ABSTRACT

By the early 19th century, the global growth wave that had started a century before was once more overstraining the production capacities of many societies. The Fossil Biomass Revolution opened up the opportunity of modern economic growth did not mean that this opportunity was automatically used. Some economists raise questions about the causal direction behind the correlation between agricultural development and urban-industrial development. They suggest that industrialization has driven the modernization of agriculture rather than the other way around. The Fossil Biomass Revolution failed to revolutionize the economies of scale in agriculture, while it undermined the technical lead of large farms and increased the labour price advantage of small independent producers. Economists who believed in 'rational expectations' singled out the cobweb model for special criticism. From the 1980s, the supportive farm policies of the West once more changed form, although they were certainly not abolished.