World Development 161 (2023) 106026 Contents lists available at ScienceDirect World Development journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/worlddev Capitalism and extreme poverty: A global analysis of real wages, human height, and mortality since the long 16th century Dylan Sullivan a, Jason Hickel b,c,⇑ a Macquarie School of Social Sciences, Macquarie University, Australia b Institute for Environmental Science and Technology (ICTA-UAB), Autonomous University of Barcelona, Spain c International Inequalities Institute, London School of Economics and Political Science, UK a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t Article history: This paper assesses claims that, prior to the 19th century, around 90% of the human population lived in Accepted 6 July 2022 extreme poverty (defined as the inability to access essential goods), and that global human welfare only Available online xxxx began to improve with the rise of capitalism. These claims rely on national accounts and PPP exchange rates that do not adequately capture changes in people’s access to essential goods. We assess this narra- Keywords: tive against extant data on three empirical indicators of human welfare: real wages (with respect to a Capitalism subsistence basket), human height, and mortality. We ask whether these indicators improved or deteri- Extreme poverty orated with the rise of capitalism in five world regions - Europe, Latin America, sub-Saharan Africa, South World-systems theory Progress Asia and China – using the chronology put forward by world-systems theorists. The evidence we review here points to three conclusions. (1) It is unlikely that 90% of the human population lived in extreme pov- erty prior to the 19th century. Historically, unskilled urban labourers in all regions tended to have wages high enough to support a family of four above the poverty line by working 250 days or 12 months a year, except during periods of severe social dislocation, such as famines, wars, and institutionalized disposses- sion – particularly under colonialism. (2) The rise of capitalism caused a dramatic deterioration of human welfare. In all regions studied here, incorporation into the capitalist world-system was associated with a decline in wages to below subsistence, a deterioration in human stature, and an upturn in premature mortality. In parts of South Asia, sub-Saharan Africa, and Latin America, key welfare metrics have still not recovered. (3) Where progress has occurred, significant improvements in human welfare began sev- eral centuries after the rise of capitalism. In the core regions of Northwest Europe, progress began in the 1880s, while in the periphery and semi-periphery it began in the mid-20th century, a period character- ized by the rise of anti-colonial and socialist political movements that redistributed incomes and estab- lished public provisioning systems. Ó 2022 The Author(s). Published by Elsevier Ltd. 1. Introduction by Steven Pinker, featuring centrally in his bestselling book Enlight- enment Now (2018) (Fig 2). It has since spread widely across social The standard public-facing narrative about global extreme pov- media. erty (defined as the inability to access essential goods such as food) The image gives the impression that 90% of humanity was in holds that widespread absolute destitution is the natural condition ‘‘extreme poverty” prior to the 1800s; i.e., living on less than the of humanity, and that the rise of capitalism delivered a steady and equivalent of $1.90 per day (2011 PPP), a threshold associated with dramatic reduction in global poverty over time (e.g., Pinker, 2018; extreme calorie and nutrient deficits and an inability to access Radelet, 2015; Rosling, Rosling, & Rosling-Ronnlund, 2018; Kristof, basic goods (Wagstaff, 2003; Allen, 2017). Pinker used this graph 2019; Sachs, 2005). This narrative relies in large part on a graphic to claim that ‘‘industrial capitalism launched the Great Escape from that was first developed by Martin Ravallion (2016), using histori- universal poverty in the 19th century” (2018, p. 364, pp. 87–96). cal data drawn from a paper by Bourguignon & Morrisson (2002) Hans Rosling and his associates (Rosling et al., 2018, p. 38, p. 52) (Fig 1). The graphic was later updated and brought to prominence have claimed that ‘‘Human history started with everyone [living in extreme poverty] . . . All over the world, people simply did not ⇑ Corresponding author. have enough food.” According to Rosling, this dismal state of affairs E-mail addresses: dylan.sullivan@mq.edu.au (D. Sullivan), j.e.hickel@lse.ac.uk continued ‘‘for over 100,000 years” until the industrial revolution. (J. Hickel). https://doi.org/10.1016/j.worlddev.2022.106026 0305-750X/Ó 2022 The Author(s). Published by Elsevier Ltd. D. Sullivan and J. Hickel World Development 161 (2023) 106026 world’s population, particularly during historical periods. In Appendix I we give a detailed discussion of historical national accounts, describing how non-commodity goods are typically treated.1 We also demonstrate that Bourguignon and Morrison’s use of this data to estimate poverty runs into several methodological problems. To summarize briefly here, B/M use GDP per capita growth rates as a proxy for changes in household consumption over time, assuming that the two move together. But we know empirically that they do not; in fact, NAS and NSS growth rates tend to differ quite substantially (Ferreira, 2015, p. 27; Deaton, 2001). As Ravallion him- self acknowledges: ‘‘There are well-known problems in measuring illegal, informal, household-based, and subsistence outputs in the NAS for devel- oping and transitional economies. As an economy develops, the household-based production activities that are not measured in the NAS sector become ‘formalized,’ imparting an upward bias to measured NAS growth rates of output [relative to NSS growth Fig. 1. Percent of world population living in extreme poverty, as depicted by Ravallion (2016). rates] (Ravallion, 2003, pp. 646-647). In light of this, the growth of consumption in the NAS cannot be used as a proxy for changes in household consumption among the poor.2 This is particularly true for the period from 1820 to 1950, which for much of the world was characterized by colonization, the destruction of subsistence economies, and the enclosure of com- mons (Wood, 1999; Hochschild, 1998; Dunaway, 2010). These inter- ventions may have increased GDP, by expanding processes of commodification and capitalist production, but also clearly con- strained people’s access to livelihoods. To use Ravallion’s language, production was forcibly ‘‘formalized,” which we should expect to cause ‘‘an upward bias to measured NAS growth rates of output.” If a forest is enclosed for timber, or subsistence farms are razed and replaced with cotton plantations, GDP goes up. But this tells us nothing about what local communities lose in terms of their use of that forest or their access to food. The impact on livelihoods is swept under the statistical rug. For instance, historical national accounts suggest that GDP per capita in the Spanish-occupied Philip- pines increased by over 15% between 1820 and 1902 (Bolt & van Fig. 2. Percent of world population living in extreme poverty, as depicted by Pinker (2018). Zanden, 2020). Yet parish records indicate this was a period of increasing mortality, due to ‘‘a general deterioration of peasant livelihoods. . . a consequence of the rapid commercialization of peas- ant agriculture” (Smith, 1978, pp. 51-52). Similarly, Indian GDP per capita increased by 27% from 1870 to 1921 (Bolt & van Zanden, In other words, virtually all of humanity, for all of history, was 2020). Yet during that time, British colonial policy induced serial starving and destitute – in a condition of perpetual humanitarian famines that killed tens of millions of people, with life expectancy crisis – until the 19th century when, thanks to the rise of capital- collapsing by 20%, ‘‘a deterioration in human health probably with- ism, extreme poverty finally began to decline. This narrative has out precedent in the subcontinent’s long history of war and inva- been promoted prominently by Bill Gates, as well as by right wing sion” (Davis, 2002, p. 312). GDP data obscures this immiseration outlets like the Cato Institute and the Foundation for Economic and implies instead a significant improvement in welfare. Education (e.g., Vásquez, 2001; Hammond, 2017). These claims The second problem with the graph has to do with its reliance would appear to contradict over a century of critical scholarship on the World Bank’s poverty line of $1.90 PPP, per day. This on capitalism and human welfare (Marx, 1867; Luxemburg, approach has come under criticism for several years (Allen, 2017; 1913; Amin, 1976; Wallerstein, 1983; Federici, 2004; Patnaik & Reddy & Pogge, 2010). PPP equivalents are calculated based on Patnaik, 2017; Hitchcock & McClure, 2021). prices across the whole economy, while what matters for the pur- The Ravallion/Pinker graph suffers from several empirical prob- poses of assessing poverty is the prices of essential goods that are lems, however. The first thing to note is that it relies on two differ- necessary to meet basic needs (such as food, housing, fuel). To cor- ent kinds of data. For the period 1981 to the present, it uses rect for this, the economic historians Robert C. Allen (2017, 2020) household ‘National Samples Surveys’ (NSS), which capture incomes as well as some non-commodified goods derived from 1 subsistence activities and social provisioning systems, represented In Appendix I, we focus on the national accounts for India (Maddison, 1985; Heston 1983; Sivasubramonian, 2000) and England (Broadberry, Campbell, Klein, in monetary terms (2011 PPP). For the period prior to 1980, how- Overton, & Leeuwen, 2015). ever, the graph relies on estimates from Bourguignon & Morrisson 2 The literature points to three additional reasons for the discrepancy between NSS (2002), who use historical GDP data in National Accounts Statistics and NAS (see, Ravallion, 2003; Deaton, 2001). First, consumption surveys tend to (NAS), from Maddison (1995). This is problematic because GDP understate incomes at the top end of the distribution. Second, the surveys exclude fails to adequately account for non-commodity forms of provision- some forms of consumption accounted for in NAS, including imputed rents for owner- occupier dwellings, and expenditure by unincorporated businesses. Third, in NAS, ing, such as subsistence farming, foraging, and access to commons, consumption is partly ‘‘derived as residuals, so that errors and omissions elsewhere in which are important sources of consumption for much of the the accounts are automatically absorbed into consumption” (Deaton, 2001, p. 133). 2 D. Sullivan and J. Hickel World Development 161 (2023) 106026 and Michail Moatsos (2017; 2021) have developed an alternative land, the U.S., and India.6 His conclusions differ markedly from the approach. They use price data to calculate a ‘Basic Needs Poverty standard public narrative. According to Allen (2020, p. 125), even Line’ (BNPL) which consistently allows people to consume 2,100 at the height of feudalism, in 1290, extreme poverty in England calories per day, 50 g of protein, 34 g of fat, and various vitamins reached no higher than 20–30%. By the time of the 1688 revolution, and minerals, all from the cheapest available foods, in addition to the extreme poverty rate was only around 5–10%, and by the 19th some non-food items like clothing, housing, fuel, and lighting. century it had been eliminated (ibid., pp. 125–126). In other words, The contents of this subsistence basket are not narrowly defined, England has never experienced anything like universal extreme pov- but are allowed to change as prices change, so that people may erty. For the United States, Allen (2020, p. 108) finds no evidence of meet these nutrient requirements at the least cost. extreme poverty in the mid-19th century: ‘‘this includes, in particu- The results of this method demonstrate there is often a signifi- lar, enslaved persons who turn out to have had material consump- cant divergence between the poverty rate as defined by the World tion levels just above the poverty line.” Of course, this is not to say Bank’s $1.90 method and the BNPL. Consider the case of China, for that U.S. Americans were not poor, but that very few were living example. According to the $1.90 method, the poverty rate in China without access to basic food, clothing, fuel, and housing. fell from 66% in 1990 to 19% in 2005, suggesting capitalist reforms To estimate the extreme poverty rate in India, Allen draws on delivered dramatic improvements (World Bank 2021). However, if consumption surveys carried out by the East India Company in we instead measure incomes against the BNPL, we find poverty in- the region of Bihar. He finds that in 1810 only 23% of Indians lived creased during this period, from 0.2% in 1990 (one of the lowest fig- below the poverty line (Allen, 2020, p. 128). He also points out that ures in the world) to 24% in 2005, with a peak of 68% in 1995 (data Indian real wages were much lower at that point than they were from Moatsos, 2021).3 This reflects an increase in the relative price under the reign of Akbar in the late 16th and early 17th centuries. of food as China’s socialist provisioning systems were dismantled (Li, On the basis of real wages, Allen (2020 p. 9, pp. 129–130) estimates 2016). It is likely that something similar occurred across the global that India’s poverty rate around 1600 may have been ‘‘on a par South during the 19th century, as colonial interventions undermined with the developing parts of Western Europe.” Judging by Allen’s communal provisioning systems. As a result, the $1.90 PPP line likely estimate for England in 1688, this suggests Mughal India may have reflects a changing standard of welfare during the period that the had a poverty rate of only 5-10%. This means poverty in India Ravallion/Pinker graph refers to.4 increased under British rule, and the high rates of extreme poverty Finally, the third limitation