"Crisis’s Transnational Approaches and National Case Studies: Quantification and Conceptualization, from the Local to the Global"
Catherine Brégianni
An Outline of the Main Approaches: From Economic Analysis to Social History, through Relevant Sources. Institutional Interaction and Social Actors (State, Banks, League of Nations)
The Thematic Cycle -which closes with the seminar meeting of June 23rd -, focused around the study of market mechanisms in relation to the evolution of the international monetary system (J. Nautz, L. Tsoulfidis, A. Antoniou).
Emphasis was also placed on the development of institutions at the international and local levels (M. Arkolakis, C. Brégianni, N. Tombros, M. Dritsa). The subject also turned to the credit mechanisms in the rural world and the deriving institutions (N. Mignemi, C. Brégianni, J. Carmona-Zabala) pointing out the agency of the state, the banks and the international organisations, as well as the institutions associated with the social economy (cooperatives). These approaches were also discussed in internal seminars of the research team and in the conference at the University Paris I Panthéon-Sorbonne, co-organised by TransMonEA and the UMR Développement & Sociétés. In the long run, a broader concept of the analysis is the transition to monetarised forms of the rural economy according to the approach of the Annals School (Maurice Aymard).
In the thematic section of the TransMonEA at the World Economic History Conference 2022, Paris, the role of social actors in relation to the institutional organisation of the economy (money, credit, trade, international organisations) will be analysed, also in the long run. In a related section at the Rural History Conference, Uppsala 2022, the above research topics focus on the rural European economy.
Juan Carmona-Zabala, Institute for Mediterranean Studies, Foundation for Research and Technology Hellas.
Rationalising Tobacco Cultivation in Interwar Greece.
As Greece’s most important export commodity, tobacco occupied a prominent position in the economic policies implemented in the interwar period. No other agricultural commodity was the object of such intense state interventionism as tobacco, with the possible exceptions of wheat and currants. Particularly sensitive, both to policymakers and tobacco growers, was the issue of limiting the amount of land dedicated to tobacco cultivation. Given the limited size of their plots and tobacco’s high profit margins, growers often found it difficult to pivot to alternative crops, as they were often prompted to do. From the point of view of policymakers, tobacco stood in the way of expanding wheat production, throughout the interwar period which was one of the main goals of Greece’s autarkist policies. Furthermore, the crop’s exposure to the vagaries of international markets, often left debts unpaid in the Greek countryside, when the rationalisation of rural credit market also featured quite highly on the political agenda. Furthermore, peasants cultivating more land than the labour of their family members could manage, were perceived as problematic, as their demand for additional hands would drive agricultural wages up, thereby rendering Greece’s agriculture less competitive. All these problems became particularly acute during the global economic crisis of the 1930s.
In this talk, I analyse the policies that were implemented to rationalise the allocation of land and labour to tobacco production, which are analysed both in terms of the rationale behind them and their degree of the actual implementation. Focus on ground-level, the local-scale implementation allows for enrichment of the existing historiography. The picture that emerges from such analysis reveals the limits of the capacity of the Greek state to intervene in the rural economy, and forces to nuance the claim that interwar Greece’s countryside was undercapitalised.
It also highlights the role that state policy had in institutionalising the familial model of agricultural production in this period.
Round Table
Rationalisation of the Interwar Greek State: Agricultural Development and Methodological Issues of the Research in Rural History.
On the occasion of the analysis of tobacco production in the framework of the Greek interwar economy, and also based on the research that has already been done, an online discussion will follow. The subject will turn to the agricultural development policies in Greece in the 1920s and 1930s and the interrelated relationship with the attempted modernisation of the Greek State during that period. The agrarian reform, the rural settlement of the refugee population and the development of societal and financial institutions - perceived in the context of the international interwar economy and international organisations - are the turning points between rural and financial policy. However, the agricultural indebtedness proved the short-term consequences of these policies.
