séries des prix, quand ce n’était pas des seuls
prix du blé, et, pour la période contemporaine, elle en a tiré
l’armature conjoncturelle. Or, les prix ne font pas l’unanimité
en tant qu’indicateurs. Ernest Mandel les récuse, assez logique¬
ment dans la perspective marxiste qui est la sienne. Une dis¬
cussion sur leur validité ou sur les limites de leur validité,
au moins, devrait, semble-t-il, être instituée pour écarter les
doutes sur ce sujet.
La production échappe par grands pans. Ordinairement, ont
été priviligiés, dans les statistiques, les produits-phares: le
coton, le fer, au XIXe siècle. Les premiers indices de la vie
industrielle qui ont été établis s’en sont trouvés déformés.
Des phénomènes de substitution d’un produit à un autre, les
transferts d’activité d’une région è une autre /allant parfois
jusqu’à la désindustrialisation/ ont été largement ignorés.
Les procédés employés pour la reconstitution et l’analyse
de la vie économique ont contribué, pour leur part, à en donner
une image très empâtée. Regroupements régionaux ou diachroniques
pour le calcul de moyennes, rassemblements de divers articles
en grandes catégories, tout concourt à des amalgames dans les¬
quels les relations de hiérarchie et de dépendance sont noyées.
On peut se demander, à la limite, si notre représentation
et notre délinéation des cycles Juglar et des mouvements de
longue durée ne relèvent pas d’un consentement conventionnel.
Le divorce, en particulier, entre l’allure /ascendante/ des
courbes de la production et celle /plongeante/ des courbes des
prix au cours des périodes dites de dépression /cf. entre autres
de 1873 à 1896/ invite a la circonspection. Le modèle théorique
y est démenti. Il n’est pas évident, même, que la crise des an¬
nées 1930 ne doive pas être réenvisagée dans la longue durée à
partir du moment où l’on considère le niveau de production main¬
tenu au coeur du marasme par rapport au niveau atteint non pas
en 1925 mais en 1914.
La longeur et la périodicité des "mouvements" soulèvent
aussi bien des perplexités. A ceux qui mettaient en doute la
régularité et la réalité des siens parce qu’ils oscillaient de
60 à 48 ans, Kondratieff répliquait que leur marge de flotte¬
ment: 25 % était inférieure, tous comptes faits, à celle: 57 %
des mouvements soi-disants décennaux, étirés concrètement de 7
è 11 ans. Mais l’argument ne convainct que ceux qui, a l’avance,
ont accepté de gommer les différences et de raisonner en cycles-
standards: de 7/8 ans d’un côté, de 50 ans de l’autre, durées
qui ne se rencontrent guère ou qu’occasionnellement dans le
continuum historique. Rien n’oblige à ce compromis, proche
d’une compromission.
L’absence de régularité des cycles se manifeste encore
dans leur forme. L’analyse qu’en a proposée J. Akerman, lorsqu’
il distingue dans chacun d’eux la phase d’essor et la phase de
retombée, l’illustre admiraDlement, presque en dépit de la
pensée de son auteur. Quand l’essor-type bouge de 5 â 8 ans
43
/aux Etats-Unis/ ou de 4 à 8 ans /en Angleterre/, que la chute
dure, selon les cas, de 2 a 7 ans, que l’on découvre des traînes
d’années en quelque sorte vacantes, entre l’essor et la depres¬
sion, on ne peut plus affirmer l’existence de fluctuations ef¬
fectivement bien calibrées et d’architecture unique. Morpholo¬
giquement /ce qui ne préjuge pas du plan étiologique/, l’analo¬
gie suggère plutôt un rapprochement avec les séquences dégagées
pour les XVIe, XVIIe et XVIIIe siècles.
Les choses vont plus loin avec les Kondratieff. L’écono¬
miste russe avait fait état, loyalement, de quelques scrupules:
sa période d’observation était courte, chronologiquement ; il
n’avait, pu déceler, en conséquence, que deux de ses mouvements
/pro memoria inégaux/; bien qu’il se crût au milieu d’un troi¬
sième^ il s’interrogeait: tout cela était-il suffisant pour fon¬
der en droit son affirmation? Ses partisans dénombrent aujourd’
hui cinq des dits mouvements. Leurs découpages manquent, mal¬
heureusement, de rigueur et sont à peu près irrecevables.
Gaston Imbert, par exemple, a cru pouvoir, d’apres la ^
courbe des prix circonscrire un premier Kondratieff de 1745 a
1785 environ. Mais il est impossible de distinguer dans le ma-
térial documentaire les deux phases successives, A et B, qui
devraient s’y trouver d’après le modele. Bien plus, le terminus
retenu ne l’a été que de manière arbitraire, pour le faire co¬
ïncider avec le début du second Kondratieff. Or, celui-ci, a
son tour, dépend d’une circonstance fortuite et tout a fait
extra-scientifique. Ne disposant pas de matériaux anterieurs,
N.D.Kondratieff avait fixé l’origine de ses mouvements à^la.
date des premières statistiques en sa possession, c’est à dire
vers 17 85 .
Si l’on tient compte de cette indication et si l’on se
reporte â la courbe utilisée par G.Imbert, alors, on s’aperçoit
qu’a respecter les critères même de Kondratieff il n’y a qu’une
seule et gigantesque vague de 1745 a 1850, d’une portée de
cent ans, avec une montée jusqu’en 1810 ou circa, une retombée
ensuite. S’il avait eu sous la main des statistiques antéri¬
eures a 1785, Kondratieff n’aurait donc pas pu énoncer sa thé¬
orie, la vague suivante n’ayant qu’une longeur de cinquante
ans et toute régularité ayant disparu.
Epistémologiquement, la situation tourne au paradoxe. Il
nous faut, en effet, chercher ou attendre en aval la vérifica¬
tion d’un comput et d’un système dont l’ancrage en amont, qui
devrait être acquis, a lâché. Or, les Kondratieff IV /de 1896
à 1936/ et V /après 1936/, selon le découpage de G.Imbert, ont
été marqués, l’un et l’autre, par une grande guerre mondiale et
sont malaisément comparables, de ce fait, avec le Kondratieff
III /de 1848 à 1896/ qui reste le seul a pouvoir être utilisé
comme référence. Notons, en outre, que le Kondratieff V - eu
supposé tel - est toujours une instance de déroulement, ce qui
interdit de s’en servir, par anticipation, à titre de preuve
et de démonstration.
Mal assise dans les faits, la théorie des mouvements de
longue durée souffre encore d’une faiblesse conceptuelle. Elle
reste muette, a l’instar de la théorie des cycles, son patron,
sur la nature du mouvement qu’elle prétend atteindre. Ou plu¬
tôt, comme l’autre, elle identifie le mouvement et la durée.
Elle crée ainsi, artificiellement, une spécificité à laquelle
44
elle s’acharne a découvrir des causes spécifiques, elles aussi,
et en même temps, répétitives. Ont été retenues, de préférence,
des causes "nobles": métaux précieux, innovations technolo¬
giques. Ont été écartées les causes supposées simplement acci¬
dentelles .
Un objet d’étude pur a été taillé de la sorte, satisfaisant
au désir de beaucoup de ramener l’économie à une mathématique,
d’emprisonner fermement l’instable dans des équations. Mais on
a négligé tout autant pour arriver a ce scheme idéal les modi¬
fications de structure sous-jacentes à l’évolution. Standardi¬
sées , les cycles et les mouvements de longue durée doivent par
hypothèse implicite traverser tous les changements sans altéra¬
tion de leur essence. Ils deviennent intemporels 'et, là,gît
l’erreur.
Ils font oublier la vie économique elle-même, comme l’a
remarqué M. Lévy-Leboyer. Le premier mouvement, pourtant, c’est
bien elle et le plus durable. Tout' au long des siècles, il n’a
cessé de voir se transformer ses conditions d’existence. Du
XVIIIe au XXe, il est modelé, remodelé successivement ou simul¬
tanément par la révolution industrielle, l’expansion démogra¬
phique, la conquête du globe par les Européens, l’élargissement
du pouvoir d’achat et de la masse des consommateurs en Occident,
la mise en place de nouveaux moyens de payement et de finance¬
ment, la déstructuration puis la restructuration de la carte de
la production comme de la carte des échanges, etc... Chaque sé¬
quence chronologique, désignée un peu abusivement de "mouvement
de courte, moyenne ou longue durée", est ainsi différente de
la précédente et de la suivante.
