Natural Rights Were Not a Gift from Heaven… Freedom Was Invented by Lowly Slaves [Book]

A mainstream account of the history of the idea of ‘freedom,’ shaped around Western civilization, goes roughly like this. Its origins lie in Ancient Greece, where citizens decided policy through popular assemblies, selected officials by lot and election, and even took part in trials as jurors.

Later, the Reformation in the 16th century weakened the authority of the church and elevated individual faith and conscience. In 17th-century England, the Bill of Rights began to limit royal power through Parliament and the law. After the French Revolution, the modern concept of freedom took shape around individual rights and democratic political participation.

If you know Western history, this explanation sounds familiar, but it is not entirely satisfying. How was the freedom enjoyed by citizens in Greece created? And before the 16th century, were freedom and liberty simply absent from Roman and medieval Europe?

To answer that question, Orlando Patterson, a leading historical sociologist and John Cowles Professor of Sociology at Harvard University, turned his attention to slavery in Western civilization. He argued that free people came to value freedom only by contrasting themselves with slaves, and that the concept of freedom was historically formed as ruling classes strengthened or relaxed slavery in response to resistance from below or to political and economic needs. His 1991 book, ‘Freedom in the Making,’ which presents this argument, has now been translated and published in Korea. Let us step inside the book.

In early Greece, from the 8th to 6th centuries B.C., when the poleis were growing, poor farmers in Athens often became slaves. If they could not repay debts owed to aristocrats or wealthy landowners, they could be enslaved by creditors or sold abroad. Along with the risk of being enslaved in a foreign land after a military defeat, the fear that a free person could fall into slavery within the same community fueled a longing for freedom. As social conflict intensified, Solon, the Athenian archon in the 6th century, abolished debt slavery. He did not, however, abolish slavery for prisoners of war or outsiders.

Labor was then increasingly supplied by slaves brought in from outside. After the reforms of Cleisthenes, who succeeded Solon, citizens enjoyed not only personal freedom but also civic freedom, including the right to elect officials and participate in the assembly and the courts. They no longer had to fear becoming slaves because of debt, and they could take part in governance alongside the aristocrats. But the freedom enjoyed by Athenian citizens did not come for free. Behind it stood outsider slaves, whose numbers kept growing as scapegoats.

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The author also closely traces evidence that slavery helped shape the idea of freedom in Rome. Roman society, too, depended on slaves to provide labor, but its crucial difference from Greece was that it institutionalized manumission. In the Roman economy, slaves worked across a wide range of fields, including crafts, trade, and commerce. If the master agreed, a slave could be freed, and the more capable the slave, the more advantageous it was to make that person free. As a free person, the former slave could engage more actively in economic life and cooperate with the former master to create greater wealth.

Rome also granted ‘full citizenship’ to the children of freed slaves, unlike the freed slaves themselves. Slaves had no choice but to work hard and remain loyal to their masters in hopes of freedom. Manumission thus served not only to weaken slavery, but also as a paradoxical mechanism that helped it function smoothly. As the number of freed slaves increased, the author argues, the idea of ‘freedom’ gradually became more widespread among Roman citizens.

Even in the Middle Ages (Europe), dominated by a Christian order, the desire for freedom did not fade. It began with the concept of Redemption offered by Christianity, which emerged in the early Roman Empire. The idea of redemption, in which sinful humans are liberated through the atoning sacrifice of Christ, transformed freedom into a universal language of salvation.

As a result, under the feudal system of medieval Europe, it was not only serfs who desperately sought freedom. Feudal lords tried to avoid royal interference, while individual towns claimed self-governance in order to escape the control of their lords. The author’s point is that in medieval society, virtually every class felt the importance of freedom and pursued it. “By the late Middle Ages, Europe had not only formed as a cultural whole, but the value of freedom had seeped into both body and mind during that process of creation.”

Drawing on vast historical sources, Greek and Roman plays, philosophy, theology, and the work of fellow scholars, the author explains the paradoxical relationship between slavery and freedom that accompanied Western civilization. As the 71 pages of notes show, the argument, inference, reflection, and depth of thought are substantial. Still, without background knowledge of Western history and philosophical discourse, it is a difficult academic work to read. Perhaps that is much like freedom itself: easy to feel in the body, but difficult to define as a concept. The original title is ‘Freedom.’

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By Orlando Patterson, translated by Kim Hyuk, published by Geulhangari

This article has been translated by GripLabs Mingo AI.