On intermediate cases and spontaneous growth. The workers of the Girona Region

Abstract

The demographic growth of the 18th century in many areas of Catalonia meant, above all, a significant increase in the population of the humblest socials groups. This is the case of the Girona, a region that corresponds with the idea of the intermediary case of Pierre Vilar, and where the most spectacular increase occurred among so-called agricultural workers. But the increasing number of members of this group, many of whom were labelled as artisans at the end of the century, did not produce a process of proletarization. The case of workers from the Girona region is a good example of an unforeseen and surprising historical result of an unplanned process, which allows the author of the work to bring up another of Vilar’s ideas: the spontaneous elements, not always easily detected, of some processes of economic growth.