STUDIES IN CONTEMPORARY EUROPE In the past quarter of a century European society, and Europe's relations with the rest of the world, have been radically transformed. Some of these changes came in the wake of the Second World War; others-and in particular the division of Europe followed as a result of the Cold War. In addition, throughout the period other forces, and especially technological change, have been at work to produce a major recasting of the fabric of European society and Europe's role in the world. Many of these changes, together with their attendant problems, have trans cended the political and economic divisions of the continent. The purpose of this series is to examine some of the major economic, social and political developments of the past twenty five years in Europe as a whole-both East and West-con sidering the problems and opportunities facing Europe and its citizens today. STUDIES IN CONTEMPORARY EUROPE General Editors: RoY PRYCE and CHRISTOPHER THORNE Published titles AGRICULTURE HUGH D. CLOUT s. RURAL SOCIETIES H. FRANKLIN YOUTH AND SOCIETY F. G. FRIEDMANN EDUCATION joHN VAIZEY In Jrreparation EUROPE AND THE THIRD WORLD SOCIAL STRATIFICATION THE STRUCTURE OF INDUSTRIES THE URBAN EXPLOSION POPULATION MOVEMENTS ECONOMIC PLANNING THE MASS MEDIA CHRISTIAN DEMOCRACY WOMEN IN SOCIETY SOCIAL DEMOCRACY PATTERNS OF CO-OPERATION AND INTEGRATION THE Q.UEST FOR ECONOMIC GROWTH RURAL SOCIETIES s. H. FRANKLIN Department ojGeography, Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand ••• for if the Continent knows little, by experience, of cultivation on a large scale and by large capital, the generality of English writers are no better acquainted practically with peasant proprietors and have almost always the most erroneous ideas of their social condition and mode of life. J. S. MILL MACMILLAN EDUCATION ISBN 978-0-333-12701-8 ISBN 978-1-349-01236-7 (eBook) DOI 10.1007/978-1-349-01236-7 © S. H. Franklin 1971 Reprint of the original edition 1971 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without permission. First published 1971 by THE MACMILLAN PRESS LTD London and Basingstoke Associated companies in New Tork Toronto Dublin Melbourne Johannesburg and Madras SBN 333 12701 3 The paperback edition of this book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publisher's prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser. CONTENTS List of Tables 6 1 Introduction 7 2 Rural Society: Pre-war and Post-war 8 3 The Peasantry 12 The modernisation of the family farm. Marginal farms and marginal farmers. Part-time farmers. Migrants. The peasant family. Women. 4 The Hired Labour Force 37 5 Capitalist Farmers and Metayers 41 6 The Collectivised Peasantry 45 7 Peasants, Politics and the New Industrial State 51 Further Reading 57 Further Study 61 Index 63 LIST OF TABLES 1 Total expenditure of Yugoslav peasant households, 1966 14 2 Peasant household expenditure 15 3 Household expenditure upon food, France 16 4 Labour input of four Federal German farms, 1959 16 5 Socio-economic character of Federal German agricultural labour force, 1965-6 17 6 Family labour force, Federal Germany, 1949 to 1965-6 19 7 Total household consumption, France, 1965 19 8 Incomes of 204 part-time, marginal and full-time farming families, North Baden, 1963 25 9 Hired labour force, France: estimated rate of decline, 1954-62, and age structure, 1968 38 10 Fixed-wage workers and day labourers in certain Italian regions, 1964 39 11 Socio-economic structure of French farming 43 12 Individual holdings, German Democratic Republic 47 13 Age and sex structure of agricultural labour force, Hungary, 1964, and Czechoslovakia, 1967 48 1. INTRODUCTION Rural society in Europe today displays many contradictory features. Many of its characteristics are obviously derived from the past. Some are vestigial, but others are fundamental and hence capable oflittle modification. The labour commitment of the peasant family chif d'entreprise falls into this latter category. Other features are highly contemporary - the feminisation of the labour force, for instance. Much that is new is urban or industrial in origin; but that does not make rural life a pale imitation of what goes on in the city. Agriculture is still not a species of factory existence. In no part of Europe, it would be safe to generalise, does rural life any longer closely resemble the conditions to be found in the rural areas of pre-war Europe. But in some regions change has not progressed sufficiently to prevent one from perceiving what those conditions were like. In other regions the break with the past appears to be almost complete. All the rural economies of Europe, whatever phase of development they may have entered, are now to a greater or lesser degree integrated with the industrial and national economies, economies which are capable of providing an unprecedented degree of personal and economic security to the majority of the population. The whole context of rural existence and the very conditions of the rural dwellers have been radically altered by this change. Irreversible trends are under