of the graph is its starting date revealed by household consumption surveys in the 1980s (over (1820). The graph has been used to tell a story about capitalism, 50%) are a modern phenomenon, ‘‘a development of the colonial but the world capitalist economy was established in the late era,” as Allen puts it (ibid, p. 107). ‘‘Many factors may have been 15th and early 16th centuries (Wallerstein, 1974; Frank, 1978; involved, but imperialism and globalization must have played Braudel, 1981; Moore, 2003; Federici, 2004). In other words, the leading roles” (ibid. p. 129). Figure 3 plots Allen’s estimates, along graph excludes more than 300 years of relevant history. During with World Bank survey data from 1977 to 2011.7 This series this period, economic growth in Western Europe depended on pro- should be treated with caution because the 1600 figure is based on cesses of dispossession that caused major social dislocation (e.g., indirect evidence from real wages, and the 1810 figure for Bihar the European enclosures, mass enslavement of Africans, the colo- may not be representative of the rest of India. nization of the Americas and India, etc.). The graph excludes this Given these issues, it is clear that the standard public narrative history and gives the impression of poverty in 1820 as a primordial about the history of extreme poverty needs reassessment. In this condition. paper we assess this narrative against three indicators of welfare Even B/M’s method would likely suggest that poverty rose in (real wages, human height, and mortality) for five world regions the periphery during these early centuries of capitalism. Between (Europe, Latin America, sub-Saharan Africa, South Asia, and China) 1600 and 1820, GDP per capita declined by 21% in Poland and from roughly the 16th century onward. These datasets point to 26% in India (data from Bolt & van Zanden, 2020). From 1700 to three conclusions: 1820, China, Peru, South Africa, and Mexico saw their incomes drop First, it is unlikely that 90% of the global population lived in by 43%, 28%, 56% and 32%, respectively (ibid). China and India did extreme poverty prior to the rise of capitalism. Historically, not return to their earlier peak until the 1960s and 1970s (see unskilled urban labourers in all regions tended to have wages high Appendix II). As we have noted above, GDP data cannot be used enough to support a family of four above the poverty line by work- to assess trends in poverty. But if it could be used in this way, start- ing 250 days or 12 months a year. Extreme poverty seems to arise ing the analysis in 1820 omits three centuries of evidence, produc- predominantly in periods of severe social and economic distress, ing a partial and misleading representation of historical trends in like famines, wars and institutionalized dispossession, particularly human welfare under capitalism. under colonialism. Rather than being the natural condition of Allen (2020) has put forward alternative estimates of historical humanity, extreme poverty is a symptom of social dislocation extreme poverty, designed to avoid some of these issues.5 Allen and displacement. It is important to emphasize that the data here uses historical price records and social tables to estimate the share focuses on extreme poverty, as it is defined in the relevant of the population living below the BNPL in three key regions: Eng- 6 Allen allows non-food requirements of the BNPL to change in different contexts. He assumes that people living in colder climates require more clothing and fuel than 3 Moatsos questioned the validity of this finding on the grounds that goods may not those in warmer climates. He also assumes that populations prior to c. 1840 required have actually been available at official government-set prices in China in 1990. less non-food items to meet their basic needs, as social expectations of the minimum However, there is an extensive literature showing that China’s socialist provisioning acceptable dress and lighting changed as the cost of cloth and kerosene declined systems were generally capable of delivering key goods, and improving health during the industrial revolution. This is in line with the concept of basic needs and outcomes for the population (e.g., Dreze & Sen, 1989; Li, 2008). absolute poverty promoted by Adam Smith ([1937] 1776, pp. 821–22) and Amartya 4 Moatsos (2021) estimates that the global poverty rate was 72% in 1820, and then Sen (1983). It is worth noting that, in our analysis of real wages (below), we use declined throughout the 19th century. However, as we discuss in Appendix I, Moatsos poverty lines with constant non-food requirements, and reach similar conclusions to estimates the historical incomes of the poor using national income growth rates. As Allen (2020) about the extent of progress against poverty. 7 we have argued, this method is empirically unsound. The figures for 1977 to 2008 were obtained from Moatsos (2021), who has 5 Allen (2020, pp. 108-109, p. 130) notes that social tables allow for more direct estimated basic needs poverty rates with household survey data and price informa- measure of historical poverty than do national accounts statistics. However, more tion from the ILO. The 2011 figure is obtained from Allen’s (2020, p. 115) calculations research is needed to determine whether social tables adequately account for all using the survey data and detailed price statistics from the International Comparisons forms of non-commodity provisioning. Program. 3 D. Sullivan and J. Hickel World Development 161 (2023) 106026 They or their family would need to work more than 250 days, or very basic needs could not have been met. A welfare ratio higher than 1 indicates the family had income above subsistence, which could be used to attain higher order goods like medical care and luxuries, or to substitute work with leisure. Welfare ratios are particularly well suited for assessing trends in global poverty, as the price of a subsistence basket may be inter- preted as an extreme poverty line (De Zwart et al., 2014, pp. 75– 76; Allen, Murphy, & Schneider, 2012, p. 876; De Zwart & Lucassen, 2020, p. 652; De Zwart & van Zanden, 2015, p. 229). Research by Allen (2020, p. 122) suggests the welfare ratios of unskilled labourers are strongly correlated with the prevalence of poverty in the broader community. Countries where a labourer earns more than 2 welfare ratios tend to have relatively few people living below the BNPL (on average, only 5% of their population). Even in countries with welfare ratios between 1 and 2, the average pov- Figure 3. Indian population living in extreme poverty (% below the BNPL), 1600– erty rate is only 18%. If real wages drop below 1, however, poverty 2011 (rough estimate). Source: Allen (2020); Moatsos (2021); see text for details. rates become high (on average, 36%). If we assume this relationship holds in the past, welfare ratios provide us with a proxy for the trend, literature, not the higher consumption thresholds that are required and to some extent even the level, of the historical poverty rate. to achieve ‘‘decent living” today (e.g., Edward, 2006; Kikstra, et al. A notable limitation of the welfare ratios literature is that schol- 2021). ars have used different subsistence baskets in different contexts The second conclusion is that the rise of capitalism coincided (for a full discussion of the subsistence baskets used in this paper with a deterioration in human welfare. In every region studied and the changes we have made to them, see Appendix III).8 Most here, incorporation into the capitalist world-system was associated of the early studies used subsistence baskets that included 1,940 with a decline in wages to below subsistence, a deterioration in calories per day, while more recent studies require 2,100 calories. human stature, and a marked upturn in premature mortality. In Some scholars working on Latin America include larger quantities parts of Latin America, sub-Saharan Africa, and South Asia, key of animal protein in their basket, while scholars working on India welfare metrics have still not recovered. have included less non-food items. The most extensive dataset of Our third conclusion is that in those regions where progress has European wages is based on a more generous basket than elsewhere occurred (as opposed to recovery from an earlier period of immis- (including more expensive foodstuffs and double the quantity of eration), it began much later than the Ravallion/Pinker graph sug- candles and clothing; see, Allen, 2001). Future research is needed gests. In the core regions of Northwest Europe, welfare standards to calculate welfare ratios with a consistent basket across regions. began to improve in the 1880s, four centuries after the emergence Nevertheless, despite their limitations, all of the poverty lines of capitalism. In the periphery and semi-periphery, progress began reviewed in this paper are based on the price of goods necessary in the mid-20th century. Further research is needed to establish to meet basic needs. They are therefore more useful than the World the causal drivers of these improvements, but existing data indi- Bank’s $1.90 threshold. cates that progress was achieved with the rise of organized labour, The second indicator we analyse is average adult male height. the anti-colonial movement, and other progressive social move- Malnutrition and poor health tend to limit childhood growth, so ments, which organized production around meeting human needs, the average height of a population can be used as a rough proxy redistributed wealth, and invested in public provisioning systems for access to basic-needs satisfiers (Baten & Komlos, 1998; (Sen, 1981; Dreze & Sen, 1989; Navarro, 1993; Cereseto & Koepke & Baten, 2005; Baten & Blum, 2012). Of course, trends in Waitzkin, 1986; Prashad, 2007; Szreter, 1997; 2003; Lena & the average level of welfare attainment may not accurately reflect London, 1993). the incidence of poverty if there is significant inequality. Neverthe- less, human height provides one of the few indicators we have of a population’s access to nutrition. For data on human height, we use 2. Research approach the historical figures compiled by Baten & Blum (2013) for 1,490 country-years since the 16th century, on the basis of archaeologi- Historical data on the poverty rate is not available for most cal evidence, military records, health surveys, and other sources. regions. Given this limitation, we analyse extant datasets of three Where appropriate, we have augmented Baten and Blum’s figures empirical indicators of human welfare. By human welfare, we mean with other data (e.g., Clark, 2007, p. 61; Pechenkina, Benfer, & the ability to access basic-needs satisfiers such as food, clothing, Ma, 2007). If human welfare improved with the rise of capitalism, and shelter, leading to improvement in health outcomes. The first these sources should reveal a rise in human stature from the 16th indicator we analyse is the real wages of unskilled urban labourers. century. The economic history literature measures real wages in terms of The third indicator we analyze is the mortality rate. As Amartya ‘welfare ratios,’ in other words, the ratio between nominal wages Sen (1998) argues, economic welfare has a substantial influence on and the price of a subsistence basket, over a year (e.g., Allen, mortality. If the share of people unable to access essential goods 2001, 2007; De Zwart, van Leeuwen, & van Leeuwen-Li, 2014). Since annual wages are rarely available, economic historians estimate 8 The early literature calculates welfare ratios so that a wage of one could purchase yearly earnings by multiplying the daily wage by 250 (in the case three subsistence baskets: one for each adult, and half for each child (e.g., Allen, 2001; of India, where monthly wages are available, a 12-month working Allen, 2007; Abad et al., 2012; Challu & Gomez-Galvarriato, 2015). Allen (2015, p. 5) year has also been used). If a labourer has a welfare ratio of 1, their criticized this approach on the grounds that children require more than half a wage was high enough to support a four-person family, with each subsistence basket in order to grow healthily. More recently, economists have calculated welfare ratios so that all family members receive a full subsistence basket family member consuming 1,940 to 2,200 calories per day, in addi- (e.g, Ronnback, 2016; De Zwart & Lucassen 2020; Allen, 2020). For comparability, we tion to a small quantity of cloth, candles, and fuel. If the labourer’s have re-calculated all real wage estimates in line with the new method. This means wage was lower than 1, they were unable to purchase this basket. our figures are often lower than the original estimates. 