C’est donc sur la convenance d’un retour à l’étude du con¬
tinuum historique et non d’un assemblage de fragments semi-in¬
dépendants que se clot cette analyse épistomologique.
45
4 B 3
créent: du jour au lendemain, qui prennent les formes les plus
variées: accumulation, stockage, innovations, retards, effets
de contagion ou d’inertie, etc...
La vie économique est fragile. L’etude des cycles et
autres mouvements l’a dissimulé en postulant, au centre, une
situation d’équilibre, clandestine_et foncière, autour de la-_
quelle s’effectueraient les variations et a laquelle on devrait
revenir pour s’y tenir, selon le voeu des économistes, une fois
les parasites éliminés. _ #
Mais réfléchissons aux conditions qui seraient necessaires
pour que s’établisse un profil de production ou d’échanges d’al¬
lure rectiligne, horizontal, voire ascendant, sur plusieurs an¬
nées et a fortiori sur un siècle ou deux. Il y faudrait un^mi¬
racle d’ajustement permanent, que tout à tout moment soit a
point et au point: matières premières, main d’oeuvre, consomma¬
teurs, pouvoir d’achat, etc... Sujet d’exercice pour la New
Economie History, peut-être, ce miracle n’appartient pas à la
planète Terre. Ne serait-ce que parce qu’elle tourne autour du
Soleil, qu’elle est soumis à la succession des saisons et a
toutes les perturbations qui"les accompagnent.
La vie économique la plus élémentaire est ainsi petrie
d’événements, d’accidents, de redondances et de surprises qui
se greffent sur elle ou la harcèlent, qui la modifient. Elle
est non seulement mouvement, elle est mouvements. Ce sont ceux-
là dont nous avons retrouvé la trace dans les courbes des prix
a l’époque moderne et dont la compréhension progressera.beau¬
coup plus sûrement en en respectant le contour, susceptible
d’aiguiller sur des mouvements directeurs extqrnes, qu’en le
contraignant a passer par un moule cyclique. Il n’est pas ex¬
clu, bien entendu, que des mouvements de longue durée, pério¬
diques ou non, puissent être décelés un jour dans la modulation
des séquences réelles.
La vie économique de l’Europe a l’époque moderne n’était
pas tout entière absorbée par l’agriculture. Nous avons menti¬
onné d’autres secteurs et d’autres parties prenantes. Des pul¬
sions propres s’y manifestaient a retentissement plus ou moins
long, plus ou moins large. Rappelons celles qui venaient de
l’Etat, des besoins de la guerre, du commerce colonial, etc...
Ces pulsions avaient chacune leur longue d’onde, leur longueur
d’effet; elles étaient renouvelées ou non.^A partir d’elles ont
pu se développer des "séquences" particulières, telles que
celles des Budgets nationaux, avec des incidences sur d’autres
secteurs /diminution des disponibilités financières des ache¬
teurs par la ponction fiscale, par exemple/. v
Il y avait donc au XVIIe et au XVIIIe siecle des mécanismes
en place dont la connaissance dans le détail, la connaissance
des croisements et des contaminations permettraient de recon¬
struire les cadres d’une conjoncture et d’une évolution vraies.
L’un des objectifs que l’observation économique du début du
XIXe siècle devrait se proposer - et que de bons historiens
comme E.Labrousse, ont déjà proposés serait de retrouver de
suivre les pulsions reconnues a l’époque moderne, d’en guetter
les altérations, d’en noter l’effacement, le cas échéant. A
quelle date apparaît, par exemple, le paradoxe de conjoncture
pour les céréales? A quelle date, la part du pain dans les
46
budgets populaires est-elle tombée au dessous de 50 % en temps
ordinaire? Quelle importance ont pu avoir de<j:k et delà 17 80 les
débouchés coloniaux des différentes métropoles? Etc..
C’est en tant que pulsion, également, que la Révolution
industrielle devrait d’abord être perçue. Ou mieux comme une
série, continue ou discontinue, de pulsions ayant un effet po¬
tentiel de développement que des calculs appropriés permettraient
sans doute d’atteindre. Mais ces pulsions, comme les précé¬
dentes, ne se sont point propagées dans un milieu neutre, sans
resistances ni traverses. Ici, le schéma développé de la for¬
mule de Fisher est susceptible de rendre des services en ren¬
dant clairs les mouvements de diffluence du circuit lévogyre au
circuit dextrogyre ou vice-versa, qui facilitent ou gênent la
croissance de l’économie industrielle.
Cette procédure méthodologique a l’avantage de respecter
1’évolution(réelie et de conserver en mémoire la totalité des
mouvements a prendre en considération: les mouvements de très
longue durée, comme ceux qui résultent de modifications struc¬
turelles /progrès technologique, ouverture des espaces améri¬
cains k la céréaliculture, resserrement de l’espace h l’échelle
humaine etc.../; les poussées de portée moyenne, telles qu’une
décision de programme pour une construction ferroviaire ou de
canaux; les ressauts de spéculation et de crise du type Juglar
qui traduisent fréquemment ou un emballement du système ou un
encrassage ou une diversion subite.
Il est à noter qu’aucune çulsion n’a un effet déterminé
éternellement sine varietur. Meme à l’époque moderne des
glissements se sont faits sentir qui ont modifié la circulation
des grains, la dépendance k l’égard du blé dans l’alimentation,
la fixation des cours; la comparaison des finances anglaises et
françaises a montré aussi qu’il n’y avait pas eu, dans ce do¬
maine, d’impasse absolue. L’historien doit donc se réserver,
pour comprendre l’évolution, une pluralité de solutions, cette
pluralité ayant été effective. De manière analogue, il sera
attentif aux ruptures de contrainte qui sont survenues et qui
ont assoupli, transformé ou libéré certains échanges: on songe
au crédit, et a l’inflation monétaire encouragée par l’abandon
du remboursement légal des billets en espèces métalliques.
Dans l’étude des ainsi dits mouvements de longue durée et
des cycles Juglar, la démarche classique était la suivante.
Après s’être installé à l’intérieur d’une période correspon¬
dant au mouvement supposé, rechercher des causes possibles et
les combiner pour aboutir à retrouver le mouvement que l’on
s’était donné au départ à la fois comme matière a expliquer et
comme norme. La démarche qui a été esquissée ci-dessus procède
'a l’inverse. Après avoir reconnu les différentes pulsions a
l’oeuvre, en mesurer la force, mesurer aussi les conditions de
champ de leur propagation et, par le mariage de ces données,
reconstruire les conjonctures successives en les pondérant et
reconstruire l’évolution complète, jusqu’à nos jours.
L’opposition de ces deux démarches n’est pas imperméable
a des possibilités d’entente et d’alliance. L’impératif du con¬
tinuum historique devrait fournir le premier terrain d’accord.
Si les historiens s’y sentent peut être plus k l’aise, sponta¬
nément, les économistes n’en ont jamais renié l’évidence bien
47
4* B 3
qu’ils aient été enclins, souvent, a la rejeter dans un horizon
lointain. D’un autre côté, les études économétriques, toutes
contingentes qu’elles soient aux hypotheses de travail, four¬
nissent des approches dont les historiens auraient tort de se
passer et qui peuvent, sur le plan de l’analyse des pulsions,
simplifier ou abréger notablement la tâche.
Le retour au réel, s’il est inéluctable, d’une part, ne
contrecarre pas l’analyse formelle, d’autre part, ni nfeme le
souci d’une rétrospective-prospective. C’est par la que nous
terminerons. Si l’on prend acte des échecs a notre avis patent
de l’économie politique en face des crises comme en face des
problèmes du développement, tout renouvellement des perspec¬
tives et des approches ne peut être que bénéfique. En se de¬
barrassant de cadres chronologiques et conceptuels qui ont,
probablement, été utiles sinon nécessaires à un certain moment
pour briser un enseignement dogmatique mais qui ont fonctionne
a leur tour comme des grilles de prison intellectuelle, on se
mettra en position de mieux saisir les jonctions décisives de
la vie économique, de repérer les meilleurs indicateurs et,
espérons-le, de réduire, a défaut de supprimer, les plus grands
risques d’erreur.
