Peasant Economic Calculation and the Household Economy in Imperial Germany

Abstract

Revisionist accounts of Imperial Germany, in stressing the progressive, rational, side to German agricultural development, have underestimated the degree to which older habits of peasant calculation continued to inform small and medium-scale enterprise. This paper surveys the lingering impact of household economic logics and imperatives - particularly those pertainingto inheritance and labor - upon peasant economic behavior and performance in rural Bavaria.