4 D. Sullivan and J. Hickel World Development 161 (2023) 106026 required for survival increases, then mortality may also be of the world during the 18th and 19th centuries, as European colo- expected to increase. There are, to be sure, some intervening vari- nial powers forcibly integrated Africa, South Asia, and China into ables. If there are gains in healthcare (e.g., due to the invention of the core-periphery division of labour (Wallerstein, 1989). While new vaccines), it is plausible that mortality may decline even as no theoretical framework can capture the full complexity of eco- access to food and shelter deteriorates. Mortality may also rise nomic history, the world-systems chronology is useful for assessing due to reasons other than increased poverty, such as a rise in crime, the social impact of capitalist expansion. excessive drinking, or other anti-social behaviors. Furthermore, mortality rates are sensitive to the age-structure of the population 3. Overview of empirical evidence because older populations experience more deaths than younger ones. Nevertheless, mortality indices are widely used in studies 3.1. Europe of hunger and deprivation (e.g., Dreze & Sen, 1989), and they are worth looking at for earlier historical periods. Data on the mortal- According to Wallerstein (1974), the rise of capitalism in Europe ity rate per 1,000 people is available from government records, occurred during the ‘long sixteenth century’ (c. 1450–1640).10 This while contemporary time series provide information on the inci- development has its roots in the ‘crisis of feudalism’ (c. 1300s), when dence of famines, epidemics, and population decline (e.g., Alfani the exploitation of the peasantry and the desolation of the land by & Gráda, 2018; Lee, 2014). the seigniors led to malnutrition, famines and epidemics, including It is important to note from the outset that there are several the Black Death (Wallerstein, 1974, pp. 15-63; Moore, 2002). This limitations to these datasets. Real wages are generally calculated crisis spurred peasant and worker rebellions across Europe during with the prices and wages paid by large institutions which kept the 14th and 15th centuries which, to varying degrees, succeeded records for centuries, such as monasteries, heritage projects, and in abolishing serfdom and securing control over common lands colonial trading companies, which may be unrepresentative of (Wallerstein, 1974; Federici, 2004, pp. 21–60; Cohn, 2006; Hilton, conditions in the broader economy. Furthermore, the assumption 1973). During the long 16th century, Europe’s elite responded to this that labourers worked 250 days a year is arbitrary. If they worked popular uprising by forcing the working class into wage labour less due to unemployment or a preference for other activities, their through enclosures; by reinstituting serfdom on semi-colonial incomes would be lower than those reported below.9 Similarly, export-estates throughout Eastern Europe; and by militarily expand- human height figures often rely on records of prisoners and soldiers, ing into the Americas in search of cheap land and labour groups whose welfare may, at times, have moved differently from (Wallerstein, 1974, pp. 15-129; Federici, 2004, pp. 47-131; Moore, the rest of the population. Data on the mortality rate often relies 2003). These efforts to reconstitute class power created a novel eco- on records kept by governments and it is plausible that there was nomic system predicated on international trade – in food, fuel, ships, underreporting of deaths. If the level of underreporting changed over and enslaved persons - across the Atlantic, fueling economic growth time, this could interfere with the results. In light of these limita- in England, the Netherlands, and northern France (Wallerstein 1974; tions, the results outlined below should be treated with caution. 1980; 1983). Here we look at extant data on real wages, human Indeed, this is why we have opted to use three different welfare indi- height, and mortality to explore the social impact of these cators. By ensuring that the trends discussed here are evident in political-economic changes in Europe. multiple independent datasets, we minimize the possibility that Figure 4 presents wages of unskilled labourers from 1325 to they are merely artefacts of poor data quality. 1875, as calculated by Allen (2015). Where the wage equals 1, a We use these welfare indicators – real wages, human height, labourer could support a four-person family annually consuming and mortality – for each region to assess the standard public nar- 170 kg of oatmeal, in addition to some beans, meat, butter, and a rative about global poverty. Economic historians look at the wages modest quantity of clothing, soap, and fuel (see Appendix III). A of unskilled labourers in order ‘‘to capture trends at the bottom of more extensive dataset of European wages – covering the entire the income pyramid” (van Zanden et al., 2014, p. 25). If we find period from 1301 to 1913 for 16 cities – is available from Allen people at the bottom of the pyramid lived above the extreme pov- (2001). These figures are calculated with a more generous ‘re- erty line, it is unlikely that 90% of the human population was living spectability’ poverty line (Allen, 2020). In Appendix IV, we use in extreme poverty. Moreover, if human welfare improved with the price data from the U.S. Bureau of Labour Statistics (2020) to show rise of capitalism, we should expect to see an improvement in that purchasing this basket would cost over $4.33 in 2011 USD. We these three welfare indicators around the time when each region have multiplied Allen’s (2001) figures by $4.33 to render them in a was incorporated into the capitalist world-system. version of PPP-income indexed to the price of basic need-satisfiers, For our chronology of capitalist history, we rely on the work of in other words, a ‘welfare-adjusted PPP’ (see Figure 5). This allows Immanuel Wallerstein and other world-systems theorists us to measure early modern European incomes in a way that is the- (Wallerstein, 1974, 1989; Frank, 1978; Basu, 1979; So & Chiu, oretically similar to the World Bank’s method (i.e., in terms of what 1995; Moore, 2003; Li, 2016). According to world-systems theo- $1 could purchase in the USA in 2011). But unlike the World Bank, rists, capitalism is a system predicated on the ‘‘constant accumula- purchasing power here is based on the prices of goods most rele- tion of capital,” or endless economic growth (Wallerstein, 1983). vant to those living in poverty. We calculated the series for the Under capitalism, some regions - the ‘core’ – monopolize highly- ‘European periphery’ as the average of Polish, German, Austrian, profitable production processes, allowing them to extract resources Italian, and Spanish cities, while the ‘European core’ is based on from the ’periphery,’ i.e., regions that are made to specialize in low- cities in southern England, northern France, and the Low Countries. profit goods sold in highly competitive markets (Hickel, Sullivan, & Figures 4 and 5 suggest extreme poverty was not a natural con- Zoomkawala, 2021). This system initially arose in the 16th century dition. Unskilled labourers across Europe appear to have been able Atlantic, with Northwest Europe as the core in relation to Eastern to support a family of four above the extreme poverty line by Europe and the Western Hemisphere as periphery, while Southern working 250 days a year for most of the past 600 years (Fig. 4), Europe assumed an intermediary or ‘semi-peripheral’ position and could afford more than $1.90 worth of goods in 2011 US prices, (Wallerstein, 1974). Capitalism expanded across most of the rest at least as far as food and fuel are concerned (Fig. 5). Working class 10 The following analysis and data does not include Russia and the Ottoman Balkans, 9 On these limitations, see, Hatcher, 2018; Deng & O’Brien, 2018; Mocarelli, 2018; as Wallerstein argues these regions were not incorporated into the capitalist world- Stephenson, 2018. system until the mid-18th century. 5 D. Sullivan and J. Hickel World Development 161 (2023) 106026 Figure 4. Daily income per person for a family of four, with one family member working 250 days a year as an unskilled urban labourer, 1325–1875 (1 = extreme poverty line). Source: Allen (2015); see text and appendix III for details. Figure 5. Daily income per person for a family of four, with one family member working 250 days a year as an unskilled labourer, 2011 welfare-adjusted PPP $ (1301 – 1913). Source: Allen (2001); U.S. Bureau of Labour Statistics (2020); see text and appendices III - IV. Figure 6. Average adult male height in Europe (1500s–1910s). Graph shows selected countries, with the population-weighted average calculated across the whole dataset. Source: Baten & Blum (2013); see text for details. 6 D. Sullivan and J. Hickel World Development 161 (2023) 106026 Table 1 Number of famine-years per century in Western Europe, 1300s–1900s. 1300s 1400s 1500s 1600s 1700s 1800s 1900s All famines 35 16 46 61 48 26 6 Multi-region famines 13 3 24 31 23 8 4 Source: authors’ calculations from data in supplementary table 1 of Alfani & Gráda (2018). incomes only seem to fall below the poverty line in periods of 1710 onwards, and we have used that data to calculate a extreme social and economic distress, such as the 14th century population-weighted average with historical population data from famines and epidemics. The European periphery also suffered Fink-Jensen (2015). Note that for the population-weighted aver- extreme poverty during the turmoil of the French Revolutionary ages in this paper, some annual fluctuations may reflect changes and Napoleonic wars (1792 – 1815). Outside of these catastrophes, in data availability.14 it is unlikely that most Europeans lived in extreme poverty. Of Figure 6 confirms that access to basic-needs satisfiers in Europe course, there are several reasons these results may not capture declined markedly with the rise of capitalism: Europeans born in the full story.11 Due to unemployment, workers may not have been the 1850s were considerably shorter than 16th-century Germans able to work a full 250 days a year. On the other hand, if workers and Poles. Europe did not recover from this prolonged period of were able to derive additional incomes from commons and house- deprivation until the 20th century. There was substantial progress hold production, and if women and children contributed to family from that point, with the population-weighted average reaching incomes, consumption would have been higher than recorded here. 177cm in the 1980s. Historians attribute this improvement in While the precise level of real consumption is difficult to reconstruct, human health to sanitation systems, and access to public health- real wages suggest unskilled laborers generally earned incomes care and adequate housing – provisions that were secured by above the extreme poverty line. socialist and other progressive movements demanding social The wage data also reveals that, rather than delivering progress reforms (Szreter, 1997; 2003; Porter, 1999; Navarro, 1993). against poverty, the rise of capitalism was associated with a dete- Table 1 shows the number of years per century wherein West- rioration in human welfare across Europe.12 Following the peasant ern Europe experienced famine. This time series is based on data and worker rebellions in the 14th century, wages rose high enough from Alfani & Gráda (2018). In the revolutionary 1400s, Europe to support a family of four above the ‘respectability’ line (i.e., experienced only 13 years of famine, only three of which occurred $4.33, represented by a dotted line on Figure 5). But during the long in multiple regions. As capitalism developed, however, Western 16th century wages plummeted, particularly in the European Europe entered a period of endemic mass starvation, with the periphery, which was de-industrialized and reduced to a raw mate- 17th century seeing 61 famines – more famine years than regular rial supplier for English and Dutch manufacturers (Wallerstein, years – 31 of them occurring in multiple regions. Famine in Europe 1974; Moore, 2010a; Frank, 1978; Watson, 2017). In the core, wages did not improve beyond its 15th-century level until the 20th cen- only began to rise above their 15th-century level in the 1880s – tury. This progress is attributable to the rise of democracy and around four centuries after the rise of capitalism and 50 years later press freedom – another product of the labour movement, and than the standard narrative suggests. For most of the European the movement for women’s suffrage – as historical data indicates periphery, poverty alleviation began later, ‘‘indeed, only in the that famines rarely occur under democratic conditions (see, Sen, post-World War II boom” (Allen, 2001, p. 435). This trend corre- 1999; Dreze & Sen, 1989; Hickman, 2019; de Waal, 2018). sponds with the rise of organized labour and socialist parties across The European data, then, does not support the standard poverty Europe (Pelz, 2016, pp. 83–102; Geary, 1981). As we shall see, pro- narrative. Extreme poverty is not the natural condition in Europe, gress in Europe has been much more extensive than elsewhere. Flush but a symptom of extraordinary social and economic collapse. with surplus extracted from the colonies, European capitalists could The rise of capitalism, rather than delivering improvements in respond to the demands of popular movements, and improve work- human welfare, was associated with plummeting wages, a reduc- ing class incomes, without significantly threatening the accumula- tion in human stature, and a marked upturn in the incidence of tion of capital (Cope, 2019; Lauesen, 2021). By the 2000s, Europe’s famine. Progress did not begin until the 1880s in the European population-weighted average welfare ratio was 22.13 core, and the 20th century in the European periphery, the latter Figure 6 depicts adult male height from the 16th to 20th cen- roughly a century later than the standard narrative suggests. turies (data obtained from Baten & Blum, 2013). The data for 1650 and earlier is based on 50-year averages, while the post- 3.2. Latin America: 1650 figures depict the average height of people born in a given decade. Data is only available from the 16th century for two coun- The Spanish and Portuguese conquest of the Americas from tries - Germany and Poland. Other states become available from 1492 marked the bloody expansion of capitalism into the Western Hemisphere (Wallerstein, 1974; Frank, 1967; Moore, 2010b). The 11 Stephenson (2018) argues that Allen has overestimated the recorded wages for conquistadors extirpated over 90% of the Indigenous population London labourers between 1650 and 1770. Meanwhile, Mocarelli (2018) holds that through slavery, land grabs, massacres, and disease (Resendez, Allen underestimates the wage level in 18th century Milan. We do not have the space 2016; Frank, 1979; Galeano, 1973). Over the following centuries, here to assess these debates. However, substantial revisions for London and Milan capitalist control over Latin America was perpetuated through con- would not change the overall analysis we present here. 12 The validity of the wage trends has been questioned by Hatcher (2011), who stant imperialist interventions. From c. 1750 to 1810, Spain imple- claims that workers in the 19th century were employed on a more regular basis than mented mercantilist policies known as the ‘‘Bourbon reforms” – in the 15th century, so that their annual incomes were ultimately higher. This dubbed ‘the second conquest of America’ by historian John Lynch argument has been disputed by Christopher Dyer (2015) and Gregory Clark (2013; (1986, pp. 1-18) – which strengthened commercial mining and Clark, Cummins, & Smith, 2012; Clark & McComb, 2018). As we shall see below, the wage data is supported by trends in adult height (see also our discussion of English 14 height from the 15th to 19th centuries in Appendix I). To maximize data coverage, we have interpolated missing years in the Fink- 13 This figure is calculated from De Zwart et al. (2014), with population data from Jensen (2015) dataset along an exponential curve. Because this dataset lacks figures Fink-Jensen (2015). De Zwart et al. use a slightly less generous basket compared to for Sudan, we have added Bolt & van Zanden’s (2020) estimates of Sudan’s population the historical estimates. when dealing with Africa. 