48
Zur Interpretation der wirtschaftlichen Entwicklung
Deutschlands zwischen den Weltkriegen*
I.
49
führt zur Frage, ob in der Nachkriegsperiode der deutschen
Wirtschaft (und mutatis mutandis für die Zeit nach der Welt¬
sich geht, das ist allerdings für den Historiker keine ganz
50
welchen Gründen auch immer - nicht gelingt, die besonderen Ent¬
wicklungsmöglichkeiten durch hohe gesamtwirtschaftliche Inve¬
stitionsquoten zu entfalten; eine Problematik, die für die Zeit
zwischen den Kriegen besonders akut war. Vorhandenes Wachstums¬
potential ist nicht notwendigerweise gleichzusetzen mit tat¬
sächlichem Wachstum. Im Mittelpunkt von Wachstumsanalysen haben
deshalb letztlich die unternehmerischen Rentabilitätserwägungen
beim Kapitaleinsatz zu stehen, da das Spannungsverhältnis von
Qualifikations- und Arbeitsplatzstruktur eine zwar notwendige,
keineswegs aber hinreichende Voraussetzung zum Verständnis von
"Wachstumsspurts" ist.
II.
stellen:
(1) Das reale Sozialprodukt lag 1938 um 50 vH über dem Stand
von 1913, hatte sich demnach mit einer durchschnittlichen
Wachstumsrate von etwa 1,5 % jährlich erhöht, je Einwohner
mit 1 %. Im annähernd identischen Zeitraum vor dem Ersten
Weltkrieg - 1890 bis 1913 - hatte sich die wirtschaftliche
Gesamtleistung hingegen mit einer Wachstumsrate von 3 %
verdoppelt, je Einwohner war sie mit 2 % gestiegen. Nach
dem Zweiten Weltkrieg schließlich hat sich das Gesamtpro¬
dukt zwischen 1950 und 1970 mit einer Durchschnittsrate
von 5,6 % verdreifacht, je Einwohner hat es sich beinahe
auf das Zweieinhalbfache vergrößert.
51
(2) Die deutsche Industrieproduktion hat sich während des Er¬
(3) Zwischen 1939 und 1943/44 hat sich die Produktion, anders
\
52
tuiRsperioden, wenngleich einschränkend zu vermuten ist, daß
der Rückgang des Sozialprodukts während des Weltkrieges größer
gewesen ist als in der Weltwirtschaftskrise. Nach den vorlie¬
genden Schätzungen ist das Sozialprodukt vom Tiefstand 1919
bis 1928 um annähernd 50 % angestiegen, d.h. jährlich um etwa
4 1/2 %, je Einwohner um ca. 4 %, demgegenüber im Zeitraum
1933/38 um durchschnittlich 10 %. Eine weitere Differenzierung
ergäbe jedoch ein Wachstum von 7 % je E. für 1912-22, hingegen
nur 4 % für 1925-1928. Der Effekt des beschleunigten Wachstums
der ersten Nachkriegsjahre wäre demnach durch die Krisen von
1923 (Rückgang um 10 %) und 1926 (-1%) sowie die Stagnation
von 1928 konterkariert worden.
III.
53
verbrauchten 94 % (1922) der eingesetzten Steinkohlenmenge von
1913, die Steinkohleförderung erreichte 85 %, die Beschäftig-
bruchs geschaffen.
1919-22.
tion" anzuführen:
während der Anteil der USA dank eines hohen Anteils expan-
54
dierender Branchen (bzw. von Branchen, die sich auf einen
anstieg.
lich unter dem Stand von 1919/23, wenngleich höher als vor
Mark (38 % des NSP/FK), 1925 bei 12,8 Mrd. Mark (25,8 %
destabilisierend.
IV.
55
ten, verkehrten sich seit 1933 in ihr Gegenteil. Wenn die zwei¬
56
(3) Die Konjunktur des "nationalsozialistischen Zyklus" wurde
während sie sich nach 1933 wiederum halbierte und auf einen
duktes, 1925/29 auf 3,23 % und 1935/37 auf 2,67 %.^ Diese be¬
57
V.
gen.
Anmerkungen:
1) Jänossy, Franz, Das Ende der Wirtschaftswunder. Erscheinung
und Wesen der wirtschaftlichen Entwicklung, Frankfurt/M.
1969 (ungarische Ausgabe 1966)
2) Zusammenfassend Borchardt, Knut, Trend, Zyklus, Strukturein¬
brüche, Zufälle. Was bestimmt die deutsche Wirtschaftsge¬
schichte im 20. Jahrhundert, in: VSWG 64 (1977), S. 145-178
3) Aukrust, Odd, Factors of Economic Development: A Review of
Recent Research, in: Weltwirtschaftliches Archiv 93, (1964
II) , S. 30
4) Abelshauser, Werner, Inflation und Stabilisierung, in:
Büsch, Otto, Feldman, Gerald, Historische Prozesse der
deutschen Inflation 1914 bis 1924, Berlin 1978, S. 161-174
5) Borchardt, Knut, Trend, S. 156
6) Berechnet nach Hoffmann, Walther G. et al., Das Wachstum der
deutschen Wirtschaft seit der Mitte des 19. Jahrhunderts,
Berlin-Heidelberg-New York 1965, S. 728
58
- La croissance économique et la disparité des structures en
Europe Centrale aux XIXo et XXe siècles
- Irena Pietrzak-Pawionska
59
Nord et le Sud de notre continent se caractérisait ainsi que
60
Szczecin /1720/, Gdansk /1793/ et l'expension de la Russie vers
que de 1 'Etat , c/ la zone du mar ché europé en, sur lequ el les
p rot ect i onnisme inté rieur se rvai t en tant qu'inst rumen t d'accé-
lération et d'élargi ssemen t de 1 ' ind ust ria lisation ave c une
droit fé odal de poss ession e t d' expl oitation des resso urces
Cour.
Après les réformes agraires dans les pays de l'Europe Cen¬
62
1 importation de produits agricoles de Russie et du Royaume do
jusqu'à 1914. 63
5* B 3
Tabl. 2. Structure de branches de l'industrie sur les territoi¬
res polonais /en
i • a/
T erritoires polonais '
Branches d'industrie
1875 1832 1895 1907
trale, pays dont les frontières ont été fixées selon le princi¬
tre continent.
64
Les pays liberes de la dépendance politique des puissances
biens d* investissement.
65
Ces crédits contribuaient a l'animation de l'économie des
Allemagne /y corn-
pris 1 Autriche et
les Sudètes/ 790 290 337 23.140
France 580 280 236 9.860
Source: Economie^Commission for Europe: Economie Survey of
Europe in 1948, Genève 1948, p. 225, 235.
66
occidentaux - reste ouverte la question: stagnation /par rap¬
nomique.
67
Les structures institutionnelles et politiques des pays so¬
ve/.
68
Annexe. Principales données sur le développement économique
en Europe Centre-Est
/prix fixes/
Pays 1953 1958 1960 1963 1968 1970 1975£ 1980s par habi¬
tant 1980
Bulgarie 14 25 34 47 83 100 155 206 198
Hongrie 35 42 51 66 91 100 136 161 155
Pologne 36 22 44 56 85 100 164 206 188
Rép.Dem.
Allem. 31 46 55 65 88 100 137 174 177
Roumanie 15 23 30 44 80 100 184 290 264
Tehécoslo-
vaquie 29 45 56 64 83 100 138 174 163
Yougoslavie 19 35 45 60 83 100 147 202 184
U.R.S.S. 21 36 44 57 86 100 143 178 163
69
LONG-TERM TRENDS IN SPANISH FOREIGN TRADE, 1714-1913
70
figures constitute a lower bound while the figures in the A Columns are an
upper bound. The relatively low rate of growth in Column 2.B for the 1749/
5I-I790/92 period is due to the very fast growth of exports to France in
the first half of the centuiy, and to the price index we have used, which
may overestimate the rise in export prices. These considerations underscore
the very tentative nature of our figures. Our guess, however, is that total
Spanish trade grew at around 1.5$ yearly during the second half of the cen¬
tury or, in other words, that, as was the case with Britain and France, ex¬
ports grew faster after 1750. Even the rates of growth of the three countr¬
ies for this second half were quite similar (l.4$ for France, 1.6$ for
Britain, both in real terms), although in absolute terms French and British
trades were about triple the volume of Spanish trade.
