富裕佃农:英国现代化的最早领头羊

农业是英国资本主义发生的策源地,而不是商业或者手工业,后者要以农业的发展为前提和基础。英国原始积累成功的秘密,在于农民个体的普遍积累,在于大规模的圈地运动以前,英国农民已经经历了长时期、普遍的积累,并在此过程中产生了一批殷实的、又有一定社会地位的富裕佃农。他们一心扩大耕地和牧场,或买卖或转租或垦殖,很早就一直以零敲碎打的方式进行“圈地”;更重要的是,富裕佃农最早创立了工资雇佣生产方式。它有着一套全新的游戏规则,不承认等级,漠视身份,最大限度地追求市场利润,完全不同于庄园经济。富裕农民经济在市场上击败了领地经济,迫使领主不断肢解领地地产,进一步扩大富裕农民经济的规模,资本主义租地农场主阶级逐渐形成。显然,农业资本主义是富裕佃农推动的,领主不过是被佃户逼上商品经济的“贼船”。是约曼——富裕农,还有他们的延伸体乡绅,而不是领主或新贵族,成为英国现代农业的发起人。

Yeoman:The Bellwether of Modernization in England

It's in the sector of agriculture, not in commerce or industry both of which based on the agriculture, that capitalism generated in England. The secret of England' s success in the primitive accumulation is in the widespread accumulation among the individual farmers, which had lasted a long time before the enclosure movement developed in wide scope. A group of rich and famous yeomen stood out of the widespread accumulation. They expanded their land and pasture wholeheartedly by buying and selling or renting or reclaiming and cultivating wasteland, thus the enclosure movement began early bit by bit. What is even more important is that yeoman created the wage - labor mode of production with a set of new games-not admitting hierarchy, treating the status with indifference, maximizing profits through market-differing greatly from those of manorial economy. Yeoman economy defeated the landlord economy through the market, and forced them to dismember their manorial land, the size of the yeoman e-conomy expanding resulted in the making of capitalist farmers. It's obvious that agricultural capitalism was promoted by the yeomen, but not by the landlords who were forced aboard to the commercial economy. In England, It' s yeomen, not the landlords or the new nobles who led the agricultural modernization.