7 D. Sullivan and J. Hickel World Development 161 (2023) 106026 Figure 7. Daily income per person for a family of four, with one family member working 250 days a year as an unskilled urban labourer, decadal averages (1 = extreme poverty line). Graph shows selected countries, with the population-weighted average calculated across the whole dataset. Source: Abad et al. (2012); Challu & Gomez- Galvarriato (2015); De Zwart et al. (2014); see text and appendix III for details. agriculture while creating a captive market for European industry the mid-18th century, with wages in Mexico declining by around (Frank, 1967, pp. 51–55; Frank, 1978, pp. 182–189; Wallerstein, 70% to 1810. 1989, pp. 213-217). When the Iberian powers withdrew from the Wages started to improve from the 1940s, as labour unions Americas in the 19th century, independence was curtailed by U. grew rapidly, and populist or left-wing governments assumed S. military interventions and occupations (Chomsky, 1987; power (Rock, 1994; Prashad, 2007, pp. 25-27, 62-74). Over the fol- LaFaber, 1993; Livingstone, 2009; Calder, 1984; Schmidt, 1971). lowing decades, these governments created anti-colonial develop- Figure 7 illustrates welfare standards over this period, with data mentalist institutions (such as the UN Economic Commission for obtained from several sources. Abad et al. (2012) provide data for 6 Latin America based in Santiago de Chile), and pursued import- Latin American countries from the 16th to 19th centuries, while De substitution policies aimed at independent industrialization Zwart et al. (2014) cover the same countries with the same subsis- (Klein, 2007, pp. 54–55; Prashad, 2007, pp. 62-74; Chang, 2007). tence basket for the 19th and 20th centuries. De Zwart et al. pro- Most countries surpassed their 18th century peak in the 1960s. vide data for an additional 13 states after 1930. We have However, these gains were reversed under the structural adjust- calculated a population-weighted average series with this data, ment programmes imposed by the World Bank and IMF during which provides a broader picture of welfare standards in the region the 1980s and 1990s (ibid; Klein, 2007, pp. 156–168; Hickel, as a whole. There is additional data for Mexico (1730s 1930s) 2017, pp. 149-166). In Mexico, the welfare ratio declined from from Challu & Gomez-Galvarriato (2015), which uses a subsistence 4.22 in 1982, to 1.01 in 1984. As of the 2000s, Mexico had lower basket that contains less meat and beans than the basket used by wages than three centuries earlier. Abad et al. Turning to human stature, Baten & Blum’s (2013) dataset is dis- It seems extreme poverty was not a normal condition in Latin played on Figure 8 (we calculated the weighted average series with America. Workers in Mexico earned more than double the poverty data from Fink-Jensen, 2015). Our analysis focuses on the three line in the 18th century, while workers in Bolivia and Chile countries that have data for the whole period since the 18th cen- approached similar levels. In fact, Argentinian workers (not dis- tury: Mexico, Peru, and Argentina. Figure 8 confirms that the Bour- played here) enjoyed wages up to 9 times higher than the poverty bon reform period (c. 1750–1810) witnessed a deterioration in line. For the most part, labourers seem to fall below the line in human welfare. In Mexico and Argentina, height began to recover times of severe social distress, including genocide in 16th century following independence in the 1810s, and then surpassed its Mexico (Resendez, 2016; Frank, 1979; Galeano, 1973). Only in mid-18th century level in the 1930s and 1940s. According to the Peru, and to a lesser extent Colombia, did the working class live final birth cohort in this dataset (those born in the 1990s), the peo- in extreme poverty for most of the period in question. There are ple of Peru had not yet recovered from the impacts of Spanish important caveats that need to be kept in mind. The income data imperial exploitation. displayed here is based on arbitrary assumptions about the num- What about mortality? The population of Latin America was ber of days worked and does not account for non-commodity about 40 to 60 million people before 1492, with some estimates incomes or the incomes of women and children. Nevertheless, as high as 100 million (Denevan, 1992, p. 370). After a century of there is no evidence that extreme poverty rates approached 90% genocide, slavery, and disease, that figure was reduced to 4 million in most periods. (Brea, 2003, p. 5). Despite the immigration of European settlers and The data does not support the claim that capitalism delivered enslaved Africans, the population did not recover to its pre-colonial improvements in human welfare. Although pre-Columbian wages level until the early 20th century (ibid). Indeed, there is evidence of are not available, it is clear that the conquest saw a marked reduc- a second major mortality crisis in the late 19th century. Mike Davis tion in human welfare. In the 1520s, Mexican workers subject to records that the shift from subsistence to commodity production in forced labour received only 3% of a subsistence basket, the lowest Brazil’s nordeste region undermined resilience to drought, causing welfare ratio we have found in the literature. After the resulting 2 million deaths from famine (Davis, 2002, p. 7). There may also demographic collapse, wages recovered during the 16th and 17th have been a rise in mortality in Chile at that time. According to Chi- centuries. This trend was reversed during the Bourbon reforms of lean government figures, the death rate increased from around 22 8 D. Sullivan and J. Hickel World Development 161 (2023) 106026 Figure 8. Average adult male height in Latin America, 1740 – 2000. Graph shows selected countries, with the population-weighted average calculated across the whole dataset. Source: Baten & Blum (2013) per 1,000 people in the 1850s to 32 in the 1900s (data from arrangements, were incorporated into the capitalist world- Mitchell, 2013). Assuming this represents an actual increase in system during the ‘scramble for Africa’ in the 1880s (Rodney, deaths rather than an increase in registration, excess mortality 1972, pp. 147–261). between 1860 and 1940 was 1.7 million people (see the discussion Klas Ronnback (2014; 2016), has calculated real wages for in Appendix V). Mortality returned to its 1850 level in the early unskilled labourers in Ghana from 1660 to 1750, while De Zwart 1940s, before declining rapidly throughout the 20th century, et al. (2014) have estimated wages for 35 countries after 1850. Fig- reaching around 5 today (World Bank, 2022). Jean Dreze and ure 9 combines these two datasets. Ronnback’s subsistence basket Amartya Sen (1989, p. 230) attribute this progress to the public is more generous in terms of food than De Zwart et al.’s (it contains provisioning of health care, food, and education, all ‘‘intimately 2,251 calories instead of 1940, and 56 g of protein instead of 40 g). linked with the trade union movement and other forms of political Conversely, De Zwart et al.’s basket contains more fuel than Ronn- activism.” These achievements were undermined by the U.S.- back’s (3mbtu vs 2mbtu). Despite these issues, the baskets are backed Pinochet regime’s neoliberal policies, which caused an broadly similar and can be used to compare human welfare over explosion in unemployment, two recessions, and a stagnation in time.15 life expectancy at age one (ibid., pp. 231–237; see also, Frank, During the 17th and early 18th century, wages in Ghana appear 1976; Klein, 2007, pp. 75–87). It was popular movements pushing to have been higher than the extreme poverty line. Ronnback for distributive justice, not capitalism, that brought progress to argues this is a conservative estimate because African labourers Chile and Latin America. worked shorter days than in other regions, and may have used The historical evidence regarding Latin America does not sup- their time off to earn additional incomes from trading, hunting, port the standard public narrative about global poverty. Extreme farming and fishing: ‘‘Under such an assumption, it would be nec- destitution was not the normal condition of the population. Such essary to revise the estimated subsistence ratio upwards by some conditions were induced by conquest and genocide in the 16th seventy to ninety per cent” (ibid., p. 174). Ghanian incomes in century, during incorporation into the capitalist system. After the 17th century ‘‘might have been on a par with or even higher recovery, unskilled labourers in the 18th century in most countries than those of many North or Central European labourers” (ibid., earned incomes above the extreme poverty line. Thereafter, the p. 174). This changed, however, as Ghana was incorporated into deepening of capitalist trade in the Bourbon period led to a decline the capitalist world-system, with wages declining by 81% from in access to food and other essentials. Progress in human welfare the 1720s to 1860s. Ronnback (2016, pp. 169 – 170) suggests this did not begin until the rise of progressive social movements and decline in human welfare was due to the social and economic dis- state-led industrial policies in the 1940s. locations wrought by the trans-Atlantic slave trade. As African poli- ties were increasingly involved in warfare and slave raiding, prices 3.3. Sub-Saharan Africa rose and refugees fled to coastal cities, putting downward pressure on urban wages. From its base in the 16th century Atlantic, the capitalist world- Wages in Africa generally remained below subsistence during system expanded east, drawing in cheap labour and resources to the 19th century colonial period, but recovered in the 1930s to finance the industrial revolution (Wallerstein, 1989; Beckert, 1950s. These decades saw the rise of the African labour movement 2014; Patnaik, 2018; Cope, 2019). Sub-Saharan Africa was one of (Cooper, 1996), while radical anti-colonial movements, repre- the first regions to be affected. In the 17th century, European sented at the Afro-Asian conferences at Bandung (1955) and Cairo demand for plantation labour caused a rise in slave raiding and (1957), sought to reorganize production around meeting local warfare on the African west coast (Wallerstein, 1989, pp. 164- needs (Prashad, 2007). Ghana’s wage finally surpassed its 1660’s 166, p. 170, pp. 187-188; Law, 1992; Rodney, 1972). These pro- level in the 1950s, corresponding with the rise of the Ghanian inde- cesses accelerated from roughly 1750 to 1850 as the trade in pendence movement, led by the socialist Kwame Nkrumah, which enslaved persons and slave-produced commodities (e.g., palm oil won Africa’s first free election in 1951, followed by full indepen- and peanuts) reached its peak. Wallerstein (1989, pp. 129-189) dence in 1957 (Botwe-Asamoah, 2005, p. 7). Over the next few dec- describes this as the ‘incorporation’ of West Africa into the capital- ist world-system. Those areas, particularly in East and Central 15 Ronnback multiplies monthly earnings by 12 to estimate the annual wage. He Africa, that were less involved in these asymmetrical trade notes this is likely equivalent to about 250 days" (Ronnback 2016, pp. 172-173). 9 D. Sullivan and J. Hickel World Development 161 (2023) 106026 Figure 9. Daily income per person for a family of four, with one family member working 250 days a year as an unskilled urban labourer, decadal averages (1 = extreme poverty line). Graph shows selected countries, with the population-weighted average calculated across the whole dataset. Source: De Zwart et al. (2014); Ronnback (2016); see text and appendix III for details. ades, however, Western states intervened extensively in African not clear, however, whether this represents progress from baseline affairs, undermining newly independent governments. In the conditions or is simply a period of recovery following the low wel- 1960s, the U.S. and Britain cut Ghana off from international finance fare standards that likely arose during the slave trade. After 1850 and drove down the price of Ghana’s main export, cocoa, before the picture becomes more robust. As Figure 10 shows, the late backing a military coup against Nkrumah in 1966 (see, 19th and early 20th century saw a significant decline in human Mwakikagile, 2015; Nkrumah, 1968). Ghana’s welfare ratio height across sub-Saharan Africa. Regression analysis by Baten & dropped from 1.9 in 1960 to 0.4 in 1967. In the Democratic Repub- Maravall (2021) indicates this decline was driven by European lic of Congo, the Prime Minister Patrice Lumumba was assassinated colonialism, likely because land grabs, forced labour programs in a 1961 coup backed by the U.S., Britain, and Belgium, which and diseases impaired local welfare. Figure 10 shows that African brought the Mobutu dictatorship to power (Hickel, 2017: ch. 4). heights did not surpass their 1860 level until the 1950s. During The DRC’s welfare ratio collapsed to 0.07 by 1978. During the the 1970s and 1980s, there was a renewed height decline, as Africa 1980s and 1990s African countries were forced to implement was subject to Western-backed coups and structural adjustment structural adjustment programs by the IMF and World Bank, which programs. According to the population-weighted average series, often caused wages to stagnate or even decline (Chang, 2007; the birth cohort of the 1980s was only half a centimeter taller than Hickel, 2017: ch. 5; see Kenya and Sudan in Figure 9). As of the their ancestors from 1860. In many countries, including Tanzania, 1990s, Ghana’s wage was only 0.2 subsistence baskets higher than South Africa, Mozambique, and Madagascar, human height has 330 years earlier. not yet recovered from the impacts of colonization as of the most Figure 10 shows average adult male height from the birth recent year of data. cohort of the 1780s to the 1980s (data from Baten & Blum, Data on mortality also indicates there was a deterioration in 2013). This data shows an impressive increase to 1850, with the population health during the colonial period. In Mauritius, under population-weighted average rising from 161 cm to 168 cm. It is British rule, deaths per 1,000 people rose from an average of 28.3 Figure 10. Average adult male height in sub-Saharan Africa (1780–1980). Graph shows selected countries, with the population-weighted average calculated across the whole dataset. Source: Baten & Blum (2013). 