Did English workers have a higher standard of living then their French counterparts or vice versa?

We see in the work of O’Brien and Keyder a revision of the assessment of French living standards.  French living standards were not dramatically lower than those of Britain.  Crafts suggests that contrary to the traditional belief (Kemp, Kindleberger etc) peasant farming was not a restraint on the living standards of the French workers.  Traditionally the slower and later industrialisation of France has been seen as a primary reason for significantly lower standards of living in France.  Crafts model shows that the fertility restraint in France in the 18th and 19th century was enough to mitigate the adverse implications on standards of living of slow structural change.  Crafts modelled a situation whereby Britain retained a peasant system of farming at the expense of industrial expansion and found that the utility of the British workers would have increased at the expense of the utility of the capitalists.  However this conclusion was drawn with the strong assumption that Britain would have experienced a population stabilisation via fertility restraint.  This switch from capitalist to peasant farming would have reduced agricultural productivity, real GNP and the level of the capital stock.  Crafts therefore backs O’Brien in suggestion French industrialisation as seriously retarded by the agrarian structure, but also suggests, again like O’Brien, that this structure aided the utility of the peasants.  A more rapid industrialisation in France would have been more painful for the majority of the French population.  It must be stressed that the demographic implications of large peasant agricultural sector are vital in explaining this model. 

We can use O’Brien’s and Crafts findings to help analyse the effect of the French Revolution on living standards.  The French Revolution strengthened the position of French farming in a number of ways.  Peasant property rights were fortified and a large portion of biens nationaux were sold to peasants at low prices.  Indeed in the new Department Nord the share of the land held by the peasantry increased from 3 to 42% after the revolution.  The inflation that accompanied the revolution allowed peasants to invest more heavily in land and capital as previous debts were heavily devalued via newly depreciated money.  The strengthening of the peasants’ position helped to maintain the peasant hold on agriculture, which according to Crafts and O’Brien not only retarded industrialisation, but allowed for a higher standard of living than a more rapid structural transformation.  The standard of living gains from increased income for increased landholdings and the removal of debt burden can be seen as more static income accruing gains.

The optimistic view of the effects on standard of living of the industrial revolution is that industrialisation increased real wage gains and welfare.  Williamson’s and Lindert’s measure of real wages sees a near doubling of real wages between 1820 and 1850.  They conclude that average workers were much better off from the 1830s onwards than at any time before 1820.  However the start of the Industrial Revolution is traditionally positioned in the mid to late 18th century.  Williamson explains this apparent paradox by suggesting the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic wars hindered capital accumulation and growth to the extent that real wages remained relatively constant.  Williamson and Lindert defend these impressive gains by maintaining that these increases were not at the expense of a decline in real wages for women and children and by stating that no conceivable level of unemployment could have cancelled out the real wage improvements.  The co-authors also provide an answer to the question of the effect of more qualitative urban disamenities.  They see a premium being added to industrial wages to compensate for the problems of urban squalor.  Statistically they rate the value put on these human costs as “not large enough to cancel even a tenth of blue collar worker’s real wage”.  Williamson also warns historians not to assess 19th century living conditions by 21st century standards.  We gain an insight into the level of importance that Williamson places on the so-called urban disamenities when he states that: “clean air, water and uncongested space are luxury goods”.

Feinstein’s own real wage figures paint a much more pessimistic view of the effects of the industrial revolution on standards of living.  Feinstein’s cost of living index differs from Williamson’s in that it fails to highlight a post 1820 decline in prices.  The inclusion of a more realistic rent measure, a more appropriate textile factor and a more representative food bundle all serve to increase the cost of living index after 1820.  This leads to a reduction in the real wage increases proposed by Williamson.  Indeed Feinstein believes that it was only after 1850 that British workers enjoyed substantial and sustained advances in real wages.  Feinstein calculates that between 1778/82 and 1853/57 the increase in average weekly earnings was barely 30%.  This relatively meagre increase is combined with a dependency ratio increase and the 1834 decline in poor law provisions to reduce the improvement to a mere 10-15%.  Feinstein places more emphasis on qualitative factors.  He cites Huck, who saw an increase in infant mortality from 1813-46, and Wrigley and Schofield, who “suggest the possibility of a substantial worsening of mortality in infancy and childhood in the early 19th century”, as studies consistent with a significant deterioration in the standard of living of the urban industrial working population.  Feinstein’s view is that the majority of workers enjoyed a century of hard labour with little or no advance from an already low standard of living before they began to experience the true benefits of the economic transformation that they had helped to create.  Allen sheds a different light on the standard of living question by suggesting that the difference in real wages seen between northwestern Europe (including Britain) and continental Europe were a result of economic developments in the 17th and not the 18th century.  He sees the minor increase in real wages of the early 19th century as a minor cycle within a bigger trend.  The industrial revolution did not substantially increase real wages, but Britain’s position as the most productive manufacturer in the world allowed her to maintain her relatively high real wages.  The industrial revolution allowed the maintenance of an existing level of standards of living, and it was not until the 1870s that real gains in living standards were achieved for the workers.

Using real wages alone we can safely say that Britain’s workers were better off than their French counterparts for the majority of the 19th century.  However, as contemporary accounts show real wages are but one part of a proper standard of living analysis.  The maintenance of a peasant farming system lessens the value of real wages as a measure of standards of living in France.  It is also improper to suggest that British style industrialisation would have raised French living standards.  Both Crafts and O’Brien show that the maintenance of a peasant farming system, whilst retarding industrialisation, allowed for a greater standard of living for the peasantry.  Yes, the standard of living may well have been lower in France than in Britain, but the standard could have been significantly lower if France had adopted the British path to industrialisation.  Comparing the living standards of the two countries is perhaps less valuable than analysing the possible effects of the adoption of differing paths of economic development.  The welfare effects of the industrial revolution in Britain are less clear-cut than they once were.  The real wage statistics have been pertinently revised and show a downgrading of improvement, whilst Williamson’s rather right-wing dismissal of urban disamenities is inappropriate.  Urban conditions were poor and Feinstein successfully argues for deterioration in mortality rates and general health.  It would be harsh to suggest that the industrial revolution lessened standards of living, but overly optimistic to say that they were greatly improved in the short to medium term.