Well, British economy was far more (classical) liberal, as it was an actual laissez-faire economy.
Ahem, that doesn't really say anything about how people view the French economy... less laissez-faire than the English economy is still pretty laissez-faire. The French were very orthodox and wedded to classical liberalism during the 19th century, even if they did have a few more elements of state intervention. Arguably the French impact was bigger than the British for laissez-faire internationally too, I've read some articles which have claimed convincingly that it was the French, by spread of most favored nation trade agreements, who brought about the real liberalization of international trade in the second half of the 19th century, as compared to British unilateral tariff reductions which failed to evoke much change by other nations. Ironically France was thereafter under the IIIe republique extremely unhappy about the agreements it had signed under the Empire, when it wanted to become more protectionist!
Conservatives never helped shape European economic policies during the 19th century, even in Germany, which mostly adopted the economic platform of the National Liberals.
Conservatives were part of the political system and hence shaped economic policy, the right got its way plenty of times with France at the least. Furthermore, this again is pretty unrelated to my claim : it isn't how conservatives thought about it at the time, it is how we think looking back on it.
@TRH Does it follow then that had Germany not been an issue in the latter 19th Century (eg remaining divided) that lower French birthrates would not have been an issue?
Low birth rates in a continent where other countries have high birth rates is always inevitably going to result in the country with low birth rates declining in (relative) terms. It might be that if Germany doesn't exist then that doesn't translate into an absolute decline for France that it experienced in some regards (ie. losing territory). Of course, French birth rates would always have been an issue internally : concerns about German populations were always there, but pro-natalism is inherently a reaction to internal evaluations of society, and was heavily linked to conservatism, catholic faith, and the reaction to the idea of "decadence", and drew its strength from that, even if it legitimized itself nationally by the competition with Germany.
I suppose you can't answer this since you've forgotten, but I'm wondering if this difference too was primarily rooted in geography, or whether it might have been plausibly replicated in France. It also makes me wonder if a 18th/19th pandemic of comparable severity to the Black Death culling the population of Europe would have seriously accelerated industrialization.
It also implies that the "population losses from the Napoleonic wars"/"low French birth rates" theories don't hold water, since these presumably would have increased the cost of labour thus favouring industrialization.
Agricultural and commercial revolutions I would say, as had been said elsewhere too. In England's case also they didn't have to face wars on their soil, so less damage from that and thus increased productivity (which builds up over time, such as the British having large animal herds, since they didn't get slaughtered in wars). The Black Death's effects were uneven in Europe though, in Eastern Europe the nobles were able to keep control over the social system, so a major population context in the European context might have unpredictable effects in 19th century. It might reduce demand a lot by causing more casualties in the cities and increasing the relative population in the countryside.
Personally I would suspect that replicating thee positive conditions in England and the Netherlands in France would be hard, since these commercial revolutions happened in small states. The Netherlands seems to have achieved part of its golden age due to the cities not being strong enough to enforce corporatist controls over the countryside, enabling proto-industry to take off, while in Belgium this didn't happen. Ancien regime France was an economy heavily influenced by corporatism. Furthermore, from my understanding, the general cause of the agricultural revolution is from cities producing the demand for the countryside (see the article:
Agricultural Productivity across Prussia during the Industrial Revolution: a Thünen perspective which talks about the situation in Prussia, and how it was the cities which led the countrysides to revolutionize agriculture, rather than the countryside revolutionizing and enabling the cities to develop. For small, commercial states like England, Belgium, or the Netherlands, having the commercial wealth to sustain this transition was possible, I'm not sure if the same can exist for a large, continental nation like France.
So I'll admit French industrial stagnation might be less of an issue and/or effect of poor governance than the OP assumed; if this is the case, does that mean fundamentally changing the Napoleonic Period (
avoiding his wars, or
securing a peace with French hegemony) would not seriously alter French economic power and/or levels and shares of industrialization in the early 19th Century? If not, what would change in these scenarios?
Any surviving Napoleonic France possessing the borders of at least 1797 is inevitably going to be the primary European power. Even if we assume "just" 1797 borders and no territory beyond, that is a huge internal market, which possesses the combined coal-iron resources of Lorraine and the Rhineland, and Belgium, essentially the center of Western European industry. If we assume this comes from a successful Napoleon who manages to secure control over Central Europe and not lose it, then a continuing version of the Continental System - essentially a massive protected market for French manufacturers - only improves things. The only other major steel production zones in Europe west of Russia are Silesia/Bohemia.
A French colonial market would probably also snatch up their share of goods in exports. This either comes in the form of not losing Haiti and keeping the French West Indies roughly intact, since they were around... I think 30% of French trade before the Revolution, or in the way of expansion. Now, of course, this latter option depends hugely on what one's opinion of Napoleon is, and whether he was the aggressor or the victim. I personally tend to fall onto the "Napoleon was a victim" side in regards to his wars with the European powers, as he principally was declared war on rather than doing the declaring. However, I add the caveat to this in that I think that Napoleon was aggressive and would have attacked if he wasn't constantly being attacked. In the article
Napoleon and the Universal Monarchy, by Philip Dwyer, the following is said:
Also in 1808, Napoleon sent an exploratory party to Algeria in preparation
for a possible invasion. Once the invasion of Spain took place,
Napoleon intended to assume control over all of Spain’s colonial possessions
in the New World. He sent secret agents to the Americas to stir up
rebellions against Spain, offered financial and military assistance to the
rebels, and even planned to recognize the independence of Venezuela in
1812.70 Plans were also vaguely considered to invade Brazil, Havana,
Mexico, the Philippines and even the Dutch East Indies, but he never
explicitly stated in writing why he wanted to send troops to those countries.
71 It has to be assumed that it was intended as an attempt to foil
Britain’s trade and to dominate the world’s colonial markets.
I think that a surviving Napoleonic France would have led a very vigorous campaign of colonial expansion and competition with the United Kingdom, and so the French would end up, in addition to a very large European market, with a very large overseas French colonial empire as a market for their goods.