10 D. Sullivan and J. Hickel World Development 161 (2023) 106026 in the 1870s, to 37.5 in the 1900s (Mitchell, 2013). Unless there Table 2 were anomalies in the rate of registration over time, these figures Population collapse in colonial Central and East Africa, 1890–1920. suggest there were 74,505 excess deaths between 1885 and 1920 Country Occupying Absolute decline Relative (see Appendix V for a full discussion). Meaningful progress against power (millions) decline mortality only began in the 1940s. This coincides with a series of Congo, D. R. Belgium 1.89 19% popular protests, beginning with mass riots by sugar workers in Mozambique Portugal 0.65 15% 1937, which culminated in the rise of the Mauritian Labour Party, Tanzania Germany 0.61 11% Kenya Britain 0.61 14% the extension of the franchise in 1948, and the construction of Afri- Angola Portugal 0.53 16% ca’s first welfare state (Seekings, 2011). Unfortunately, we do not Cameroon Germany 0.51 15% have 19th century mortality figures for any other African countries. Uganda Britain 0.37 10% Nevertheless, estimates of population growth by Frankema & Madagascar France 0.36 12% Malawi Britain 0.32 15% Jerven (2014) affirm there was a serious mortality crisis in colonial Chad France 0.29 15% Central and East Africa during the period of incorporation into the Total 7.24 15% capitalist world-system. Table 2 highlights the 10 worst cases of population collapse, as well as the total across the affected regions. Source: Frankema & Jerven (2014). The evidence does not support the claim that extreme destitu- tion was a universal condition in Africa. In the early 18th century, Ghanian labourers earned more than the extreme poverty line. The Allen (2007) has calculated real wages for the South, West, East, expansion of capitalism, however, caused a collapse in African wel- and North of the Indian subcontinent from the 1590s to 1910s. Fig- fare, first through the slave trade and later through direct coloniza- ure 11 plots the average of these four series. More recently, De tion. While there is some evidence from the height data of progress Zwart et al. (2014) have calculated real wages for five South Asian in the early 19th century, this trend was reversed during the period states from the 1830s to the 2000s. In the period when the two of colonization. The first clear evidence of progress in welfare stan- datasets overlap, de Zwart et al. use Allen’s ’East India’ wage for dards comes in the mid-20th century, with the emergence of anti- Bangladesh. However, they revised down his estimate for the colonial social movements. Republic of India on the basis of new evidence. We have used this data to calculate a population-weighted average series. We also 3.4. South Asia draw on De Zwart & Lucassen (2020), who have estimated the average wage in Northern India, including Bengal, for the period Wallerstein argues the rise of capitalism began to influence 1590 to 1870. It should be noted that while de Zwart et al. and human welfare on the Indian subcontinent from the 17th century. Allen use the same subsistence basket, De Zwart & Lucassen The proliferation of militarized European trading monopolies in include slightly more calories (2,000 vs 1,945), as well as a larger the Indian Ocean led to rising demand for local produce, pushing quantity of non-food items (see Appendix III). up real prices and contributing to social instability (Wallerstein, Figure 11 shows that, prior to colonization, India’s real wage 1989, pp. 177-188; Wallerstein, 1986, pp. 29-30; Ali, 1975). South was generally higher than the extreme poverty line. As with other Asia was then incorporated into the capitalist world-system from regions, this data suggests extreme poverty only arose in times of 1757, when the East India Company (EIC) assumed control of Ben- extreme distress. De Zwart & Lucassen’s series suggests wages fell gal (Wallerstein, 1989, pp. 129-189; Wallerstein, 1986). The colo- below 1 in the 1610s and 1630s, coinciding with the Deccan fam- nial regime used a system of one-sided tariffs to crush Indian ine of 1630–32, possibly the worst famine in Mughal India manufacturing (Tharoor, 2017, pp. 1-35). By purchasing Indian (Attwood, 2005; Winter, Hume, & Leenstra, 2017). In normal times, exports with Indian tax revenues, the colonial regime created a Indian labourers earned more than the extreme poverty line. This drain of surplus to Britain (Patnaik, 2018). How did these social pattern changed, however, as India was forcibly incorporated into transformations impact poverty in India? the capitalist world-system, with wages regularly falling below Figure 11. Daily income per person for a family of four, with one family member working 12 months a year as an unskilled urban labourer, decadal averages (1 = extreme poverty line). Source: De Zwart & Lucassen (2020); De Zwart et al. (2014); Allen (2007) see text and appendix III for discussion. 11 D. Sullivan and J. Hickel World Development 161 (2023) 106026 Figure 12. Average adult male height in South Asia (1840–2000). Source: Clark (2007); Baten & Blum (2013). Table 3 Mortality and longevity in late 19th- and early 20th-century India (compared to early modern England). Life expectancy Crude death rate Excess deaths, millions Excess deaths, millions (years) (per 1,000 people) (normal mortality = India 1880s) (normal mortality = England 16th– 17th century) England 16th–17th c 35.8 27.18 – – India 1881–90 26.7 37.2 – 27 1891–00 22.8 44.6 21 49 1901–10 25.4 39.9 8 37 1911–20 21.9 44.2 21 52 Total – – 50 165 Source: Dyson (2018, pp. 126, 279-280); Wrigley & Schofield (1981, p. 528). subsistence in the 18th and 19th centuries. There was some recov- severe mortality crisis in the late 19th century. Demographers have ery following Indian independence in 1948. The 1950s saw higher used India’s censuses to reconstruct life expectancy and the crude wages than in any decade under British rule (the 1910s are a pos- death rate between 1881 and 1920 (Dyson, 2018, p. 126, p. 279- sible exception, although this is based on only two years of data 280). Table 3 reports this evidence. As Allen has suggested that from Allen’s ’North India’ series). Welfare standards collapsed India’s welfare standards in the 16th century were similar to West- again in the 1960s and 1970s, as the post-colonial state failed to ern Europe’s, for comparison we also include average figures for pursue meaningful land reform or invest in the public distribution England in the 16th- and 17th-century (data from Wrigley & of food and necessities (see, Patnaik, 2007; Dreze & Sen, 1989, pp. Schofield, 1981). Both the English and Indian figures are the results 204-221). Despite a renewed upturn in the 1980s, India’s real wage of modern demographic reconstructions, so changes in the mortal- remained below its 16th and 17th century peaks as late as the ity rate are not affected by changes in the rate of registration. We 2000s. see that in the 1870s India’s crude mortality rate had already risen Baten & Blum’s (2013) height data begins in the 1840s for India, considerably higher than early modern England. The situation after the period of immiseration indicated by the wage data in Fig- deteriorated thereafter, with mortality rising by 19%, and life ure 11. This makes it difficult to assess the impact of capitalism expectancy plummeting to 22 years. If we estimate excess mortal- over the colonial period. Gregory Clark (2007, p. 61) provides esti- ity from 1891 to 1920, with the average death rate of the 1880s as mates of height in India’s ancient Harappa civilization (2000– normal mortality, we find some 50 million people lost their lives 1000BCE), which may give us some indication of pre-colonial wel- under the aegis of British capitalism (see Appendix V for a full dis- fare. Both datasets can be seen on Figure 12. In the 1840s, all coun- cussion).16 But this estimate must be considered conservative. tries had lower heights than the ancient Harappan peoples. Heights India’s 1880s death rate was already very high by international stan- recovered to the 1870s, but then collapsed as British policies led to dards. If we measure excess mortality over England’s 16th- and a series of major famines (Davis, 2002). As of the 2000s, only the 17th-century average death rate, we find 165 million excess deaths Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka has made significant in India between 1880 and 1920 (Appendix V). This figure is larger progress, and returned to the ancient Harappan stature, an than the combined number of deaths from both World Wars, includ- achievement which is attributable to public provisioning systems ing the Nazi holocaust. for food and health care (see, Sen, 1981, p. 301; Dreze & Sen, 1989, pp. 227-229). 16 There is also evidence of a mortality crisis in Sri Lanka at this time. Although It is widely recognized that famine became more regular and government records may be subject to misreporting, it seems that up to 3.56 million deadly under British colonialism than in the Mughal period excess deaths occurred under British colonialism between 1853 and 1946 (evidence (Davis, 2002; Tharoor, 2017). There is evidence of a particularly reviewed in Appendix V). 12 D. Sullivan and J. Hickel World Development 161 (2023) 106026 Figure 13. Daily income per person for a family of four, with one family member working 250 days a year as an unskilled urban labourer (1 = extreme poverty line). Source: Allen, et al. (2011); De Zwart et al., 2014; see text and appendix III for details. Indian life expectancy did not reach the level of early modern (Davis, 2002, p. 295). In addition, British consuls established a England (35.8 years) until 1950, after decolonization.17 The post- ‘‘semi-slave trade” in Chinese indentured servants, relocating independence government succeeded in halting the endemic mass 150,000 people to export-oriented plantations around the world mortality that had prevailed under British rule and delivered sus- (So, 1984, p. 101). tained improvements in life expectancy, climbing to almost 70 years Allen, et al. (2011) estimate welfare ratios for Beijing, Shanghai, today (although, as we will see below, India’s progress has been and Canton from 1730 to 1930. De Zwart et al. (2014) estimate Chi- much slower than in communist China). In light of the wage and na’s real wage from 1820 to 1998. In the period where the two ser- height figures, these improvements probably reflect gains in health ies overlap, de Zwart et al’s series is identical to Allen et al’s data care, rather than improved access to food relative to the pre- for Shanghai, although they interpolate missing years with the colonial situation (see, Patnaik & Patnaik, 2017, p. 117). growth rate from Beijing. These datasets are plotted on Figure 13. Empirical evidence from South Asia does not support the stan- In the early 18th century, Chinese labourers earned around 50% dard public narrative about poverty. From the 16th to early 18th more than the extreme poverty line. Wages declined thereafter, centuries, workers in this region generally had incomes higher particularly in the 19th century as opium imports increased. As than the extreme poverty line. The rise of capitalism and colonial- one European writer commented in 1833, China was experiencing ism brought a decline in real wages and possibly also a decline in a ‘‘steady, non-ceasing impoverishment. . . by the abstraction of the heights. Indeed, there is no substantial evidence of any progress circulating medium [silver]” (quoted in Wong, 1998, p. 374). This in South Asian real wages or heights between the 1590s and the impoverishment escalated markedly following the Opium War 2000s. This is consistent with Allen’s estimates of India’s extreme and the resulting Taiping rebellion. Wages only began to recover poverty rate, outlined in Figure 3. following the Chinese communist revolution in 1949. By 1990, Chi- na’s welfare ratio had risen to almost 5, one of the highest wages in 3.5. China the developing world (De Zwart, et al., 2014). This progress is attri- butable to the robust job security regime implemented by the com- The incorporation of India after 1757 brought the capitalist munist party (the so-called ‘iron rice bowl’), as well as Maoist world-system to China’s border. Control over Indian poppy fields provisioning programs that guaranteed food and other essentials allowed the British colonial regime to illegally traffic opium into at low prices (Dreze & Sen, 1989, pp. 204-225; Li, 2016; Navarro, the Qing empire, reversing the historical outflow of silver from 1993). During the capitalist reforms of the 1990s, when the state Europe to China (Wallerstein, 1986, pp. 32-33; Basu, 1979). By dismantled and privatized China’s public provisioning systems, the early 19th century, China suffered a deflationary trade deficit wages collapsed to a nadir of 2.3 (on the 1990s’ reforms and pov- (So, 1984, pp. 94-98; Wong, 1998, pp. 369-374; Chang, 1964, pp. erty see, Li, 2016, ch. 2). 