The first point, that Europe-less England still had ample underutilized
resources for continued *pre-industrial* growth, is the easiest one
to defend since P himself recognizes it. As I suggested before, P
wants (has to) argue that neither China nor Europe were uniquely
advancing towards an industrial revolution but were in fact organic
economies showing obvious signs of exhaustion. This is not
something he says on the side; it is a central proposition of his
book. But just as clearly as he says that "as late as the mid-18th
century...no part of the world was necessarily headed for [an
industrial] breakthrough...and [that the] economically developed
parts of the Old World all seem to have been headed for a common
'proto-industrial' cul de sac [in which] production was just barely
staying ahead of population growth" (206-7), he also says as
clearly that Europe had "much larger areas (especially in eastern
Europe)" with still to-be-used resources, including an agrarian
sector which "remained underutilized". Indeed, in the sections
where P is trying to convince us - which he does - that French
agriculture was not as efficient/productive as Chinese agriculture,
he cites Goldsmith's conclusion that "the evidence suggests an
underutilization of resources, not a Malthusian impasse" (p80).
Even more, he refers to Grantham's work on France which "shows
that gradual improvements in market access induced peasants to
change their crop mixes, use previously in ways that allowed them
to sell far more grain by 1850 than in 1750, even without much
technical change", adding that "similar patterns are found in
Germany, beginning a bit later: after 1800...To the extent that it left
such improvements to be realized in the future, 18th century
European farming left more room to continue growth before
encountering Malthusian constraints than was present in east
Asia" (215-16). Of course, it was *not* 18th century European
farming but 19th century (pre-scientific) farming in France and
Germany, which continued to grow!!
So how does P square this circle? One way, as I suggested
before, is to argue that it was really the core regions of Europe -
England and The Netherlands - that were facing serious
limitations, and that these regions were as constrained as the core
regions of China, the Yangzi delta and the Pearl River delta.
(Which is not to say that he does not admit that Europe as a whole
was less constrained than China).
Another (second) way is to argue that European farming had more
room left for future growth because it was inherently inefficient.
Although I am the one who's really turning this strange argument
into a visible argument, P's point seems to be that Europe's land-
use pattern was such that it left unused-inefficient resources
available because of such things as "commonage", pastures and
grasslands (236, 239).
For evidence that "this slack could not be quickly and easily
mobilized to meet the new population and other pressures of the
nineteenth century", he directs us to Grantham's data on 19th
century French agriculture which apparently shows that it
"remained undercapitalized even in the 1860s" - never mind that
we just learned above that French peasants, by changing their crop
mixes, were able to market "far more grain by 1850 than in 1750".
Yet another (third) way is to argue that, eventhough China had left
room for additional pre-industrial growth, it had the ability to "offset"
that disadvantage because it knew how to use its lesser
agricultural resources in a more efficient way (211). It is not as if
China's population ceased to grow after 1800 but grew "by at least
150,000,000 and perhaps even 225, 000, 000 between 1800 and
the 1930s" (241). I'll get to this question later.
The second way has even more problems than the one I just
outlined above using P's own use of Grantham's data. For P also
says that "almost 2/3 of the farmland added in non-Russian Europe
between 1700 and 1850 came from these pasture lands..." - which
suggests, of course, that Europeans could and did use their
pastures as a way of escaping whatever limitations they may have
been experiencing in the other lands (or perhaps as a way of
meeting increasing demand). But P is quick to call these pastures
("that were sufficiently well watered to be converted to arable") an
"ecological cushion" (236) which Europe was *lucky* to enjoy as a
matter of "original endowment", unlike poor China which only had
arid grasslands left!
Moreover, we also learn that, in the course of his argument that
England did not increase crop productivity or output between 1750-
and 1850, it increased its animal herds and animal-product output,
thus suggesting that England - the core region which apparently
had little slack left - managed to use its pastures more efficiently
during this critical period (224).
