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OED Def. Retardation – lateness or slowness cf. some expectation based upon previous progress of economies over the long run – deceleration rates of economic progress or slow growth cf. other countries.
Failure or poor economic de. Means opportunities missed, leads lost, output foregone because of neglect best economic practice – in comparative terms relative rates growth poor comparison assumes both countries faced equal opportunities to expand production – clearly not true Britain and France retard still used if French producers made less of their opportunities than rivals in Britain.
Rondo Cameron: slower rate of French growth puzzling because of obvious advantages of France – BUT per capita incomes shows better record (gap 52% in 1801 and only 27% by 1872) – higher rate of per capita output growth 1864-1914 than in Britain – abandons retardation in favour of slow growth
Retarded inferior record of real per capita income but also some incapacity for structural change – Argument goes: in LR structural change and growth of output are correlated - indicators of structural change can be used to rank countries along a scale of economic development – one country backward retarded because its share national output that s industrial below, or increasing slower than another.
Idealisation of English model where structure of industry (iron, coal, textiles) seen as important – low % of these is retarded but there is more than one strategy for growth and English model not unambiguous indicators for national development.
Kemp: says French economy developed to post-Waterloo conditions, not attempt comparative history but suggests better results could have been achieved if resources had been allocated from agric. to industry contribution agric. & national output smaller. Sees structural terms failure to adapt British methods of factories and mass production methods – source of backwardness in failure to adopt British technology and factory system
Yes long run improvement level per capita income associated with relative decline agric. sector – no presumption can be made that structural change should proceed with equal speed in all countries – reallocation labour + resources to from agric. to industry is efficient only if its marginal productivity is higher outside primary production – NO EASY ASSUMPTION THAT RELATIVELY LARGE AGRIC SECTOR IS ABNORMAL OR DEMONSTRABLY SUB-OPTIMAL
Economic theory no support to assumptions, used often French backwardness, that there is one definable and optimal path to higher per capita incomes, and still ess that British path is the right one – even worse is assumption that only certain forms of technology produce structural change – confines economic history to history of inventions – retardation here means failure or slowness to adopt techn. Or org. of countries already industrialised.
The Unbound Prometheus: economic history of Western Europe – understood as diffusion of techniques of production and forms of industrial organisation from the first industrial nation to more backward economies – central problem explain Britain’s early start and relatively slow diffusion of British methods to Fr., Ger., Bel. industry.
“it was already obvious that British industrial technique had advanced significantly beyond the rest of the world” – “in view of the enormous superiority of these innovations, one expect the rest to have followed automatically…but even the quickest nations marked time until the 3rd or 4th decades 19th century”.
LANDES ASSUMES THAT THE BEST ECH, ORG. SCALE OF PROD. COULD BE FOUND IN BRITAIN AND BACKWARDNESS RECOGNISED FIALURE OR SLOWNEDSS TO EMULATE BRITISH METHODS.
Rostow: periodises development along a growth curve from traditional society to age mass consumption – advanced economies pass through take-off stage earlier – no take-off in France and French growth was very gradual – nor in terms of capita formation or leading sector which Rostow believes push economy on path to sustained growth.
Gerschenkron’s: countries in process industrialising characteristics differ systematically that differ between economies that begin to i. From different levels of economic development. Relative backwardness of a country’s economic system can be inferred by observing methods adopted for i.
The more backward the economy at the onset of industrialisation the greater the spourt or accelerating rate of growth of indust. Output, the more backward the greater stress on producers’ goods industries, larger-scale plant and monopolies – tendency to deploy central methods for the finance of capital formation, stronger pressure on consumption levels, more pronounced ideology of industrialisation – smaller contrib. Made by the agric. sector as a market for industrial goods.
Review Gerschenkron – no discernible spurt in France, no monopolistic emphasis large-scale producers’ goods, no lower consumption industrial goods by agric. sector – differences in extent of state intervention of two countries is slight
Sees Saint-Simon as quasi religious fervor to remove mountains of routine and prejudice and replace with faith that golden age lies not behind but ahead of mankind – cf. England rational free trade arguments
Relative backwardness cannot be inferred from characteristic features of French industrialisation even when they differ from British pattern – Ind. In France takes place in a different legal, political and cultural tradition – not illuminating to single out elements of that process as symptoms of relative backwardness
DISPUTE ANY PRESUMPTION OF FRENCH BACKWARDNESS BASED UON LOOSELY SPEICFIED COMPARISONS WITH THE ENGLISH MODEL
Anglo-Americans categorise French economy as relatively backward or retarded cf. Britain – the comparison of British and French technology not provide unambiguous indicators of potential for development 0 typologies rest upon foundations that seem to generate notions of backwardness that may mean French industrialised a bit later than Britain and in a different way
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