The share of exports within national income may have been around 8$
in I792 if we trust Arthur Young's estimate of Spanish national income.
For Britain the share was about the same in 1783 (Deane & Cole), and for
France it was somewhat higher in 1790 (ll%>) according to Marczewski.
The Spanish trade balance with Britain and Fiance combined was in def¬
icit. The balance with Britain shifted from surplus during the first third
to deficit from 1730 to 1780 to surplus again in the last two decades. With
France the balance was regularly in deficit (not counting transit trade).
Spain had surpluses in its colonial trade, and American bullion paid for
Spain's European deficits.
We have calculated the terms of trade for Spanish-British trade only.
They improved for Spain overall? the improvement was slight until around
I78O, but from then on it was remarkable and went on without Interruption
until about I85O. This description applies both to net barter and to income
terms of trade. They may have evolved similarly with France, as the trade
structure of Spain was similar with both countries. The inescapable con¬
clusion is that the Spanish economy benefited from the industrialization of
its European neighbors which demanded increasing amounts of raw materials
and foodstuffs in exchange for cheaper and better manufactured products,
all of which improved Spain's import capacity.
Tables II and III reflect commodity composition and geographical dis¬
tribution of trade in 1792. They do not portray, however, the different
structures of European and colonial trade. Exports to Europe (France and
Britain) were mostly foodstuffs (49$) and raw materials (47$), while manu¬
factured goods were only 4$. Colonial exports, on the other hand, were
mostly manufactured goods (64$) with foodstuffs making up almost all the
rest. Total exports broke down in the following proportions» foodstuffs
43$, manufactured goods 32$, and raw materials 25$. Total net imports (i.e.
excluding entrepot trade) were made up of manufactured goods (46$), food¬
stuffs (44$), and raw materials (10$). Exports came from Europe predominant¬
ly as manufactured goods (60$) and foodstuffs (30$, mostly grain), whereas
Spain received from the colonies predominantly foodstuffs (89$) and raw
materials.
Finally, exports to foreign countries and to the colonies were approx¬
imately equal (a ratio of 1.3 in favor of the first), while imports from
foreign countries were two and a half times those from the colonies.
TRADE, WAR, AND THE LOSS OF COLONIAL EMPIRE
This was a period of upheavals, not only military and political, but
also economic, in large areas of the world. Spain was among those countries
most affected by the upheavals. The structure of its foreign trade under¬
went a profound reconversion largely as the effect of the loss of its colo¬
nial empire. This reconversion can be appreciated in Table II, where ex¬
ports are domestic and imports are net, i.e., transit trade has been exclu¬
ded.
71
This table shows that total Spanish exports decreased by 27# in cons¬
tant prices between 1792 and 1827. In spite of the undeniable significance
of this figure, we must keep in mind that the trend may be distorted as
these are punctual, rather than average, observations. More indicative of
the long-term trends are the structural changes in the composition of
these exports. The main clue to the decrease is provided by the change in
the distribution of exports between foreign countries and colonies. In
fact, the 92-million-reales decline in exports is the resultant of a 126-
million fall in exports to the colonies and a 34—million increase in ex¬
ports to foreign countries. This is the most salient trait of the transfor¬
mation of Spanish foreign trade in the first decades of the nineteenth cen¬
tury« the precipitous fall in exports to the Américain ex-colonies and the
réadaptation of Spanish exports (and therefore of the Spanish economy) to
the demand of foreign countries, mostly Britain and France. An examination
of the changes in the main export items shows this process of adaptation
in some detail.
Exports of manufactured goods fell relatively amd (of course) absolut¬
ely. This is the case of iron goods, paper, and textiles, which had been ex¬
ported almost exclusively to the colonies in 1792. Conversely, exports of
foodstuffs and raw materials increased relatively and, in most cases, ab¬
solutely. This is the case notably of olive oil, wheat and flour, citrus
fruits, raisins, and wine among the foodstuffs, and cork, lead, aind raw
silk among the raw materials. In almost every item those increases were due
to exports to foreign countries, although in the case of typically mediter¬
ranean products, such as olive oil and wine, colonial demand did not fall.
There are three products which constitute exceptions to the general con¬
siderations just made« brandy, barilla, and wool. Brandy exports fell, both
to foreign countries and to the colonies, although the fall in colonial de¬
mand was much larger. No doubt Spanish brandies were replaced by Northern
European spirits both in Europe and in the colonies, and this was compen-
sated by growing exports of Spanish wines. The decreases in exports of ba-
rilla and wool, two textile raw materials, were due to particular causes.
Barilla, a natural source of soda, was gradually replaced by industrial
soda obtained through the Leblanc and Solvay processes. Spanish wool was
replaced by Saxon wool in foreign markets chiefly because of the destruc¬
tion of Spanish herds during the French invasion amd the Peninsular War.
Imports were less affected by the loss of the colonies. Their relative
shrinkage was similar to that of exports (26%), but the shares of foreign
and colonial markets did not alter radically. The most dramatic shift in
the structure of imports was the hefty increase in the share of textiles
which went from 21# in 1792 to 46# in 1827, and the fall in the share of’
foodstuffs, which went from 32# to 20#. These shifts, however, were not so
much due to the loss of colonial empire as to internal changes. There un¬
doubtedly was an increase in the domestic demand for manufactured textiles
(especially cotton) which was met with imports and also with domestic out¬
put, as the increase in raw cotton imports makes clear. The drastic decline
in cotton yam imports attests to the development of a spinning industry
(in quantity terms imports of raw cotton in 1827 were three times larger
than imports of cotton yam in 1792). Import figures would suggest a dec-
iine in the demand for woollens, an increase in the demand for linens and
at least the survival of the linen industry, while the ruin of the silk
industry is reflected in the growing imports of silk fabrics and the shift
rom Spain being a net importer to being a net exporter of raw silk. The
decline in food imports, notably in cereals (rice, wheat, and flour) must
be a consequence of the protectionist policies of the early 1820's and the
72
ensuing extension and intensification of the crops.
The geographical distribution of trade is depicted in Table III. The
most remarkable features of this table are the doubling of the combined
share of France and Britain within total Spanish trade (from 31% in 1792 to
6l% in I827), and the virtual disappearance of continental Spanish America
(from to .1$) from that trade. This disappearance, however, may be
somewhat exaggerated in our figures. Some indirect trade may have taken
place through Brazil, Cuba, and Puerto Rico; the share of the last two
(plus that of the Philippines) went from 6% to 18% of total trade. Some¬
thing similar may have happened with trade with Germany and the Nether¬
lands, which also seems to have declined! a fraction of trade with France
in I827 undoubtedly was transit trade towards these countries; this transit
trade may have been small or non-existant in 1792 due to the revolutionary
circumstances there.
All in all, Table III confirms our conclusions from Table II. The
changes in foreign trade show the adaptations of the Spanish economy from
the status of a colonial metropolis to that of a relatively backward Euro¬
pean country. They also show that while Northern European competition dis¬
placed Spanish manufactured products from Spanish-American (ex-colonial)
markets, the demand for raw materials from these same North European count¬
ries partially compensated for the loss of the colonial markets. Last but
not least, even though a backward country, Spain showed a remarkable ver¬
satility to adapt to very harsh economic and political circumstances, a
proof of a certain flexibility in its production-possibilities curve, and
a trait of relative economic maturity.
According to the figures in Table II, trade decreased between 1792 and
I827 at an average yearly rate of -.9% in real, terms. It bounced back, how¬
ever! by I835 it had reached levels comparable to those of 1792, and bet¬
ween I827 and I85O it grew at an average yearly rate of in real terms.
