Autoconsommation et marchés : Chayanov, Labrousse ou Le Roy Ladurie ?

Self-sufficiency and markets: Chayanov, Labrousse, or Le Roy Ladurie? Instead of the classic opposition between self-sufficiency and the market—the starting point and the end point of change in rural society—the study of French agrarian life in the modern period points to a distinction closer to that between target produ­cers and market producers. The national dividing line of autarky effectively divided the peasantry into two camps. Above the line, a handful of larger or more specialized farming units sold their produce and regularly generated negotiable surpluses; however, faced with competition in the form of ecclesiastical and seigneurial levies, they hesitated to increase their cereal output. Below the line, the majority of peasants owned too little land to provide for their families' needs even in a normal year, and were obliged to seek out the necessary supplements—but only those supplements—in various markets (the grain, labor, credit and land markets). The violent fluctuations of these secondary markets reflected variations in supply and demand that affected only a minor share of output. This dual incentive for production units to adopt a Malthusian strategy is an even more powerful explanation than technological stagnation for the inertia of farming output, which, in the latter half of the eighteenth century, was not so much guided by price trends as durably indexed on the population.Aymard Maurice. Autoconsommation et marchés : Chayanov, Labrousse ou Le Roy Ladurie ?. In: Annales. Économies, Sociétés, Civilisations. 38ᵉ année, N. 6, 1983. pp. 1392-1410