The reasons why capitalism entered the imperialist stage and led to the slow economic development of France

Capitalism entered the imperialist stage, France retreated to fourth place in the world, and its economic development slowed down significantly. The reasons are:

1. Slow population growth and uneven urban development

Historically, France was the most populous country in Europe. At the beginning of the 14th century, its population reached 16 million, accounting for 10% of Europe’s total population. More than 1/6 of the total population. Due to various reasons such as long-term domestic political turmoil, consecutive wars, and the requirement of equal division of inheritance under the Civil Code, France became the first country in the world to have a declining birth rate around 1760. From 1750 to 1900, the average annual population growth rate was less than 3.7‰. Therefore, the shortage of labor resources and insufficient reserve forces was a bottleneck restricting France's economic development. When European capitalism developed, the population was relatively overpopulated, and people immigrated to the New World, France experienced a net migration of people into the country.

Paris, France has always been the political center, where the country’s power, wealth, cultural activities and population are concentrated. Parisians account for 1/6 of the country’s population. Therefore, although France is a highly developed city In a modernized country, the urban population accounts for 74% of the total population, but most of them are small and medium-sized towns. This imbalance in urban development also restricts the development of large industrial enterprises.

2. Lack of coal and iron resources and weak industrial foundation

From reserves to quality, France’s coal resources are far from comparable to the rich coal resources in the UK, and they are mostly distributed in isolated areas. area. For example, the Saint-Etienne-Le Crezo coalfield, which was the earliest mined, is located between the upper reaches of the Loire River and the Rh?ne-Sa?ne Valley on the northeastern edge of the Central Plateau. The mountains are rugged, the Loire River is shallow and fast, and the Rh?ne River has a large drop. They are not conducive to navigation and are inconvenient to transport. Although the northern coalfields developed after the 1950s are in better locations, the coal seams are irregularly distributed and deeply buried, making mining difficult. Although France had Lorraine, which was rich in iron ore resources, it was ceded to Germany during the Franco-Prussian War. During the second industrial revolution, French steel production increased from 1.18 million tons in 1870 to 4.24 million tons, while the United States increased from 120,000 tons to 10.35 million tons during the same period. The United States became a typical heavy-industrial country. By 1913, France's agricultural population still exceeded its industrial population, and it was still an agricultural-industrial country, with light industry accounting for a large proportion of its industrial structure.

3. Constraints of the traditional industrial and agricultural structure

1. Constraints of the traditional industrial structure

France has a special industrial structure in history, dominated by light industry. The clothing industry, high-end cosmetics and luxury goods manufacturing have always been very developed, and until the end of the 19th century they still accounted for a considerable proportion of the French industrial system. In 1860, there were 63,000 workers engaged in the production of luxury goods in Paris alone. In the early 1970s, when the French Industrial Revolution was completed, the average number of workers per company was less than 3, there were only more than 100 large companies with more than 110 workers, and there were hundreds of thousands of small companies employing one or two people. Accounting for more than 70% of the total number of enterprises in the country. This type of industry is mostly based on manual labor and is suitable for decentralized small businesses and is not suitable for concentration. Therefore, it hinders and inhibits the development of large enterprises. It is not conducive to the promotion and use of new machines and new technologies, and affects the in-depth progress of the second industrial revolution.

2. The small-scale peasant economy has long had an advantage

During the Great Revolution at the end of the 18th century, French farmers all obtained a small piece of land, resulting in the formation of an ocean-like team of small farmers across the country. It stands to reason that due to the instability of small farmers, it will inevitably polarize, leading to the increasing concentration of land; however, due to the rampant usury capital, the differentiation of small farmers in France is extremely slow. In 1881, among the farmers in the country, small farmers with less than 10 hectares of land accounted for more than 80% of the total, and farmers with less than 1 hectare of land accounted for 40% of the total farmers. Small land ownership ties the majority of farmers to the land, resulting in a lack of labor force in industry; with the growth of the agricultural population, each household has less and less land and lives in poverty, resulting in a narrow domestic market and is not conducive to the development of industrial production; small-scale peasant economy And productivity levels are low, farmers cannot afford machines, and even if they do have machines, they are inconvenient to use on small plots of land. As Marx said, "Small plots of land do not allow any division of labor or the application of any science in farming, and therefore do not allow any variety of development." The slow development of agricultural production seriously affected the process of the French Industrial Revolution.