For the whole 1826/29-1911/13 period it grew at an average yearly rate of
3.2% in real terms. Table IV displays rates of growth disaggrgated by per¬
iods, imports and exports, total and per capita.
The conclusions from the table are quite obvious. Spanish trade grew
at a fast pace until the last decade of the nineteenth century, and then it
almost halted. Overall, exports grew faster than imports; this is due in
part to the fact that at the beginning of the period Spain had a sizable
trade deficit. Compared toother European countries, Spanish overall rates
appear quite normal, although the two traits just mentioned stand clearly
out. Imports developed relatively slowly. In Britain and France imports
and exports grew at more similar rates. The Spanish lag in imports was
probably due to the gradual closing of its trade deficit with the help of
rather stern protectionist policies most of the period. The other Spanish
trait is the stagnation of trade after I89O. In this Spain was quite apart
from the rest of Western Europe. We will comment on the reasons later on.
There were deviations from the trend as Table IV makes clear. The
periods in this table have been established according to the main tariff
laws, which roughly coincide with the main swings. Until 1849 tariffs were
very high; they were lowered somewhat in the following period. The I869
tariff opened a twenty-two-year spam of moderate protection which lasted,
with some ups amd downs, until 1891. From then on radical protectionism
has been the rule. Trade evolution appears to have accorded to the degrees
of protection. Imports grew faster in the 1849-69 period due to the boom
in railway construction; the fast growth of exports in 1869-91 was enhanced
by the phylloxera crisis in France, which was thereby obliged to import
73
unprecedented quantities of Spanish wine as a consequence• But the tariff
factor seems to have played a paramount role in the evolution of Spanish
foreign trade; Spain seems to be an exception to the rule laid down by
Bairoch for Europe as a whole whereby protection fostered trade.
Our series also exhibits cyclical fluctuations of the Juglar type,
more regular in exports than in imports. In fact, especially after 1873,
Spanish exports appear to have fluctuated in close relationship with the
industrial activity of France and Britain according to the periodization
established by Lewis. Albeit more tenuously, Spanish industrial activity as
a whole pulsated in step with Lewis's index of "core“ Industrial production.
The changes in the composition of trade also show the evolution in the
structure of the Spanish economy. During the nineteenth century exports
came to be dominated by two sectors« mining and metallurgy, and mediterran¬
ean agriculture. In spite of the decline of olive oil exports, mediterran¬
ean agriculture (wine, grapes, raisins, cork, oranges, almonds, and olive
oil) supplied about half of Spanish exports in the middle decades of the
nineteenth century; notwithstanding the precipitous fall in wine exports
after 1890, aind of increasing export diversification, this sector still pro
vided one quarter of all exports on the eve of the World War. Ore and metal
(iron, copper, lead, mercury, zinc) exports developed later, and their
contribution oscillated between one fifth and one third of all exports af¬
ter 1880. Back from a long eclipse, light industrial exports developed at
the end of our period« leather goods, cotton textiles, and shoes were about
8$ of exports at the beginning of the twentieth century. The slow but ob¬
vious process of modernization of the Spanish economy is also underscored
by the structure of imports. Industrial inputs (railroaid equipment, chem¬
icals, machinery, iron and steel goods, ships, wood, coal, and textile fib¬
ers) were 23$ of all imports at the middle of the nineteenth century, and
4l$ at the beginning of the twentieth. The stagnation of Castilian agric¬
ulture is evidenced in the shift from wheat and flour exports to wheat im¬
ports.
The trade balance was in deficit over the long run. This deficit was
compensated with capital imports, and gold and silver exports. During the
second half of the nineteenth century gold exports were so laorge that Spain
had to abandon gold convertibility in 1883, never to reinstate it again.
After this brief description of Spanish foreign trade in the nine¬
teenth century we will try to study the impact of this trade on economic
growth and welfare. First of all, what was the share of foreign trade with¬
in the economy as a whole? Table IV shows remarkable growth of trade per
capita« the rate was 2.8 for total trade. In other words, foreign trade
went from 10 to 111 constant pesetas (of 1890) per Spaniard between 1827
and 1913* Real national income did not grow so fast; hence, the shaire of
trade within national income must have increased. According to our calcul¬
ations this share went up from k% in I83O to 28$ in 1890 and then down to
20$ by 1913 (the corresponding export figures are 1.6, 13.6, and 10.l).
Here we find again the phenomenon evident in Table IV« a serious slowdown
of trade after 1890. The causes of this slowdown are various« on the ex¬
port side, the fall in wine exports, the war in, and subsequent loss of,
Cuba, and the increasing competition of overseas foodstuffs and raw mater¬
iale; on the import side, the return to radical protectionism and the dev¬
aluation of the peseta.
Trade growth and stagnation were accompanied by a process of diversif¬
ication. This process however was slow and incomplete. Spain's exports have
never been extremely concentrated. The Hirschman concentration index shows
only a smaill decrease in export concentration between I85O-54 and 1910-13,
with a big hump in the 1880-1894 period due to the surge in wine exports.
74
Another, simpler index of diversification is the Kuznets-Hanson percentage
of the highest-value export commodity. For Spain this index was around 15%
in the first half of the nineteenth century, surpassed J0% with the boom in
wine exports, and then went down to 9$ by 1913» Comparatively, however,
this was not an impressive decrease. By both indices Spain's exports were
remarkably diversified around 1850 (more so than those of Britain, France,
or Italy, for instance) and much less remarkably so by the end of our per¬
iod. Export diversification is an indicator of economic modernization! the
slowness with which Spanish exports diversified is an indicator of the pro¬
tracted pace at which it developed. This point, however, could be overem¬
phasized« the leading export commodity not only decreased in relative
weight, but it shifted from wine to iron ore at the beginning of the twen¬
tieth century. Export concentration by country also diminished a little«
Britain and France remained Spain's leading partners throughout the period.
Cuba was a sizable third until independence reduced her share. The U.S.,
Germany, and Argentina increased their participation at the end of our
period.
Import concentration by commodities evolved cyclically and tended to
increase at the end of our period; it remained, however, a little below ex¬
port concentration, something which is normal. By countries, import con¬
centration decreased as the U.S., Germany, Argentina, and Belgium augmented
their participation at the expense of Britain, France, and Cuba.
Unlike most European countries, Spain did not adopt the gold standard
and its currency devaluated rapidly in the 1890's. Its exports, however,
hardly grew during those years. This suggests a small price elasticity of
demand. We have estimated several demand functions for Spanish exports for
the I85O-I913 period, and they confirm our prognosis. Of the two indepen¬
dent variables included, total imports in France and Britain (as a proxy
for importers's income) and relative export prices, the first always had
coefficients in excess of unity, whereas the second's coefficients were al¬
ways below unity (l.l for income and -.3 for prices are the coefficients
of our "best" equation). Spain's exports depended more on market conditions
than on the commodities's own prices. This implies that a fiduciary stand¬
ard and a devalued currency were not effective commercial policies.
Inelastic demand functions should also have entailed favorable terms
of trade. In fact, Spanish terms of trade exhibited a general upward trend
for most of our period, and they only turned down definitely with currency
devaluation and high tariffs. Currency devaluation pushed down the price
of exports without a compensating increase in sales. Tariffs prevented
Spanish importers from taking advantage of price decreases in international
markets. We have calculated net barter and income terms of trade. Net bart¬
er terms of trade improved very fast during the second quarter of the nine¬
teenth century with a peak around i860; they then stabilized at a high
level, but fell during the 1890's, and then stabilized again at a lower
level. Income terms of trade, which in fact constitute a capacity-of-import
index, were boosted by the considerable growth of exports. After virtually
uninterrupted growth since I83O, they levelled off after 1890 at about 14
times the level of I83O. The Spanish case, therefore, contradicts the well-
known Prebisch-Singer thesis according to which exporters of raw materials
and foodstuffs are the victims of unfavorable terms of trade.
