Institutions and Inequality in the Countryside

Eric L. Jones
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Eric L. Jones: La Trobe University

Chapter Chapter 8 in Landed Estates and Rural Inequality in English History, 2018, pp 93-105 from Palgrave Macmillan

Abstract: Abstract The broad hierarchical structure of rural society has been similar for centuries. In southern England the main counter-currents were the slow drift of industry to the northern coalfields and the interruptions brought about by the agricultural depression that lasted with little break from 1880 to 1940. Labour was deskilled by the former process and impoverished during the latter because it failed to migrate fast enough. Against these trends nothing significant was done, either by landowners or by the clergy. Estates and landed society have persisted up to the present by adopting a variety of devices. An associated debate concerns whether or not social institutions have been economically efficient or (as argued here) primarily concerned to redistribute wealth to the owners of land.

Keywords: Efficiency of social institutions; Deskilling of labour; Redistribution of wealth; Social hierarchies (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2018
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:pal:palscp:978-3-319-74869-6_8

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DOI: 10.1007/978-3-319-74869-6_8

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