On the Origins of Western Freedom and Development

This chapter focuses on the historical relationship between Western slavery, Western freedom, and Western development. It notes the silence of economic historians on the question and then evaluates the hypotheses found in the writings of sociologist Orlando Patterson. Preliminary data suggest that freedom from slavery spread in Western Europe during the marriage of church and state in the Carolingian Empire (circa 751-935 AD), and was declared sinful among Christians throughout Christendom beginning in the thirteenth century, precisely when European economies started their long march to the Industrial Revolution. Within Christendom, the practice of ransoming prisoners, rather than enslaving them, became so “democratized” that many recruits could essentially insure against slaughter or the permanence of capture. Outside Christendom, slave trading and slavery flourished, especially in the Atlantic. Western European Empires (the Dutch, English, French, and Spanish) had the best of both worlds: freedom dividends at home fed by the products of slaves exploited offshore.