39-46). Attempts by the Qing state to halt the outflow of silver Figure 14 shows Baten & Blum’s (2013) estimates of human sta- were met with British aggression in the first Opium War (1839 ture in 19th- and 20th-century China. To put these figures in a – 1842), marking the beginning of China’s incorporation into broader historical perspective, we also show adult male height in the capitalist world-system (Wallerstein, 1989, pp. 167-168; see Northern China during the neo-lithic (calculated as the average also, So, 1984; So & Chiu, 1995; Li, 2016). Britain and France of data displayed in Pechenkina et al., 2007, p. 267). We see there imposed ‘unequal treaties’ on the Qing state, forcing it to reduce was a deterioration in human welfare following the Opium Wars, all tariffs to 5%, even though English duties on Chinese tea were with height dropping by 2.2 cm. The stature of the Chinese popu- as high as 100% (So & Chiu, 1995, p. 43; Wong, 1998, p. 343). Chi- lation recovered in the 1930s and 1940s, and then made substan- na’s trade deficit soared. By 1850, 11% of China’s money supply, tial progress following the 1949 communist revolution. and 13% of its silver stock had been drained from the country The available evidence indicates there was a rise in mortality following China’s incorporation into the world capitalist system. 17 According to Zijdeman (2014), life expectancy was 32.6 years in 1941, the final Lee (2014, p. 236) presents a time series of the number of ‘great year of data during the colonial period. The United Nations Population Division puts famines’ per decade from the 1730s to the 1910s. In the 18th the figure at 35.8 in 1950. and early 19th centuries, there were about 1 or 2 major famines 13 D. Sullivan and J. Hickel World Development 161 (2023) 106026 Figure 14. Average adult male height in China (1810–1980). Source: Baten & Blum (2013); Pechenkina et al. (2007). per decade. Yet from the 1840s onward, each decade saw 6 or 7 4. Conclusions and discussion famines. The 1910s saw 5 famines. There seems to have also been a rise in the number of epidemics from about 5 in the 1850s to 20 Proponents of the standard public narrative about the history of in the 1870s (ibid). Population data also points to a mortality crisis. human welfare hold that extreme destitution is a natural condi- From 1852 to 1870, China’s population declined by 18.6%, the lar- tion, which only began to decline with the rise of capitalism. Yet gest drop since the 14th century (Lee & Zhang, 2010, p. 243). In the national accounts data on which this narrative relies cannot absolute terms, China lost 81.9 million people (ibid). legitimately be used to draw these conclusions, and extant data The health of the Chinese population improved markedly from on wages, height, and mortality do not support them. In all of 1950 to 1980. According to Babiarz et al. (2015, p. 39), Maoist the regions reviewed here, fully-employed unskilled labourers in China ‘‘experienced the most rapid sustained increase in life expec- the early 18th century had incomes higher than the extreme pov- tancy of any population in documented global history,” primarily erty line. Far from a normal or natural condition, extreme destitu- because the government expanded public health care and educa- tion is a sign of severe social and economic distress, arising during tion (see also, Dreze & Sen, 1989, pp. 204-225). There was, of periods of upheaval and dislocation such as war, famine, and state course, a mortality crisis during the famine from 1958 to 1961, repression. As for the impact of capitalism on human welfare: data which was induced by a lack of democracy (Dreze & Sen, 1989, on wages, human height and mortality indicate that the rise and pp. 210-215). But outside of those dark years, China experienced expansion of the capitalist world-system from circa 1500 caused exceptionally rapid gains against mortality, with the death rate a decline in nutritional standards and health outcomes. Recovery dropping to 6 per 1,000 by 1978 (World Bank 2022). For perspec- from this prolonged condition of crisis occurred only recently: tive, India and many other low-income capitalist states did not the late 19th century in Northwest Europe and the mid-20th cen- approach this level until the 2010s. As Dreze & Sen (1989, pp. tury in the periphery. 214-215) point out: ‘‘despite the gigantic size of excess mortality If one starts from the assumption that extreme poverty is the in the Chinese famine, the extra mortality in India from regular natural state of humanity, then it may appear as good news that deprivation in normal times vastly overshadows the former. . .. only a fraction of the global population lives in extreme poverty [E]very eight years or so more people die in India because of its today. However, if extreme poverty is a sign of severe social dislo- higher regular death rate than died in China in the gigantic famine cation, relatively rare under normal conditions, then it should con- of 1958–61.” cern us that - despite many instances of progress since the middle China’s rapid progress was reversed somewhat when Deng of the 20th century - such dislocation remains so prevalent under Xiaoping privatized the rural health system and began pursuing contemporary capitalism. Depending on the subsistence basket capitalist reforms. From 1978 to 1984, China’s life expectancy one uses to measure poverty, as of 2008, between 200 million declined by about 6 months, and the infant mortality rate rose and 1.21 billion people live in extreme poverty (Moatsos 2017; from 37 to 50 per 1,000 (Dreze & Sen, 1989, p. 217). Substantial 2021; see also our discussion in Appendix VI).18 While direct com- progress only resumed around 2004, when the government rein- parisons with the wage data are difficult because of the variety of troduced social health insurance and other public programs baskets used, this suggests that under contemporary capitalism hun- (Dreze & Sen, 2013, p. 15, p. 67). dreds of millions of people currently live in conditions comparable to The historical evidence from China does not support the stan- Europe during the Black Death (Figures 4 & 5), the catastrophes dard public narrative about global poverty. Extreme destitution induced by the American genocides (Figure 7) and the slave trade was not natural, but emerged over time, as China was made to serve as an outlet for British opium exports. The expansion of the capitalist world-system did not improve human welfare in China, 18 ILO data on food prices is not available after 2008. This makes Moatsos’ more rather, it ushered in one of largest population declines in history. recent estimates of global poverty unreliable, and we do not report them here. Allen (2020) has used the price information in the International Comparisons Program to Progress began in the 1950s, as the communist government estimate the share of the population living below the BNPL in 145 countries in 2011. invested in public provisioning (Dreze & Sen, 1989, p. 204-225; This data suggests there were at least 1.14 billion people in extreme poverty in that Li, 2016). year. 14 D. Sullivan and J. Hickel World Development 161 (2023) 106026 (Figure 9), or famine-ravaged British India (Figure 11). To the extent Empire was substantially lower than in other times and places, there has been progress against extreme poverty in recent decades, it which they speculate may be due to high inequality, a lack of pub- has generally been slow and shallow. lic services, and the commercialization of Roman agriculture The evidence reviewed here suggests that, where poverty has (Koepke & Baten, 2005, pp. 86-87). Even in Maoist China - where declined, it was not capitalism but rather progressive social move- pro-poor policies significantly reduced deprivation following the ments and public policies, arising in the mid-20th century, that revolution - dictatorship and press-censorship caused millions to freed people from deprivation. While more research is needed to die in the famine of 1958–61 (Dreze & Sen, 1989, pp. 210-215). confirm this point, it is worth noting that these findings are consis- Capitalism is not unique in producing poverty; poverty may result tent with previous studies. Amartya Sen (1981) finds that between from any system where an underclass lacks political and economic 1960 and 1977, the countries that made the strongest achieve- power. It is clear however that the expansion of the capitalist ments in life expectancy and literacy were those that invested in world-system caused a dramatic and prolonged process of impov- public provisioning. Countries governed by communist parties erishment on a scale unparalleled in recorded history. (Cuba, Vietnam, China, etc.) performed exceptionally well, as did It is worth noting that many of the scholars we rely on for data countries with state-led industrial policies (South Korea, Taiwan, attribute the trends outlined here not to the rise of capitalism, but etc.). Similarly, Cereseto and Waitzkin (1986) find that in 1980, to Malthusian population dynamics (e.g., Allen, 2001; Koepke & socialist planned economies performed better on life expectancy, Baten, 2005; Alfani & Gráda, 2018; Abad, Davies, & van Zanden, mean years of schooling, and other social indicators than their cap- 2012; Clark, 2007, 2013; Lee & Zhang, 2010). Some of these schol- italist counterparts at a similar level of economic development. ars use statistical models to demonstrate there is a correlation Navarro (1993) reached similar conclusions: when it comes to life between welfare indicators and population pressure. Yet they expectancy and mortality, Cuba performed considerably better ignore how these dynamics are themselves structured by the than the capitalist states of Latin America, and China performs bet- politico-economic system. From the 16th century, the European ter than India. Navarro also found that, amongst the developed population grew while welfare deteriorated and food access capitalist countries, the social democracies with generous welfare declined. But this must be understood within the context of the states (i.e., Scandinavia) have superior health outcomes to neo- emerging capitalist system. Productive capacities that could have liberal states like the US. Poverty alleviation and gains in human been used to meet people’s needs were instead diverted to service health have historically been linked to socialist political move- elite accumulation. Land that could have been used for food culti- ments and public action, not to capitalism. vation was enclosed and used for other commercial purposes Contrary to claims about extreme poverty being a natural (Moore, 2002; Wallerstein, 1974; Frank, 1978). Furthermore, capi- human condition, it is reasonable to assume that human commu- talist elites seeking to increase the size of their labour force used nities are in fact innately capable of producing enough to meet pro-natalist state policies to prevent women from practicing family their own basic needs (i.e., for food, clothing, and shelter), with planning (Federici, 2004, pp. 88-91). Similar considerations pertain their own labour and with the resources available to them in their to Latin America. Mexican wages fell to subsistence levels in 1800, environment or through exchange. Barring natural disasters, peo- when the population hit 5 million people (Abad et al., 2012, p. ple will generally succeed in this objective. The main exception is 158). But pre-Hispanic Mexico had a population of up to 18 million under conditions where people are cut off from land and commons, people (ibid). If in 1800 the land could only support 5 million at or where their labour, resources and productive capacities are bare subsistence, it was because the colonial economy was geared appropriated by a ruling class or an external imperial power. This towards elite accumulation rather than local food needs. We explains the prevalence of extreme poverty under capitalism. Cap- should not ignore the relationship between population growth italism is a highly productive system, but it is also undemocratic: and ecology, but we must not treat these as operating in a social decisions about what to produce and how to use surplus are deter- and political vacuum (Davis, 2002, pp. 306-310; Kallis, 2019). mined by the few who own and control the means of production To explore this issue further, we can consider the famines that (Chomsky, 2013; Albert, 2003; Wood, 1981). For capital, the pur- occurred during the rise of capitalism. Alfani and Gráda (2018) pre- pose of production is not primarily to meet human needs, as we sent a statistical model demonstrating the occurrence of famine in might expect in a more democratic system, but rather to extract Europe was correlated with population size. They conclude that and accumulate profit. Toward this end, capital seeks to cheapen ‘‘distribution and entitlement issues were not the main cause of inputs – labour and resources – wherever possible, including medieval and early modern famines” (ibid., p. 283). Lee and through enclosure and dispossession, especially in the periphery. Zhang (2010; Lee, 2014) find a similar correlation in pre- The effect is that labour power and resources that could be used revolutionary China and reach similar conclusions. However, these to meet local needs have often been appropriated instead for accu- scholars do not actually demonstrate that these famines resulted mulation, and enclosures have left people vulnerable to market from absolute food scarcities rather than distributional issues, crises and other upheavals they might otherwise be able to which may have been exacerbated by population growth. Indeed, weather. This only began to change when radical social move- the evidence suggests that food output was generally sufficient ments pushed to organize production more around meeting for averting famine in the early modern period. Alfani and Gráda human needs, including through public provisioning (establishing (2018, p. 285) note that in France and Italy, the famine- new commons and social securities) and