Preindustrial Europe: institutional framework

The middle age is characterized by the feudalism.  The economic organization is independent and autonomous with little relationship with exterior.  In this system the serfs must pay rents to the lord including their work.



During the feudalism existance, it developed several problems regarding the economic organization:

• The first one is the poor productivity; a bad year must be sufficient to cover the subsistence level, but in a good year the problem with the warehousing means spoiled of the foods.  As consequence the level production is the minimal to avoid any waste of resources.  According to George Duby's study:

 "A great change in productivity, the only one in history until the great advances of the 18th and 19th centuries, occurred in Western Europe between the Carolingian period and the dawn of the 13th century", 

Before of that the waste of resources was inexistent, so the reason is the poor productivity.

• Another problem of this system is the vigilance.  If the serfs are not under control, they will work as less as possible: "there is no supervision, there is no control, as consequence poor productivity".

In other words, the incomes of the lord depend of the work of the serfs.  The lord offers protection in exchange of the work of the serfs, because the work is a limited resource and the land is an abundant resource.



The mankind starts to realize about the importance of the labour in the economic organization.

Bibliography:

CAMERON, R. (1992): Historia Económica Mundial, Alianza (Madrid), caps. 1, 3, 5-10 y 12.