State Corporatism and Proto-Industry focuses on an industrial countryside in south-west Germany, where a dense worsted industry dominated the rural economy from 1580 to 1800. This is an example of 'proto-industry', the dense, export-oriented rural manufacturing which arose throughout Europe before factory industrialization. But although the Württemberg worsted industry possessed all the features of a classic proto-industry, closer scrutiny throws doubt on basic assumptions about European proto-industrialization. In this book, Sheilagh Ogilvie shows that proto-industries did not break down traditional society. Instead, corporate institutions such as guilds, merchant companies, village communities and manorial systems retained enormous power. This was a result of 'state corporatism': the expanding early modern state granted privileges to favoured groups in return for fiscal and regulatory co-operation. As Ogilvie shows, these corporate privileges profoundly constrained both individual decisions and economic development.
- Provides a clear explanation and new criticisms of the 'theory of proto-industrialization'
- Brings together textual evidence and quantitative analysis to illuminate local life and individual decision-making
- Advances a new theory of why different European economies developed differently before the Industrial Revolution
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Awards
- Joint winners of the highly prestigious Gyorgi Ranki prize of the Economic History Association for the best books in European Economic History published in 1997 or 1998
Reviews & endorsements
'… [this is] a work of rigorous scholarship which locates the evidence from the Black Forest within a broader European framework. It is only on the basis of studies such as this that the institutional determinants of long-term growth in Continental Europe will be understood more clearly.' Labour History Review

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Product details
- Date Published: April 2006
- format: Paperback
- isbn: 9780521025843
- length: 540 pages
- dimensions: 228 x 152 x 33 mm
- weight: 0.801kg
- contains: 43 tables
- availability: Available
Table of Contents
Acknowledgements
1. Introduction
2. The proto-industrialization debate
3. Social institutions in early modern Württemberg
4. The Black Forest worsted industry
5. The finances of the proto-industrial guild
6. Labour supply and entry restrictions
7. Production volume and output controls
8. Population growth and the family
9. Corporate groups and economic development
10. Corporatism and conflict
11. Proto-industry and social institutions in Europe
12. Conclusion
Bibliography, Index.
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Author
Sheilagh C. Ogilvie, University of Cambridge
Awards
- Joint winners of the highly prestigious Gyorgi Ranki prize of the Economic History Association for the best books in European Economic History published in 1997 or 1998