Although it is too early to draw definitive conclusions, our evidence
points towards a positive contribution of trade to growth sind economic wel¬
fare. The increase in exports not only financed the importation of vital
foodstuffs, consumer durables, raw materials, and equipment but it also
seems to have contributed to a more correct allocation of resources,i.e.,
towards those sectors in which Spain had a comparative and absolute ad-
75
vantages. Against what the theoreticians of the "unequal exchange" would
have us believe, trading with more "advanced" economies was beneficiad, for
Spain, which reaped a sizable share of the productivity gains involved in
the industrial revolution through improved terms of trade, and found in the
European trauie a partial compensation for the loss of her colonial empire.
Trade, nevertheless, does not appeau: to have been an "engine of growth",
perhaps not even a "handmaiden" (to use Kravis's expression) since, in spite
of trade expansion, the Spanish economy remained backward by European stand¬
ards. Although its share of nationail income increased remarkably, trade re¬
mained too small to exercise a strong influence. More thaui a growth factor,
trade acted as a cushion which earned the early nineteenth-century traumas
and helped in Spain's protracted modernizatiori process.
RI BLIGGRA FH Y
76
Table I
A B A B A B A JL
^1790/92 figures for France are are average of 1787/89 and 1792.
Table II
Exports Imports
18.Cotton textiles 2.5 0.6 Linen & Hemp fabrics 11.1 12.6
19.Linen !c Hemp
fabrics 4.9 1.1
77
6 B 3
Table III
Exports Imports
Table IV
1826-1913
(exponential fitting)
78
CYCLES AND THE IRREDUCIBLE COMPLEXITY OF HISTORY
W. W. Rostow
1. INTRODUCTION
6* B 3 79
expansion peaked about two centuries later, giving way in the seventeenth
century to a spectrum of reactions ranging from stagnation in Britain to
substantial population decline in Spain. A third upsurge gathered momen¬
tum in the second half of the eighteenth century, yielding, in the rapidly
industrializing countries, a fairly smooth demographic transition rather
than population stagnation or decline. In China, however, where a troubl¬
ed seventeenth century gave way to a doubling of population in the rela¬
tively peaceful and prosperous eighteenth century, a Malthusian crisis
occurred, with population stagnant in the second half of the nineteenth
century — a process Europe might have shared, as Ashton observed, if the
industrial revolution had not intervened (Ashton, 1948).
D. Housing Cycles
80
path. A housing cycle of about twenty years has been identified in
(mainly) pre-1914 British and American data; and the rhythm can be de¬
tected, even, in British data for the eighteenth century.
E. Major Cycles
These are the cycles in long term investment which, from, say,
1783 to 1914, exhibited an average length of about nine years. It is to
the mechanism of this cycle that most business cycle theories of the
twentieth century were addressed. The rhythm persisted, more or less,
during the pathological interwar years, with cyclical peaks in 1920, 1929,
and 1937. The major cycle gave way to more muted, shorter cycles in
growth rates in the 1950's and 1960's; whereas the two oil shocks dominate
the cyclical path of the 1970's.
F. Inventory Cycles
81
7 B 3
smoothly as each sector followed its optimum dynamic sectoral path. Syste¬
matically imperfect foresight and multiple time lags explain why this
didn't happen.
For our limited purposes, the first conclusions to be drawn from this
line of argument are these: (i) to examine the implications of the con¬
currence and interaction of cycles of different character, length, and
amplitude it is necessary to study the sectoral character of investment
as well as its over-all level and the over-all path of real output;
(ii) because of the role (in my view) of relative prices in Kondratieff
cycles it is necessary to disaggregate the price level; (iii) because of
the special role of interest rates in determining the level of investment
in housing, it is necessary to examine all the relevant forces at work on
that variable, now neglected in the vogue of modern monetarism for an
obsessive focus on the money stock.
When the concurrence and interaction of cycles are examined from this
perspective, a number of substantive conclusions emerge which, evidently,
can only be stated tersely here:
82
to basic commodities; and they brought about, through relative price
shifts, significant shifts in income distribution as among regions,
within economies, and internationally.
From, say, 1700 to the recovery of the world economy after the
Second World War, housing cycles are intimately connected with wars; that
is, the sharp decline in housing construction during wars yielded post¬
war housing booms which, after running their course, helped set the sub¬
sequent rhythm of housing cycles. In addition, of course, wars left their
mark on economic history in many other substantial ways, including the
rate of family formation.
83
7* B 3
response of different societies to a favorable or unfavorable shift in the
terms of trade (e.g., pre-1914 Argentina versus Canada). Nor did strictly
economic factors determine the weakness of Western Europe's response to
the third (interwar) Kondratieff downswing or the nearly universal inade¬
quacy of the global response to the fifth (post-1972) Kondratieff upswing.
5. CONCLUSION
84
REFERENCES
Gayer, A. D., et al., 1953, The Growth and Fluctuation of the British
Economy, 1790-1850, Clarendon Press, Oxford, especially pp. 563-565, 792-
794, and 854-855.
Rostow, W. W., 1975, How It All Began, McGraw-Hill, New York, pp. 2-4
and 229 n. 2.
85
Les difficultés spécifiques de l'analyse
des fluctuations longues,
Jean Bouvier
Université de Paris I, Pantnéon-Sorbonne
86
tre les respirations séculaires et les cycles courts. Evolu¬
tions "logistiques" (S.Kurowsky, 1963; R.Cameron, 1973)»trendy,
mouvements interdécennaux, ont été repérés et mesurés pour des
périodes à systèmes économico-sociaux différents(Pareto,1913;
Kondratieff,1926;F.Simiand,1932{L.H.Dupriez,I95I;G.Imbert,
1959).Quelles sont les difficultés spécifiques qui rendent
leur approche incertaine?
Io) Les dimensions idéologiques j Comme tout débat scienti¬
fique le nôtre est influencé par l'état de la conjoncture éco¬
nomique et par des enjeux idéologiques. Le passage de la con¬
joncture mondiale, pendant la dernière décennie, du beau temps
au temps médiocre a, par exemple, redonné vigueur au thème
(L.Dupriez, 1962-1980). Et le destin personnel de Kondratieff
dans les années 1920 éclaire les ambiguités et les variations
de positions à l'égard de ses recherches qui se situaient dans
la mouvance du marxisme. L'affaire de "l'effet Slutzky" (fens
les années 1930 est un épisode de ces tensions idéologiques et
pas seulement une expérimentation statistique. En Allemagne,
en France, depuis les années 1930, l'attitude des marxistes
eux-mèmes a varié face aux travaux de Kondratieff > en particu¬
lier ceux de 1926 et 1928. Dans le second pays (P.Boccara 196^
L.Fontvieille 1976-1980) on assiste à un essai de rapproche¬
ment entre la chronologie Kondratieff et la problématique de
la "baisse tendancielle du taux de profit" issue de Marx.
Kondratieff d'ailleurs mériterait d'être relu "dans le texte"
(en particulier pour son étude de 1928). Il est bien plus ri¬
che de contenu et plus nuancé qu'on ne l'a trop souvent pré¬
senté.
20) Les outils statistiques: "Facts or (and) artefacts"^.
(I.Adelman, 1965): Y aurait-il(Mockers,1981) "une certaine
inadaptation du langage mathématique à la saisie de la logique
des relations économiques et sociales en dynamique"? Des éco¬
nomistes de plus en plus nombreux se posent aujourd'hui cette
question, alors que la fascination de l'économétrie progresse
chez les historiens. L'analyse "spectrale" est proposée comme
la plus intéressante des procédures aptes à repérer les fluc¬
tuations longues. Mais toute approche statistique et économe-
87
trique^ comport«; inévitablement la production d'artefacts. Un
économètre français de réputation internationale confiait dans
un séminaire (1980): "Ou bien les fluctuations longues exis¬
tent, et les procédés les plus simples sont alors les plus sûrs
Pour les repérer; ou bien elles n'existent pas, et, dans ce
cas, les procédés les plus sophistiqués risquent d'en faire
apparaître", O.W.J,Granger (1969) a rappelé qu’il faut dispo¬
ser d'un nombre de données égal à au moins sept fois la lon¬
gueur du "cyole" le plus long pour appliquer l'analyse "spec¬
trale": soit quelques 140 années pour l'étude des "Kuznets",
et quelques trois siècles et demi pour celle des Kondratieff,,
La méthode plus ancienne des trend deviations comporte elle-
même une hypothèse implicite: les fluctuations longues se dé¬
finiraient par rapport à un trend séculaire représentant une
sorte d'état d'équilibre. Dans ce cas la conception des fluc¬
tuations longues induit la technique statistique; et la tech¬
nique, en même temps, détermine la conception. Condamner l'é-
conométrie: non. Mais ne pas en faire une arme absolue: si.
