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The Paradox of Share Tenancy under Capitalism: A Comparative Perspective on Late Nineteenth- and Twentieth-Century French and Italian Sharecropping

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 January 2009

Ulf Jonsson
Ulf Jonsson
Affiliation:
Department of Economic History, University of Stockholm, Stockholm, Sweden.
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Extract

As a tenurial solution, sharecropping has been a source of constant fascination and controversy for centuries. It is as old as written history. Furthermore, it has existed and to a certain extent still exists, in very different institutional frameworks, and it constitutes one of the most common tenurial solutions in the history of agriculture.

Sharecropping dominated the agricultural scene in central Italy from the late Middle Ages until the early 1960s. An especially exploitative form was the backbone of Rumanian agriculture before the First World War. In Asian agriculture, sharecropping has been and still is highly dispersed, not only in wet rice production but also in non-irrigated crops such as wheat, or industrial crops like jute. The postbellum American South consituted the sharecropping region par excellence in the USA, although it was not unknown in other parts of the country. In the 1970s share tenancy reappeared in Californian strawberry production. Even if service tenancy dominated the Andean and Mexican hacienda, it was frequently supplemented with sharecropping on specific crops. In late nineteenth-century Mexico share tenancy expanded significantly in maize production. The cases mentioned above represent only a brief and highly incomplete list of economic, social and institutional frameworks where various forms of share tenancy are found.

Type
Research Article
Information
Rural History , Volume 3 , Issue 2 , October 1992 , pp. 191 - 217
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1992

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References

Notes

1. Sharecropping is certainly one of the largest issues in Italian agrarian economics, sociology and history, discussed not only by Italians but also by a larger number of foreign scholars. Serpieri, A., La struttura sociale dell'agricoltura Italiano (Rome, 1947)Google Scholar is to be regarded as a classic; see also Sereni, E., Storia del paessagio agrario Italiano. (Rome, 1962)Google Scholar. Among studies by foreign scholars the work by the French geographer, Desplanques, H., Campagnes Ombriennes (Paris, 1969) constitutes a good example of competent scholarship.Google Scholar

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8. Most of the valuable recent contributions have been produced by economic anthropologists. They have had a very limited impact on historical studies. Robertson, A.F., The Dynamics of Productive Relationships. African Share Contracts in Comparative Perspective (Cambridge, 1986)Google Scholar, constitutes a significant progress revealing the complexities of different African share tenancy regimes. See also Lehmann, , ‘La mediería’.Google Scholar

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12. It is worth noting that observers closer to the actual practice were less prone to categorise share tenancy as a brake on agricultural progress. In the early fifties the economic council of the French government carried out an extensive inquiry into the diverse forms of sharecropping in France. One of the questions addressed to different representatives of the rural world was whether share tenancy constituted a brake on agricultural progress. Unfortunately in most departments the question was left unanswered. However in no less than 13 of the 35 departments where sharecropping was most important the answer was a firm no. In one of the major share tenancy departments, Allier, it was classified as significantly more technically progressive than fixed cash tenancy. See Les Diverses formes du métayage II. Monographies departmentales. Conseil economique. Etudes et travaux (Paris, 1953) p. 20.Google Scholar

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21. For example, in late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century France a large number of treatises concering share tenancy appeared. With few exceptions they produced a very idyllic picture of social relations and strongly underlined the advantages of share tenancy in creating a harmonious and cooperative atmosphere among landlords and tenants. See for example, Marié, G., Le métayage dans l'arrondissement de Laval (Laval, 1909)Google Scholar, or Venaison, P., Le métayage en France. Thèse pour le doctorat (Paris, 1902).Google Scholar

22. Statistique agricole de la France. Résultats généraux de l'enquête de 1929 and 1946.

23. In table 5, I have used Serpieri's figures, where he has classified mixed tenures in one of three main categories: owner cultivation, renting or sharecropping, according to the dominant form, so as not to misrepresent sharecropping in southern Italy.

24. Dovring, F., Land and Labour in Europe 1900–1950 (The Hauge, 1960). p. 456.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

25. Histoire économique et sociale de la France t. 3/1 p. 657.Google Scholar

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28. Brunet, R., Les campagnes toulousaines (Toulouse, 1965) pp. 207–17, 386–94.Google Scholar

29. Ibid. pp. 365–9.

30. Ibid. pp. 323–37.

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32. Brunet, , Les campagnes toulousaines pp. 386–400Google Scholar. For a discussion on foreign sharecroppers see also, La question de métayage. Compte-rendu complet du Congrès organisé par la Société des Agriculteurs de France les 20 et 21 février 1939 (Paris, 1939) pp. 162–73.Google Scholar

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34. Les diverses formes du métayage, p. 209.Google Scholar

35. Brunet, , Les campagnes toulousaines pp. 65–82.Google Scholar

36. Les diverses formes du métayage, pp. 204, 332–4, 484–5.Google Scholar

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39. Marié, G., Le métayage, pp. 164–5.Google Scholar

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43. Archives Nationales, Serie F10, box 1793.

