Explore "The Servile State" by Hilaire Belloc on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
The subconscious effect of the Faith in this matter -- The main elements of pagan economic society -- The villa -- The transformation of the agricultural slave into the Christian "serf" -- Next into the Christian "peasant" -- The corresponding erection throughout Christendom of the "distributive state" -- It is nearly complete at the close of the Middle Ages -- "It was not machinery that lost us our freedom, it was the loss of a free mind."
The process by which slavery disappeared among Christian men, though very lengthy in its development (it covered close upon a thousand years), and though exceedingly complicated in its detail, may be easily and briefly grasped in its main lines.