3°) Le brouillage des divers temps de l'Histoire. Les fluc¬
tuations économiques de tous types (du Moyen Age à nos jours)
ne sont, à proprement parler, ni cycliques, ni périodiques,
mais récurrentes. Et elles restituent les trois manières d'e¬
tre du"temps" de l'Histoire, qui sont aussi trois modalités
de lecture du temps: le séculaire, le "temps long", le "cycle
court".
Ici, deux démarches s'opposent. La première voit dans les
longues durées une "création de l'esprit" (Aftalion, 1937).
Les intensités et amplitudes des mouvements courts, et elles
seules, dit-on, génèrent directement, automatiquement et vi¬
suellement les phases plus longues. Alors celles-ci ne recè¬
lent pas de mécanismes autonomes, qui leur seraient propres.
Rien n'est dans la longue durée qui ne soit d’abord dans la
courte:"Respectons le cycle avant de privilégier la tendance"
(Y.Durand, 1979). A l'appui de ce type de lecture, deux argu¬
ments familiers: d’une part les évènements majeurs sont duna
le court terme. "La crise importe plus à l'historien que le
cycle (P.Vilar, 1974). D'autre part, seul le temps "court"
88
est vécu, mémorisé, donc seul agissant sur les comportements
des "agents économiques". Cette démarche explique les réticen¬
ces d*historiens devant toutes les procédures statistiques de
"lissage" des données.
La seconde démarche est celle de Fernand Braudel (la plus
chronologiquement ample, 1979) ou de bien d'autres (la plus
argumentée, celle de J.C.Perrot, 1975)»"La dialectique du
temps long et du temps court s'impose, quoiqu'on veuille" (F.
Braudel). D'une part, tous lejtjrpes de temps coexistent dans
l'instant t. "Nous vivons à la fois dans le temps court et le
temps long". L'héritage du second est toujours présent et pè¬
se sur nous. D'autre part, tous les changements, de quelqu'
ordre qu'ils relèvent* mûrissent lentement au cours des lon¬
gues durées. Le trend séculaire, pour l'observation duquel
F.Braudel nourrit une particulière prédilection, est vu comme
"un processus cumulatif qui s'ajoute à lui—môme..Année après
année il compte à peine; siècle après siècle, il est un ac¬
teur important". Les mouvements séculaires des prix sont le
signe des "âges successifs de l'économie" dans le large cadre
spatial d'"économies-monde" dont les "centres" (grandes cités
marchandes, puis économies nationales dominantes) se dépla¬
cent au cours des siècles d'un pays à un autre: jusqu'au
temps présent.
On a fait remarquer (J.C.Perrot, I98l) que cette probléma¬
tique des temps de l'Histoire semble se trouver consolidée
par les approches économétriques récentes(en particulier cel¬
le de B.Mandelbrot).Un processus dépend toujours de son passé
le plus long."Les données enregistrent la persistance d'ébran¬
lements frontaux très anciens, tels qu'expansion coloniale,
ruptures technologiques etc."(J.C.Perrot).On peut ajouter:
des découvertes de mines, des fluctuations climatiques, de
longues guerres, de lourds phénomènes démographiques. Ces
ébranlements" engendrent des fluctuations a—périodiques qui
vont s’amortissant lentement, puis se trouvent relayées par
d'autres ébranlements et leurs échos successifs. D'où la for¬
mule de C.W.J.Granger: "Les évènements qui affectent l'écono¬
mie pour une longue période sont plus importants que ceux qui
89
ne l'affectent qu'à court terme". Nous sommes ici exactement
à l'inverse de la première démarche. On a fait remarquer en¬
fin que plus s'allonge en amont la durée chronologique de
1'observation, plus peuvent se modifier les perspectives de
telle ou telle fluctuation, par rapport à des oscillations
englobantes encore plus longues.
Aucune dialectique verbale ne peut aisément marier les
deux démarches ainsi opposées. Elles dominent l'ensemble des
travaux. La première tend à ramener le jeu des causalités au
niveau des mécanismes du court terme. La seconde à déplacer
ce jeu à l'intérieur des fluctuations "séculaires" et "lon¬
gues".
4°) L'entrelacement de facteurs et de mécanismes multiples.
Derrière tous les types de fluctuations se laissent entrevoir
des enchaînements où grandeurs économiques (tant de conjonc¬
tures que de structures), flux démographiques, comportements
des acteurs sociaux tissent entre eux des rapports dont,
avouons—le, aucune théorie, aucun "modèle" et aucune étude
empirico-historique ne maîtrisent la complète analyse. Les
sciences humaines-sociales ne peuvent être exactes.
Une question du moins paraît résolue: les fluctuations
longues ne sont pas propres à l'économie capitaliste, quoique
ce soit à son propos qu'elles aient été d'abord étudiées.
Elles ont été repérées, malgré les changements des systèmes
economiques (ou"modes de production") et des rapports soeiau^
depuis le Moyen Age. La vraie difficulté, c’est la succession
et les relais de leurs mécanismes, dans l'hypothèse où ces
mécanismes relèveraient d'une autre logique que ceux des mou¬
vements courts. A supposer par exemple que les fluctuations
Kondratieff soient liées à l'investissement industriel du
XIXe siècle, il serait difficile de baptiser "Kondratieff"
des fluctuations antérieures au "factory system". Par consé¬
quent à chaque grande époque de fluctuations longues de¬
vraient correspondre des enchaînements et causalités spéci¬
fiques, en raison des oppositions entre croissance "de type
traditionnel" et "de type moderne", sur lesquelles insista
S.Kuznets, J.C.Perrot, par exemple, voit la démographie
90
comme "réalité de base du mouvement long" dans l’économie an¬
cienne. Elle ne l'est plus au môme degré et selon les mômes
mécanismes dans l’économie industrielle-capitaliste. En outre
les fluctuations propres à "l'ancien régime économique" ont
Une dynamique plus irrégulière que celles de l'économie indus¬
trielle où le volontarisme des interventions privées et publi¬
ques n'a fait que progresser.
Mais ime lente dérive se produit d'un système de production
à un autre en longue durée, de l'économie rurale dominante à
l'économie urbaine triomphante, selon la lente histoire du
développement du capitalisme. Au cours de cette dérive multi-
séculaire les malédictions des déséquilibres et des rééquili¬
brages "néo-malthusiens" font place, très lentement, aux
temps des abondances de l'offre. Sur de longues périodes coex¬
istent alors, contradictoirement, des mécanismes (démographi¬
ques, économiques, sociaux) différents: les uns, en voie d'é¬
mergence et d'extension; les autres encore dominants mais en
recul relatif. La dérive se lit au niveau des marchés, et à
l'échelle du monde. On a beaucoup étudié dans le cadre du
"cycle court" les crises dites "mixtes" des deux premiers
tiers du^siècle en Europe occidentale, qui participent à
deux systèmes économico-sociaux différents quoiqu'étroitement
imbriqués. N'en va-t-il pas de môme pour les fluctuations
longues, propres à des époques de transition affirmée, lors¬
que s'accélèrent les changements (au XVIIIe siècle) et ne
faudra-t—il pas inventer le concept de fluctuations longues
"mixtes", où mécanismes démographiques et agraires d'ancien
type, et logiques commerciales urbaines, puis industrielles,
de développement plus rapide se croiseraient de manière de
plus en plus serrée?