a fairer distribution of population correlation disappeared around 1710 and 1770, respec- purchasing power. This is a more interesting and nuanced conclu- tively, ‘‘before the onset of sustained [GDP] growth.” They also sion than the standard public narrative allows. acknowledge that ‘‘the early disappearance of famine in certain Capitalism is not the only mode of social organization to have areas” may be linked to ‘‘public and private charity” (ibid., p. historically induced subsistence crises. Figure 5 suggests that Euro- 286). Clearly, if distributional policies rather than growth elimi- pean feudalism culminated in an episode of extreme poverty. Data nated famine, the problem was not an absolute scarcity of food. on wages in 4th century Ancient Rome suggests labourers working Similarly, Lee’s data indicates that during the major famines of 250 days a year lived in extreme poverty, with a welfare ratio of the late 19th century, grain output per capita in China was 0.83 or less (Allen, 2009; Scheidel, 2010). This is consistent with between 190kg and 240kg (Lee, 2014, p. 235). Compare this to Koepke and Baten’s finding that human height in the Roman post-colonial India, where from 1951 to 2001 per capita food- 15 D. Sullivan and J. Hickel World Development 161 (2023) 106026 grain supply averaged only 189kg (Patnaik, 2004, pp. 20-21), and References yet the country did not experience mass famine (Dreze & Sen 1989).19 This suggests that 19th-century China had sufficient food Abad, L. A., Davies, E., & van Zanden, J. L. (2012). Between conquest and independence: Real wages and demographic change in Spanish America, to avert mass famine. This did not occur because the British- 1530–1820. Explorations in Economic History, 49(2), 149–166. imposed drain on China ‘‘accelerated the decline of the ‘ever- Albert, M. (2003). Parecon: Life After Capitalism. London: Verso. normal’ granaries that were the [Qing] empire’s first-line of defense Alfani, G., & Gráda, C. Ó. (2018). The timing and causes of famines in Europe. Nature Sustainability, 1, 283–288. against drought and flood” (Davis, 2002, p. 12). The Chinese popula- Ali, M. A. (1975). The Passing of Empire: The Mughal Case. Modern Asian Studies, 9 tion starved not because the landmass was too small for its needs, (3), 385–396. but because the landmass was called upon to service an expanding Allen, R. C. (2001). The great divergence in European wages and prices from the middle ages to the first world war. Explorations in Economic History, 38, capitalist world-system. 411–447. A limitation of this study is that the consumer baskets upon Allen, R. C. (2007). India in the Great Divergence. In T. J. Hatton, K. H. O’Rourke, & A. which ‘welfare ratios’ are based include only a limited number of M. Taylor (Eds.), The New Comparative Economic History: Essays in Honour of goods. In reality, the goods available have changed over time, Jeffrey G. Williamson (pp. 9–32). Cambridge: the MIT Press. Allen, R. C. (2009). ‘How Prosperous were the Romans? Evidence from and people now have access to vaccines, household durables, and Diocletian’s Price Edict (AD 301). In A. Bowan & A. Wilson (Eds.), Quantifying other appliances that did not exist in the past. This is unlikely to the Roman Economy: Methods and Problems (pp. 327–345). Oxford University be relevant prior to de-colonization. We have seen that during Press. Allen, R. C., Bassino, J.-P., Debin, M., Mollmurata, C., & van Zanden, J. L. (2011). the colonial period mortality generally increased, indicating there Wages, prices, and living standards in China, 1738–1925: In comparison with was no improvement in access to health care. But it is plausible Europe, Japan, and India. The Economic History Review, 64(1), 8–38. that after 1950 the subsistence basket fails to account for access Allen, R. C. (2015). The high wage economy and the industrial revolution: A restatement. Economic History Review, 68(1), 1–22. to new goods among the poor. Post-colonial South Asia has experi- Allen, R. C. (2017). Absolute poverty: When necessity displaces desire. American enced improvement in longevity, despite stagnant welfare ratios. Economic Review, 107(12), 3690–3721. Nevertheless, we maintain that the trend in access to food is Allen, R. C. (2020). Poverty and the Labor market: Today and yesterday. Annual Review of Economics, 12, 107–134. important. If a modern wage can purchase no more food than Allen, R. C., Murphy, T. E., & Schneider, E. B. (2012). The colonial origins of the wages from 400 years ago, something has clearly gone wrong, even divergence in the Americas: A labor market approach. The Journal of Economic if there have been gains in medical care or information technology. History, 72(4), 863–894. Amin, S. (1976). Unequal Development: An Essay on the Social Formations of Peripheral ‘Welfare ratios’ bring our attention to a worker’s ability to meet Capitalism, tr. B. Pearce. Sussex: The Harvester Press. their most basic needs. If these basic capabilities deteriorated dur- Attwood, D. W. (2005). Big is ugly? How large-scale institutions prevent famines in ing the rise of capitalism, and if up to a billion people today have Western India. World Development, 33(12), 2067–2083. lower real incomes in terms of access to food than 16th-century Babiarz, K. S., Eggleston, K., Miller, G., & Zhang, Q. (2015). An exploration of China’s mortality decline under Mao: A provincial analysis, 1950–1980. Population labourers, it is reasonable to conclude that the world capitalist sys- Studies, 69(1), 39–56. tem as such has failed to deliver meaningful progress against Basu, D. K. (1979). The Peripheralization of China: Notes on the Opium Connection. extreme poverty. In W. L. Goldfrank (Ed.), The World-System of Capitalism: Past and Present (pp. 171–187). Beverly Hills: Sage Publications. Baten, J., & Komlos, J. (1998). Height and the Standard of Living. The Journal of CRediT authorship contribution statement Economic History, 58(3), 866–870. Baten, J., & Blum, M. (2012). Growing tall but unequal: new findings and new background evidence on anthropometric welfare in 156 countries, 1810–1989. Dylan Sullivan: Conceptualization, Data curation, Visualization, Economic History of Developing Regions, 27(51). Writing – original draft, Writing – review & editing. Jason Hickel: Baten, J., & Blum, M., (2013) ‘Male height equivalent in cm,’ Clio-Infra, https://clio- infra.eu/Indicators/Height.html. Conceptualization, Supervision, Visualization, Writing – original Baten, J., & Maravall, L. (2021). The influence of colonialism on Africa’s welfare: An draft, Writing – review & editing. anthropometric study. Journal of Comparative Economics, 49(3), 751–775. Beckert, S. (2014). Empire of cotton: A global history. Vintage. Bolt, J., & van Zanden, J.L., (2020), ‘Maddison style estimates of the evolution of the Declaration of Competing Interest world economy. A new 2020 update,’ Maddison-Project Working Paper WP-15, accessed 12 September 2021, https://www.rug.nl/ggdc/ The authors declare that they have no known competing finan- historicaldevelopment/maddison/publications/wp15.pdf. Botwe-Asamoah, K. (2005). Kwame Nkrumah’s politico-cultural thought and policies: cial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared an African-centrered paradigm for the second phase of the African revolution. New to influence the work reported in this paper. York: Routledge. Bourguignon, F., & Morrisson, C. (2002). Inequality among World Citizens: 1820– 1992. The American Economic Review, 92(4), 727–744. Acknowledgements: Braudel, F. (1981). Civilization and capitalism: 15th – 18th century, vol. 1, The structures of everyday life, tr. S. Reynolds. London: William Collins Sons & Co. We would like to thank Michail Moatsos for his insightful com- Brea, J. A. (2003). Population Dynamics in Latin America. Population Bullettin, 58(1), 3–35. ments on an early draft of this paper, along with the three anony- Broadberry, S., Campbell, B. M. S., Klein, A., Overton, M., & Leeuwen, B. V. (2015). In mous reviewers whose comments and suggestions greatly British economic growth: 1270-1870. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. improved its quality. Any errors remain our own. Jason Hickel’s Calder, B. J. (1984). The impact of intervention: The Dominican Republic during the U.S. work contributes to the ICTA-UAB María de Maeztu Unit of Excel- Occupation of 1916–1924. Austin: University of Texas Press. Cereseto, S., & Waitzkin, H. (1986). Economic development, political-economic lence (CEX2019–374 000940-M) programme from the Spanish system, and the physical quality of life. American Journal of Public Health, 76(6), Ministry of Science and Innovation. 661–666. Challu, A. E., & Gomez-Galvarriato, A. (2015). Mexico’s real wages in the age of the great divergence, 1730–1930. Revista de Historia Economica - Journal of Iberian Appendix A. Supplementary data and Latin American Economic History, 33(1), 83–122. Chang, H.-J. (2007). Bad Samaritans: the myth of free trade and the secret history of capitalism. Bloomsbury Press. Supplementary data to this article can be found online at Chang, H.-P. (1964). Commissioner Lin and the opium war. Cambridge: Harvard https://doi.org/10.1016/j.worlddev.2022.106026. University Press. Chomsky, N. (1987). Turning the tide: the U.S. and Latin America (2nd edition). 19 Montreal: Black Rose Books. These figures represent total grain output plus net imports minus net additions to Chomsky, N. (2013). On anarchism. The New Press. government stocks. Patnaik’s original figures were also net of seed, feed and wastage. Clark, G. (2007). A farewell to alms: A brief economic history of the world. Princeton: Since the figures for 19th-century China do not appear to exclude these, we divided Princeton University Press. the Indian figures by (7/8), under the assumption that net grain availability is equal to Clark, G., Cummins, J., & Smith, B. (2012). Malthus, wages, and preindustrial growth. seven eighths of gross availability (see, the note in Patnaik, 2004, p. 19). The Journal of Economic History, 72(2), 364–392. 16 D. Sullivan and J. Hickel World Development 161 (2023) 106026 Clark, G. (2013). 1381 and the Malthus delusion. Explorations in Economic History, Hilton, R. (1973). Bond men made free: Medieval peasant movements and the English 50, 4–15. rising of 1381. Temple Smith. Clark, G., & McComb, M. (2018). Before the Dawn: English Medieval Living Standards Hitchcock, D., & McClure, J. (2021). Introduction: Poverty in early modern history. In and Malthusian Doctrine. The New Malthusianism: A Symposium at the D. Hitchcock & J. McClure (Eds.), The Routledge history of poverty, c.1450-1800 University of Cambridge. http://humanniche.ch/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/ (pp. xvi–xxvii). Routledge. Clark_Before-the-Dawn.pdf. Hochschild, A. (1998). King Leopold’s ghost: A story of greed, terror, and heroism in Cohn, S. K. (2006). Lust for liberty: The politics of social revolt in medieval Europe, Colonial Africa. Houghton Mifflin. 1200–1425: Italy, France, and Flanders. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. Kallis, G. (2019). Limits: Why Malthus was wrong and why environmentalists should Cooper, F. (1996). Decolonization and African society: The labor question in French and care. Stanford: Stanford University Press. British Africa. Cambridge University Press. Kikstra, J. S., Mastrucci, A., Min, J., Riahi, K., & Rao, N. D. (2021). Decent living gaps Cope, Z. (2019). The wealth of (some) nations: imperialism and the mechanics of value and energy needs around the world. Environmental Research Letters, 16(9). transfer. London: Pluto Press. Klein, N. (2007). The shock doctrine: The rise of disaster capitalism. Metropolitan Davis, M. (2002). Late Victorian holocausts: El Nino famines and the making of the third Books. world. London: Verso Books. Koepke, N., & Baten, J. (2005). The biological standard of living in Europe during the Denevan, W. M. (1992). The pristine myth: the landscape of the Americas in 1492. last two millennia. European Review of Economic History, 9(1), 61–95. Annals of the Association of American Geographers, 82(3), 369–385. Kristof, N. (2019). This has been the best year ever: For humanity over all, life just keeps de Waal, A. (2018). Mass starvation: The history and future of famine. Polity Press. getting better. The New York Times https://www.nytimes.com/2019/12/28/ De Zwart, P., van Leeuwen, B., & van Leeuwen-Li, J. (2014). Real wages since 1820. In opinion/sunday/2019-best-year-poverty.html. van Zanden et al. (Eds.), How Was Life? Global Wellbeing since 1820 (pp. 73–86). LaFaber, W. (1993). Inevitable Revolutions: The United States in Central America. New OECD Publishing. York: Norton & Company. De Zwart, P., & van Zanden, J. L (2015). Labor, wages, and living standards in Java, Lauesen, T. (2021). Riding the Wave: Sweden’s Integration into the Imperialist World 1680-1914. European Review of Economic History, 19(3), 215–234. System. Kersplebedeb Publishing. De Zwart, P., & Lucassen, J. (2020). Poverty or prosperity in northern India? New Law, R. (1992). Warfare on the West African Slave Coast, 1650-1850. In R. B. evidence on real wages, 1590s–1870s. The Economic History Review, 73(3), Ferguson & N. L. Whitehead (Eds.), War in the tribal zone: expanding states and 644–667. indigenous warfare (pp. 103–126). School of American Research Press. Deaton, A. (2001). Counting the world’s poor: problems and possible solutions. The Lee, H. F., & Zhang, D. D. (2010). Changes in climate and secular population cycles in World Bank Research Observer, 16(2), 125–147. China, 1000 CE to 1911. Climate Research, 42, 235–246. Deng, K., & O’Brien, P. K. (2018). The tyranny of numbers: Are there acceptable data Lee, H. F. (2014). Climate-induced agricultural shrinkage and overpopulation in late for nominal and real wages for pre-modern China? In J. Hatcher & J. Z. imperial China. Climate Research, 59, 229–242. Stephenson (Eds.), Seven centuries of unreal wages: The unreliable data, sources Lena, H. F., & London, B. (1993). The political and economic determinants of health and methods that have been used for measuring standards of living in the past outcomes: A cross-national analysis. International Journal of Health Services, 23 (pp. 71–94). Palgrave Macmillan. (3), 585–602. Dreze, J., & Sen, A. (1989). Hunger and public action. