Enclosure

As Enclosure Movement (of English enclosures " enclosures " and movement " movement " ) the dissolution of Allmenderechte in English agriculture is referred to, was in the previously common property from land fenced from the private sector and used more intensively. The Enclosure movement pushed for the commercialization of British agriculture. In formerly communal land and forest land emerged profitable intensive agricultural operations, particularly in the field of animal husbandry, without which the growing population only through imports could be fed.

Historically, the first signs can already be found in the years 1450-1630, which were minted in England of a considerable economic growth and increased social antagonisms. The English Civil War accelerated the enclosures significantly. In Parliament took the big landowners, the gentry, to the king an increasingly stronger position, which culminated in the abolition of the Star Chamber in 1641. This means that the rights of the commoners had been significantly weakened. In 1650 also changed the land use, since the price of wool not continued to rise. It came from the use of new agricultural technologies and the development of large farms, an early agricultural revolution began. The highlight of the enclosures was 1760-1832, after which the mediaeval structures were all but disappeared in the UK.

This development led to the impoverishment of part of the small farmers, the acquisition of the land could not afford it and so had to abandon the previously all available land. In some cases, also in connection with the enclosures in Wales and Scotland (see Highland Clearances ), was also spoken of an "internal colonization ", whole village communities were forcibly deported to Australia and America, or been forced to emigrate. A similar trend especially in northern Germany and Prussia, which Bauernlegen came much later historically about and was the royal law (see serfdom ) partially counteracted. The structure of Brandenburg colonies did not progress beyond minor approaches, it was the face of growing population more of a country's development approach and a " Peuplierung " followed inside.

In small state- dominated southern Germany the development came through the real division that much poorer soils and less development in the area of ​​low mountains and red sandstone again significantly slower to bear. In the 19th century there was also an increased emigration after the failure of the democracy movement in 1848. A reorganization of Feldflur to more economically efficient to farm field sizes came only in the 20th century by the land consolidation to bear.

Political Implications

After Susan JB Cox, the enclosures were primarily a result of overuse of the joint surfaces by rich peasants and feudal lords. Cox takes on the classic left-wing criticism that has been voiced in 1882 by Friedrich Engels and Karl Marx was discussed at Original accumulation or " expropriation of the agricultural population of the land ." The parallel modernization, substantial increase in production and other relief from the " idiocy of rural life " was not found in this criticism in question. Angel called upon the peasants to join the Social Democrats.

The problem of overuse of jointly managed areas is explained in the social sciences with the model tragedy of the commons. Joachim Radkau According progenitor found the model concept in the literature of the early agrarian reformers. Since the 18th century, " rattled the dry cows of the commons " by a variety of fonts. In this case, an alleged Allmendeproblem was exemplarily used for the elimination of traditional forms of common property in favor of capital-intensive individual holdings. Joachim Radkau looks also given by the traditional farmers in the sense of a self-fulfilling prophecy, the true tragedy of the commons by a general overuse of the communal area.

The professionalisation of agriculture in the 19th and 20th centuries allowed the particular in southern Germany and the Alpine countries much longer than in the UK to provide enduring Allmendewirtschaft on a new basis. You will now be discussed again as a model for social economy in and for developing countries. It will take a strict, model-like distinction between the private and government property, commons and completely free availability of increasingly recommended a co-management between the different use and ownership forms and the relevant people involved, as was also the case with the British Commons.