page_title: History of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth (1764–1795)
section_title: Revitalized economy, serfdom, agricultural rent and hired labor
hierarchical_section_title: History of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth (1764–1795) / Economic transformations and beginnings of capitalist development / Revitalized economy, serfdom, agricultural rent and hired labor
context_page_description: The History of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth (1764–1795) is concerned with the final decades of existence of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth. The period, during which the declining state pursued wide-ranging reforms and was subjected to three partitions by the neighboring powers, coincides with the election and reign of the federation's last king, Stanisław August Poniatowski.
  During the later part of the 18th century, the Commonwealth attempted fundamental internal reforms. The reform activity provoked hostile reaction and eventually military response on the part of the surrounding states. The second half of the century brought improved economy and significant growth of the population. The most populous capital city of Warsaw replaced Danzig as the leading trade center, and the role of the more prosperous urban strata was increasing. The last decades of the independent Commonwealth existence were characterized by intense reform movements and far-reaching progress in the areas of education, intellectual life, arts and sciences, and especially toward the end of the period, evolution of the social and political system.
context_section_description: Commencing primarily in the second half of the 18th century, the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth experienced economic transformations, which culminated in the formation of a capitalist system a century later. The more advanced West European countries were a source of examples of economic progress and formulated the ideology of Enlightenment, which provided theoretical foundations for the Polish undertakings. Industrial development, population growth and frequent warfare in the West increased the demand for agricultural products, which resulted in improved, for the agriculture-dominated Commonwealth, market situation: from the 1760s prices kept growing for farm and forest products imported from the East. The Commonwealth's grain exports reached again the high levels of the early 17th century. The internal market for produce was making gradual progress as well, because of increasing population of towns and because of urban people abandoning the agricultural labor market, which many of them had joined in times of high economic stress. Agricultural producers were able again to invest in their trade.
  Despite these favorable conditions, the degree of the economic change and whether it had reached a turning point is a matter of dispute. The Commonwealth started from a very low level of economic activity early in the 18th century and its rate of growth remained less than half of that of highly developed countries, such as England or France. The relative economic backwardness had therefore remained and was one of the underlying reasons for the political and military weakness of the state.
  Because of conservative resistance to changes, despite a multitude of self-help books available, agricultural economy and agrarian social relations were changing slowly. Potato cultivation was becoming more common first in Silesia and Pomerania. More typically agricultural improvements were being introduced in the western provinces of the Commonwealth, Greater Poland and Pomerelia (Gdańsk Pomerania), but overall grain yields had not yet reached the productivity of the Renaissance economy.
  Enlightenment political and economic publicists had become preoccupied with promoting fundamental alteration of social aspects of agricultural production, in particular with serfdom and the necessity of its reform. Insufficient productivity and quality of output of folwark enterprises was increasingly forcing their szlachta operators to supplant or supplement the overburdened serf labor with agricultural hired work force and rent of farmland.
  A pool of agricultural laborers, the "loose" people, often subjected to restrictions, were in demand and enticed by published wage tariffs in times of labor shortages. Feudal rent offered enterprising peasants more independence and ability to get ahead, if fees were reasonable. Such alternative arrangements were practiced in a minority of landed estates, most often in the western provinces of the Commonwealth. Oppressive serfdom had remained the dominant form of agricultural production throughout the vast ranges of Poland and Lithuania.
caption: Andrzej Zamoyski, Grand Chancellor of the Crown, pioneered replacement of serfdom with agricultural rent in his estates
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