Par ailleurs la croissance économique n'étant pas une pu¬
re mécanique entre variables dites "économiques*, mais aussi
un ensemble de frottements sociaux et d’affrontements entre
nations, les fluctuations (longues et courtes)comportent de
perpétuels décalages (chronologiques; sectoriels; géographi¬
ques; nationaux) y compris les célèbres "leads and lags". Si
l'on focalise l'attention sur les décalages et les disparités
91
on peut proclamer l'inexistence des fluctuations longues en
tant que rythmes globaux, réguliers, homogènes, tant à l'é¬
chelle des pays qu'au plan international. D'où l'écartèlement
des analyses statistiques des mouvements longs, repérés tan¬
tôt selon branches et secteurs, tantôt selon des données ma¬
cro-économiques agrégées au maximum, y compris dans le cadre
mondial.D'où le passage (très tôt effectué, il est vrai) de
l'étude des prix à l'étude d’autres variables,en particulier
des quantités, où les inerties sont naturellement plus fortes.
C'est pourquoi aussi on a pu, par exemple^, (A.S.Milward, I980)
tenir pour mineure la "conjoncture mondiale" pour la période
1870-I914 dans l'analyse des fluctuations longues en Europe,
et insister sur les contrastes des chronologies nationales,
et sur la prééminence des mécanismes propres à chaque pays.
Alors qu'H.Van derWee(I970) avait éclairé les trends des XIII-
XVIIIe siècles européens par les fluctuations du "commerce
mondial" (continental et maritime), à une époque où, cepen¬
dant, l'économie était beaucoup moins pénétrée que celle de
I87O-I914 par les échanges internationaux. Ce serait donc
naiveté d'espérer trouver dans les fluctuations économiques
(y compris dans les courtes) des dates "rondes", des chrono¬
logies uniformes, des cycles majestueux, des homogénéités
sectorielles, régionales, nationales.
Le caractère relativement flou,que Eondratieff avait sou¬
ligné, des chronologies des mouvements longs, flou qui est
plus sensible (en raison aussi de l'état du matériel statis¬
tique) pour les temps de la "croissance traditionnelle" que
pour ceux de la"croissance moderne" se comprend encore mieux
si l'on observe le rôle des acteurs sociaux dans le déroule¬
ment des fluctuations. Voici trois auteurs différents, et
traitant de périodes distinctes, qui font intervenir dans
l'explication du déroulement des fluctuations longues les
comportements, la stratégie des acteurs, sous la contrainte,
certes, d'éléments climatiques, démographiques ou économiques
mais auxquels les acteurs s'adaptent, en imprimant leur pro¬
pre influence sur les fluctuations: Hugues Neveux (1974)pla¬
ce la "stratégie socio-politique" des exploitants de la terre
92
dans le Cambrésis (XVe-XVIe siècles) comma cause agissant en
longue durée sur les fluctuations céréalières (prix, produc¬
tion). Irsigler (1978) insiste sur l’influence croissante des
gros vendeurs et des intermédiaires sur le marché des grains
de Cologne (XVIe-XVIIIe siècles) comme élément explicatif des
fluctuations des quantités et des prix. Et jadis, le premier,
F,.Simiand (1933) avait pour le XIXe siècle français éclairé
les stratégies liées du profit et du salaire, c’est à dire des
entrepreneurs et des ouvriers, en relation avec les fluctua¬
tions nommées par lui A (hausses, ou accélérations) et B
(baisses, ou décélérations).
La prise en compte des causalités sociales dans les fluc¬
tuations nous confirmerait, enfin, que les variables économi¬
ques n’ont pas le même sens, la même valeur pour les divers
milieux socio-économiques: chaque groupe social, par exemple,
a sa propre lecture des prix. L’interrogation: la hausse des
prix agricoles dans l’économie ''ancienne” est-elle signe de
progrès général, ou signe de difficultés profondes? doit com¬
porter deux types de réponse. La première, c’est qu’une telle
fpeut être dans le long terme~l
hausse, dramatique dans le court terme,♦signe et condition de
développement global. La seconde, qui se lie à la précédente,
c’est que les consommateurs (ruraux et urbains) pâtissent de
la hausse, mais que les grands producteurs et vendeurs la
jugent bénéfique: elle augmente le "produit net". Le "bon
prix"du blé sur les riches terroirs selon les Physiocrates^
n’est pas un mythe de théoriciens.
Une même lecture de type économico—social a été faite à
diverses reprises pour des périodes différentes (Schlicher
van Bath, 1963,1965; Guy Bois, 1976; Kondratieff,1928;
Rostow, I978;etc.) des terms of trade entre prix agricoles
et industriels, et des productivités différentielles des
deux secteurs en tant que mécanisme des fluctuations longues.
Le rapprochement de ces études, qui appliquent dtes probléma¬
tiques comparables à des systèmes économico-sociaux non-iden¬
tiques nous indique une ultime ambiguité: dans des structures
globales différentes (du produit physique, de la population,
des groupes sociaux, des organisations étatiques) et à des
93
siècles de distance^des mécanismes tels que ceux des terms
of trade agriculture-industrie conservent un fort pouvoir
explicatif. Il existe des mécanismes invariants, trans¬
séculaires, en même temps que se produisent des changements
dans les”rapports de force" entre ces mécanismes, en raison
même de l'évolution lente des "modes de production" et des
structures globales.
Il est peut-être utile de se référer finalement au concept
de "régulation'^ revivifié dans les dernières années par un
groupe d'économistes français. Selon sa définition la plus
dense, la "régulation" serait» "Tout processus dynamique
d'adaptation de la production et de la demande sociales,
selon la conjonction d'ajustements économiques, associés à
une configuration donnée des rapports sociaux, des formes
institutionnelles, et des structures économiques" (Robert
Boyer, 1980).
Le concept peut être appliqué dans le cadre du cycle
court, et dans celui des fluctuations longues. Toutes les
études empiriques et statistiques* des historiens et des éco¬
nomistes* vont spontanément dans le sens d'une telle proposi¬
tion conceptuelle au delà des différences de leurs approches
respectives (Ainsi W.W.Rostow, 1978} R.Spree, 1978; W.A.
Lewis, I978; D.Petzina, 1981...) L'intérêt du concept de ré¬
gulation (depuis fort longtemps appliqué en mécanique, en
biologie et en physique) c'est qu'il oblige à maintenir tou¬
jours présente la nécessaire approche globale des fluctua¬
tions économiques. Celles-ci, nous le savons bien, mettent
en jeu un ensemble de "mécanismes", "causes", "pulsions",
"forces" qui ne sont pas, ne peuvent pas être une mécanique,
puisque ces forces sont de natures diverses, d'âges diffé¬
rents, et jouent dans des espaces (aussi bien sociaux que
géographiques) distincts.
Le concept de régulation permet en outre de se poser la
question de la place relative, au cours du temps, des méca¬
nismes spontanés, auto-correcteurs ("feedback"), et des mé¬
canismes volontaristes, organisés, interventionnistes, en
particulier ceux émanant de l'Etat, et des grandes firmes
94
qui ont tendu, de plus en plus, sans y arriver tout à fait
naturellement, à une certaine maîtrise du développement
économique à courte et à moyenne échéance*
L'histoire des fluctuations économiques^ et la variété
de leurs rythmes pourraient donc être comprises comme tra¬
duisant une succession de modes de régulation, se croisant
et se recouvrant dans le temps comme les tuiles d'un toît,
de même que se succèdent, de siècle en siècle, et se recou¬
vrent pendant de longues périodesydes systèmes économico-
sociaux, "modes de production", et"formations sociales",
terrains nourriciers de régulations aux contraintes et aux
logicp.es changeantes.
Nous cherchons tous, quoiqu'il en soit, des relations à
l'intérieur d'ensembles globaux, pour tenter d'éclairer des
mouvements, et leurs rythmes. A.S.Milward a écrit que le
"long cycle" dans l'Europe de la fin du XIXe siècle " was
probably never born". Si cette affirmation demeure en débat,
une autre ne l'est pas: l'historien ou l'économiste n'est
pas encore né, qui nous présentera un (ou des) "modèle(s)"
incontestable(s) des temps longs de la croissance. A quoi
Michel Morineau rétorque en substance, ici même: "Remettons
plutôt l'Histoire en chantier". Ainsi est assuré l'avenir
des congrès internationaux...en longue d'urée.
X
195237
DATE DUE
O 1 64 0230702 3
DATE ISSUED TO
373099
■ 1828