44. In fact regional disparities were narrowing from the 1880s until ihe middle of the 1930s. That does not mean that disadvantaged regions ever reached the same level as the more favoured parts. Still, it was an important process of equalisation that was connected to the dominant pattern of change during this period, intensification based on biological and easily divisible chemical rather than expensive indivisible mechanical technology. See Pautard, J., Les disparités régionales dans la croissance agricole de l'agriculture française (Paris, 1965)Google Scholar. Guigou, J.L., Théorie économique et la transformation de l'espace agricole, tome 2 (Paris, 1972), pp. 196–277.Google Scholar

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47. Another share tenancy protagonist, Clappier, discussing primarily Limousin referred to an investigation by Barral covering 200 share tenancy properties showing in average a doubling of the revenues between the middle of the 1870s and the turn of the century, Clappier, B., ‘Le métayage. Particulièrement en Limousin. Des rapports entre propriétaire et métayer’, Thèse pour le doctorat (Poitier, 1899). p. 94.Google Scholar

48. Serpieri, A., La struttura sociale pp. 71–5.Google Scholar

49. See for example, Sereni, E., Il capitalismo nelle campagne (Torino, 1968) pp. 145–200Google Scholar. Gill, D., ‘Tuscan Sharecropping in United Italy: The Myth of Class Collaboration Destroyedy’, Journal of Peasant Studies 10, 1983.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

50. Desplanques, , Campagnes Ombriennes, pp. 523–7.Google Scholar

51. Sabelberg, E., Der Zerfall der Mezzadria in der Toscana urbana. Entstehung, Bedeutung und gegenwärtige Auflösung eines agraren Betriebssystems in Mittelitalien, (Köln, 1975) pp. 116–39Google Scholar; see also, Desplanques, , Campagnes Ombriennes, pp. 517–33.Google Scholar

52. Gill, , ‘Tuscan Sharecropping’.Google Scholar

53. Sabelberg, , Der Zerfall, pp. 128–34Google Scholar. See also, Pereni, D., ‘L'imigrazione di contadini siciliani nell'Italia Centrale e Settentrional’, Rivista di Economica Agraria 3, 1950.Google Scholar

54. See for example, Mori, G., ‘La mezzadria in Toscana alla fine del XIX secolo’, Movimento operario 7, 1955.Google Scholar

55. Serpieri, , La Struttura Sociale, pp. 64–85.Google Scholar

56. Marazotto, V.E., La mezzadria e diventa l'ottavo capitale (Rome, 1964) pp. 6–9.Google Scholar

57. Ibid.

58. Nenci, G., ‘Proprietari e contadini nell'Umbria mezzadrile’, in Covino, R. and Gallo, G. (eds.), Storia d'Italia. Le regioni dall'Unità a oggi. L'Umbria (Torino, 1989), pp. 21–226.Google Scholar

59. For a discussion along these lines see, Bonazzoli, V., Moroni, M., ‘Economia dell'azienda agraria: il podere’, in Anselmi, S. (ed.), Storia d'Italia. Le regioni dall'Unità a oggi. Le Marche (Torino, 1987), pp. 551–60.Google Scholar

60. The difference is however almost insignificant; sharecroppers had on average 0.8 bovine units per hectare and tenants 0.7. In Creuse the difference was larger but the number of cases (only 3 tenants) is too small to permit firm conclusions.

61. Bonazzoli, and Moroni, , ‘Economia dell'azienda agrania’, pp. 546–51Google Scholar; Nenci, , ‘Proprietari e contodini’, pp. 219–25.Google Scholar

62. Marié, Le métayage pp. 180–81Google Scholar. See also his contribution to La Question du métayage, pp. 20–1.Google Scholar

63. La Question du métayage, p. 18.Google Scholar

64. An often cited text vividly expressing the resentment of the close surveillance is the autobiographical novel by Guillaumin, Emile, La vie simple (Mémoires d'un métayer) (Paris, 1920).Google Scholar

65. For an illuminating discussion of the character of peaceful forms of social struggle in the central Italian share tenancy system see, Silverman, S., ‘Agricultural Organizations, Social Structure and Values in Italy: Amoral familism reconsidered’ American Anthropologist 10, 1968.Google Scholar

66. For an overview of this development see, Jonsson, and Pettersson, , Specialization and Diversification.Google Scholar

67. For a discussion of the strength of xenophobic sentiments in southern France see, Noiriel, G., Le creuset français. Histoire de l'immigrantion XIXe-XXe siècles (Paris, 1988), pp. 257–77Google Scholar. A very rosy picture of the integration of Italian sharecroppers in the South East was expressed by H. Bonnet director for government office in charge of agricultural labour, see La Question du métayage, pp. 162–73.Google Scholar

68. Rouveroux, P., Le métayage. Ce qu'il en faut savoir (Paris, 1935), pp. 59; 222.Google Scholar

69. Wells, , ‘Resurgence’, pp. 20–5.Google Scholar

70. Wells, , ‘Resurgence’, p. 12–5Google Scholar. The Provencal case was commented on by among others the conservative legal scholar Seulliet, ‘… c'est surtout dans le Midi que la necessisité d'adopter le métayage se fait sentir actuellment afin de mettre en terme aux grèves qui desolent ce pays. Le métayage, en faisant contracter des engagements plus longs et en faisant participer le cultivateur aux produits de son travail, permettra d'assurer la main d'ouvre nécessaire à une bonne culture et faire renaitre la concord’. Seulliet, F., Le métayage, Thèse pour le doctorat. Faculté de droit de l'université de Paris 1905. p. 142.Google Scholar

71. This phenomenon has been noted by a large number of scholars. Wells indicates that this is the case in California, Wells, , ‘Resurgence’, p.18.Google Scholar