way that point to a complete rupture with the past. But the very forces which engender the break promote a counter-movement to ensure that it is neither final nor complete. For rural society, and especially peasant society, supposedly harbours some of the traditional values of a European civilisation threatened by economic expansion and structural change. One of the major tasks of the neo-capitalist and the socialist state is to reduce the disparities between social categories. Another is to minimise the differential effects of economic 7 growth, particularly when they manifest themselves as regional differences - 'to obliterate the distinction between town and country'. In contemporary society some of the rural categories, especially some sections of the peasantry, rank near the bottom of the socio-economic scale. In many rural areas the advantages of economic growth and economic integration never quite outroatch the disadvantages. Thus the state whose powers have grown so greatly as a result of the requirements of industrial society finds itself, somewhat to everyone's surprise, entangled with rural affairs. As the economic significance of agriculture in the modern state diminishes, paradoxically the social significance of its work-force increases.1 An old society and an old economy-peasant society and the peasant economy-are in the last stages of disruption. For centuries the peasantry have been integral to European economic and social life. They have continued to make a significant contribution right into the present decade. They cannot be dispensed with in any short or simple fashion. 2. RURAL SOCIETY: PRE-WAR AND POST-WAR Rural societies are very complex things, much more intricate than most town dwellers are aware. If it is true that industrialis ation produces a greater degree of uniformity in society, then it is difficult at present to see this process at work within the countryside. The long-term trend may be towards a rather simpler and more uniform sort of structure such as one finds in the rural areas of New Zealand or in parts of rural America, but in Europe during the past two decades the farm com munity as well as the non-farm community has experienced a remarkable diversification of its socio-economic structure. The peasantry, the capitalist farmers and the hired labourers were the basic elements of pre-war rural society. State farms did exist but were unimportant. Related to these ·basic and numerically overwhelming classes were the non-farm elements sometimes resident in the villages but more often in the nearby towns. They comprised local craftsmen, priests, schoolmasters, 1 See the essay in this series by Hugh D. Clout on Agriculture. 8 notaries, representatives of the state, small businessmen and landowners. Much of the drama of rural life, and much of the regional variety ofr ural existence, was derived (and still is) from the particular nature of the relationship between the peasantry and the non~ farm elements: their relative political and economic strengths and affiliations and the immixture of roles among the bourgeoisie. 2 Where tenancy was common - throughout much of Eastern and especially Southern Europe, and also in the West, notably in parts of France- it was frequently the non farm classes who were the landowners. Various forms of tenancy made for further differentiation among the peasantry Some tenancy conditions like the me.<;;:;adria in central Italy were highly productive; others, like the compartecipazione in the Italian South, could only be described as pernicious. Conse quently some sections of the tenant class ranked high in the social stratification, whilst others, in terms of living standards and status, were as badly off as the families oft he hired labourer class. Throughout all of Southern and Eastern Europe a sub stantial class of small and dwarf peasant holdings barely supported an undernourished, poverty-stricken and oppressed group ofp eople. In Western Europe oppression had disappeared with the last remnants of feudalism so that deprivation rather than poverty was the rule. Collectively this was known as Europe's farm problem. There were, it is true,. regions like Flanders, parts of Holland, Germany and France and countries like Denmark and Sweden where the living standards of the peasantry were for the period satisfactory, even advanced. But even in a country like Holland the conditions of some farmers and especially the farm labourers were so distressing that 1 In group discussions carried out among farmers in south-west France and concerned with the future of the farming classes, the second major topic of interest - syndical action and co-operation came first - was their relations with non-farm groups: grands propriltaires, intermldiaires, citadins,Jonctionnaires, ouvriers, administration. The third topic was concerned with the sense of inferiority and insecurity experienced by the farmers to which these relations with the non-farm groups contributed. G. Lanneau, 'Aspects de Ia mutation psycho-sociologique des paysans fran~ais', Sociologia Ruralis, x 2 (1970) 120-42. 9