4. Lack of funds

1. Insufficient primitive accumulation of capital

France does not quickly accumulate capital for farmers like the British through large-scale land enclosures. It is carried out through tax exploitation. Although foreign colonial plunder is also one of its sources, due to the failure in the war for hegemony with Britain, the scope of the colony was greatly reduced. Therefore, the significance of colonial plunder for primitive capital accumulation is far less prominent than that of Britain.

2. The prevalence of loan sharking capital

As early as the feudal era, loan sharking capital in France was relatively developed. After the revolution, under the new social and economic conditions, it developed further and penetrated into almost all areas of the social economy. Several large banks established in the mid-19th century were mainly engaged in the trading of treasury bonds and securities with high interest rates, as well as credit speculation activities such as foreign loans. They rarely invested directly in industrial enterprises, leaving industrial enterprises short of funds.

5. Underdeveloped transportation

Starting in the 1830s, French railway lines were gradually built and a star-shaped railway network with Paris as the center leading to all directions was formed. , by 1870, the total length of railways was close to 18,000 kilometers. By 1872, Germany had 22,426 kilometers of railways, and it also dug canals, built ports, and developed inland shipping and maritime transportation. In the second half of the 18th century, Britain built a road network extending in all directions and a highway that ran through major industrial areas across the country. canal. Compared with Britain and Germany, backward transportation conditions are also one of the reasons affecting France's economic development.

6. Complex political environment

From a domestic perspective, France has experienced many revolutions and coups in its modern history. After the Great Revolution, there were the July Revolution, the February Revolution, the September 4th Revolution, etc. The proletarian revolutionary movement included two Lyon workers’ uprisings, the June Uprising, the Paris Commune Uprising, etc. Especially during the French Second Empire from 1852 to 1870, Bonaparte lacked the military talent of his uncle Napoleon, but like Napoleon, he had the ambition to dominate Europe and the world. During his more than ten years of rule in France, he successively launched wars of aggression in Italy, China, Vietnam, Algeria and other places. The aggressive military campaign consumes a lot of manpower and material resources. At the same time, political instability directly affected the continuity of policies and hindered the pace of the industrial revolution.

From the perspective of international relations, France has long been committed to territorial expansion on the European continent and striving for European hegemony. Since the 16th century, France has been deliberately trying to seize Italian territory. The German unification war in the 1860s made France even more reluctant to have a strong and unified Germany appear in Europe. The Franco-Prussian War was launched in 1870 and soon failed. The Franco-Prussian War cost France about 13 billion francs. After the war, France paid an additional 5 billion francs in compensation, and ceded the Lorraine region, which is rich in iron ore resources, and Alsace, which has developed industry and agriculture, to Germany. This not only made the factors that originally affected economic development more prominent, but also made Germany and France become old enemies. The defeated France was always thinking about regaining Alsace and Lorraine, and then seizing Germany's Saar Industrial Area to reestablish its European hegemony. Germany has always regarded France as the most powerful contender for European hegemony. Therefore, Germany made France its primary target during both world wars. Before World War I, Germany's "Schlieffen Plan" decided to put most of its troops on the Western Front. During World War I, France served as the main battlefield for four years, causing great economic losses. The postwar Treaty of Versailles was beneficial to France. It not only recovered Alsace and Lorraine, but also obtained custody of the Saar coal mines. In the 1920s, France's industrial growth rate exceeded that of other capitalist countries. However, with the outbreak of World War II, most of France's territory was occupied by fascist Germany, and its economy was severely damaged. Therefore, the instability of the external environment also affects the development of the French economy.