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Li, M. (2008). The rise of China and the demise of the capitalist world economy. London: Dreze, J., & Sen, A. (2013). An uncertain glory: India and its contradictions. Princeton: Pluto Press. Princeton University Press. Li, M. (2016). China and the twenty-first-century crisis. London: Pluto Press. Dunaway, W. A. (2010). Nonwaged peasants in the modern world-system: African Livingstone, G. (2009). America’s Backyard: The United States and Latin America from households as dialectical units of capitalist exploitation and indigenous the Monroe doctrine to the war on terror. London: Zed Books. resistance, 1890-1930. The Journal of Philosophical Economics, IV(1), 19–57. Luxemburg, R. (1913). The accumulation of capital: A contribution to an economic Dyer, C. (2015). A Golden Age Rediscovered: Labourers’ Wages in the Fifteenth explanation of imperialism. Routledge. Century. In M. Allen & D. Coffman (Eds.), Money, Prices and Wages: Essays in Lynch, J. (1986). The Spanish American revolutions, 1808–1826 (2nd edition). New Honour of Professor Nicholas Mayhew (pp. 180–195). Palgrave Macmillan. York: W. W. Norton & Company. Dyson, T. (2018). A population history of India: from the first modern people to the Maddison, A. (1985). Alternative estimates of the real product of India, 1900-46. The present day. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Indian Economic and Social History Review, 22(2), 201–210. Edward, P. (2006). The ethical poverty line: A moral quantification of absolute Maddison, A. (1995). Monitoring the world economy. Paris: OECD. poverty. Third World Quarterly, 27(2), 377–393. Marx, K. (1867). Capital: A critique of political economy, Volume I: The process of Federici, S. (2004). Caliban and the Witch. Brooklyn: Autonomedia. production of capital. Progress Publishers. Ferreira, F. et al. (2015). A Global Count of the Extreme Poor in 2012: Data Issues, Mitchell, B. R. (2013). International historical statistics (online edition). London: Methodology and Initial Results. In Policy Research Working Paper, No. 7432. Palgrave Macmillan. Washington: World Bank. https://openknowledge.worldbank.org/handle/ Moatsos, M. (2017). Global absolute poverty: Behind the veil of dollars. Journal of 10986/22854. Globalization and Development, 7(2). Fink-Jensen, J. (2015) ‘Total Population,’ Clio-Infra, https://clio-infra.eu/Indicators/ Moatsos, M. (2021). Global extreme poverty: Present and past since 1820. In OECD TotalPopulation.html (Ed.), How Was Life? Volume II: New Perspectives on Well-being and Global Frank, A. G. (1967). Capitalism and underdevelopment in Latin America: Historical Inequality since 1820 (pp. 186–215). OECD Publishing. studies of Chile and Brazil. New York: Monthly Review Press. Mocarelli, L. (2018). What is wrong with the history of wages: Or the divide in Frank, A. G. (1976). Economic genocide in Chile: Monetarist theory versus humanity. economic history – A reappraisal suggested by eighteenth-century Milan. In J. Spokesman Books. Hatcher & J. Z. Stephenson (Eds.), Seven centuries of unreal wages: The unreliable Frank, A. G. (1978). World accumulation: 1492–1789. Basingstoke: Macmillan Press. data, sources and methods that have been used for measuring standards of living in Frank, A. G. (1979). Mexican agriculture, 1521–1630: transformation of the mode of the past (pp. 95–116). Palgrave Macmillan. production. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Moore, J. W. (2002). The crisis of feudalism: An environmental history. Organization Frankema, E., & Jerven, M. (2014). Writing history backwards or sideways: Towards & Environment, 15(3), 301–322. a consensus on African population, 1850–2010. The Economic History Review, 67 Moore, J. W. (2003). Nature and the transition from feudalism to capitalism. Review (4), 907–931. (Fernand Braudel Center), 26(2), 97–172. Galeano, E. (1973). Open Veins of Latin America: Five Centuries of the Pillage of a Moore, J. W. (2010a). ‘‘Amsterdam is standing on Norway” part II: The global north Continent, tr. C. Belfrage. New York: Monthly Review Press. Atlantic in the ecological revolution of the long seventeenth century. Journal of Geary, D. (1981). European labour protest, 1848–1939. St. Martin’s Press. Agrarian Change, 10(2), 188–227. Hammond, A. (2017). The World’s Poorest People Are Getting Richer Faster than Moore, J. W. (2010b). ‘‘Amsterdam is Standing on Norway’ Part I: The Alchemy of Anyone Else. FEE Stories. https://fee.org/articles/the-worlds-poorest-people-are- Capital, Empire and Nature in the Diaspora of Silver, 1545–1648. Journal of getting-richer-faster-than-anyone-else/. Agrarian Change, 10(1), 33–68. Hatcher, J. (2011). Unreal wages: Long-run living standards and the ‘‘golden age” of Mwakikagile, G. (2015). Western involvement in Nkrumah’s downfall. Dar es Salaam: the fifteenth century. In B. Dodds & C. D. Liddy (Eds.), Commercial activity, New Africa Press. markets and entrepreneurs in the middle ages (pp. 1–24). Woodbridge: The Navarro, V. (1993). Has socialism failed? An analysis of health indicators under Boydell Press. capitalism and socialism. Science & Society, 57(1), 6–30. Hatcher, J. (2018). Seven Centuries of Unreal Wages. In J. Hatcher & J. Z. Stephenson Nkrumah, K. (1968). Dark days in Ghana. London: Lawrence & Wishart. (Eds.), Seven centuries of unreal wages: The unreliable data, sources and methods Patnaik, U. (2004). The republic of hunger. Social Scientist, 32(9), 9–35. that have been used for measuring standards of living in the past (pp. 15–70). Patnaik, P. (2007). Jawaharlal Nehru and the formation of the post-colonial state. Palgrave Macmillan. Contemporary Perspectives: The History and Sociology of South Asia, 1(1), 17–32. Heston, A. (1983). National Income. In Kumar, D., & Desai, M. (Eds.), The Cambridge Patnaik, U., & Patnaik, P. (2017). A theory of imperialism. New York: Cambridge Economic History of India, Volume 2: c. 1757 - c. 1970 (pp. 376-462). Cambridge: University Press. Cambridge University Press. Patnaik, U. (2018). Revisiting the ’drain’, or transfers from India to Britain in the Hickel, J. (2017). The divide: A brief guide to global inequality and its solutions. London: context of global diffusion of capitalism. In S. Chakrabarti & U. Patnaik (Eds.), Penguin Random House. Agrarian and other histories: essays for Binay Bhushan Chaudhuri (pp. 277–317). Hickel, J., Sullivan, D., & Zoomkawala, H. (2021). Plunder in the Post-Colonial Era: New Delhi: Tulika Books. quantifying drain from the global South through unequal exchange, 1960 – Pechenkina, E. A., Benfer, R. A., Jr., & Ma, X. (2007). Diet and Health in the Neolithic 2018. New Political Economy, 26(6), 1030–1047. of the Wei and Middle Yellow River Basins, Northern China. In M. N. Cohen & G. Hickman, J. (2019). Major famines as geopolitical strategies. Comparative Strategy, M. M. Crane-Kramer (Eds.), Ancient Health: Skeletal Indicators of Agricultural and 38(3), 224–233. Economic Intensification (pp. 225–272). Gainesville: University Press of Florida. 17 D. Sullivan and J. Hickel World Development 161 (2023) 106026 Pelz, W. A. (2016). A people’s history of modern Europe. London: Pluto Press. So, A. Y., & Chiu, S. W. K. (1995). East Asia and the world economy. Thousand Oaks: Pinker, S. (2018). Enlightenment now: The case for reason, science, humanism, and Sage Publications. progress. New York: Penguin Books. Stephenson, J. Z. (2018). The pay of labourers and unskilled men on London building Porter, D. (1999). Health, civilization and the state: A history of public health from sites, 1650 – 1770. In J. Hatcher & J. Z. Stephenson (Eds.), Seven centuries of ancient to modern times. London: Routledge. unreal wages: The unreliable data, sources and methods that have been used for Prashad, V. (2007). The darker nations: A people’s history of the third world. New York: measuring standards of living in the past (pp. 143–164). Palgrave Macmillan. The New Press. Szreter, S. (1997). Economic growth, disruption, deprivation, disease and death: on Radelet, S. (2015). The great surge: The ascent of the developing world. Simon & the importance of public health for development. Population Development Schuster. Review, 23(4), 693–728. Ravallion, M. (2003). Measuring aggregate welfare in developing countries: How Szreter, S. (2003). The population health approach in historical perspective. well do national accounts and surveys agree? The Review of Economics and American Journal of Public Health, 93(3), 421–431. Statistics, 85(3), 645–652. Tharoor, S. (2017). Inglorious empire: What the British did to India. Melbourne: Scribe. Ravallion, M. (2016). The economics of poverty: History, measurement, and policy. U.S. Bureau of Labour Statistics. (2020). ‘BLS Data Finder: Consumer Price Index – Oxford University Press. Average Price Data,’ Washington DC https://beta.bls.gov/dataQuery/find? Reddy, S. G., & Pogge, T. (2010). How Not to Count the Poor. In S. Anand, P. Segal, & J. fq=survey:[ap]&s=popularity:D (accessed November 2020). E. Stiglitz (Eds.), Debates on the Measurement of Global Poverty (pp. 42–85). Vásquez, I. (2001). Ending Mass Poverty. Cato Institute https://www.cato. Oxford University Press. org/commentary/ending-mass-poverty. Resendez, A. (2016). The other slavery: The uncovered story of Indian enslavement in van Zanden, J. L. et al. (2014). Global well-being since 1820. In J. L. van Zanden et al. America. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. (Eds.), How Was Life? Global Wellbeing since 1820 (pp. 23–36). OECD Publishing. Rock, D. (Ed.). (1994). Latin America in the 1940s: War and Postwar Transitions. Wagstaff, A. (2003). Child health on a dollar a day: Some tentative cross-country University of California Press. comparisons. Social Science and Medicine, 57(9), 1529–1538. Rodney, W. (1972). How Europe underdeveloped Africa. Howard University Press. Wallerstein, I. (1974). The Modern World-System, vol. I, Capitalist Agriculture and the Ronnback, K. (2014). Living standards on the pre-colonial Gold Coast: A quantitative Origins of the European World-Economy in the Sixteenth Century. Academic Press. estimate of African laborers’ welfare ratios. European Review of Economic Wallerstein, I. (1980). The Modern World-System, vol. II, Mercantilism and the History, 18, 185–202. Consolidation of the European World-Economy, 1600 - 1750. Academic Press. Ronnback, K. (2016). Labour and living standards in pre-colonial West Africa: The case Wallerstein, I. (1983). Historical capitalism with capitalist civilization. London: Verso. of the gold coast (Kindle edition). Abingdon: Routledge. Wallerstein, I. (1986). Incorporation of Indian subcontinent into capitalist world- Rosling, H., Rosling, O., & Rosling-Ronnlund, A. (2018). Factfulness: Ten reasons we’re economy. Economic and Political Weekly, 21(4), 28–39. wrong about the world – and why things are better than you think. Sceptre. Wallerstein, I. (1989). The Modern World-System, vol. III, The Second Era of Great Sachs, J. D. (2005). Can extreme poverty be eliminated? Scientific American, 293(3), Expansion of the Capitalist World-Economy, 1730s-1840s. Academic Press. 56–65. Watson, M. (2017). Historicizing Ricardo’s comparative advantage theory, Scheidel, W. (2010). Real wages in early economies: Evidence for living standards challenging the normative foundations of liberal International Political from 1800 BCE to 1300 CE. Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Economy. New Political Economy, 22(3), 257–272. Orient, 53, 425–462. Winter, R., Hume, J. P., & Leenstra, M. (2017). A famine in Surat in 1631 and dodos Schmidt, H. (1971). The United States Occupation of Haiti, 1915–1934. New on Mauritius: A long lost manuscript rediscovered. Archives of Natural History, Brunswick: Rutgers University Press. 44(1), 134–150. Seekings, J. (2011). British colonial policy, local politics, and the origins of the Wong, J. Y. (1998). Deadly dreams: Opium, imperialism, and the arrow war (1856– Mauritian welfare state, 1936–50. Journal of African History, 52, 157–177. 1860) in China. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Sen, A. (1981). Public action and the quality of life in developing countries. Oxford Wood, E. M. (1981). The separation of the economic and the political in capitalism. Bulletin of Economics and Statistics, 43(4), 287–319. New Left Review, 127, 66–95. Sen, A. (1983). Poor, relatively speaking. Oxford Economic Papers, 35(2), 153–169. Wood, E. M. (1999). The origin of capitalism: A longer view (2017 edition). London: Sen, A. (1998). Mortality as an indicator of economic success and failure. The Verso. Economic Journal, 108(446), 1–25. World Bank (2021) PovcalNet: the on-line tool for poverty measurement developed Sen, A. (1999). Development as Freedom. Oxford University Press. by the Development Research Group of the World Bank. Available from: http:// Sivasubramonian, S. (2000). The national income of India in the twentieth century. iresearch.worldbank.org/PovcalNet/povDuplicateWB.aspx. New Delhi: Oxford University Press. World Bank (2022), Death Rate, Crude (per 1,000 people), DataBank, Smith [1776], A. (1937). An inquiry into the nature and causes of the wealth of nations. https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SP.DYN.CDRT.IN. New York: Random House. Wrigley, E. A., & Schofield, R. S. (1981). The population history of England, 1541–1871: Smith, P. C. (1978). Crisis mortality in the nineteenth century Philippines: Data from A reconstruction. London: Edward Arnold. parish records. The Journal of Asian Studies, 38(1), 51–76. Zijdeman, R. (2014). Period Life Expectancy at birth for total population. https://clio- So, A. Y. (1984). ‘The process of incorporation into the capitalist world-system: the infra.eu/Indicators/LifeExpectancyatBirthTotal.html. case of China in the nineteenth century. Review (Fernand Braudel Center), 8(1), 91–116. 18