‘uneven development’ and was ‘the “original sin” that began the partition
between the rich and poor regions’ (Darity, 1992:166).
An approach focused on these deep determinants of growth avoids some of
the problems associated with the Barro approach. The method can help explain
differences in long-term growth rates. The long-term effect of the slave trade,
according to Darity, was to destroy emerging state structures; to create incen-
tives for conquest and violence rather than production and growth; and to
undermine notions of private property and the development of a formal legal
system. These factors militated ever after against the ability of governments to
pick and implement good policies. For example, the modern state structures
emerging in various parts of the world during the eighteenth century were
destroyed in Sub-Saharan Africa by the slave trade, and so after independence
post-colonial governments there inherited none of the institutions of modern
states so were unable to raise tax revenues to invest in primary education and
infrastructure. The lack of good policy-making in Africa, according to Darity,
was not a matter of incompetent or corrupt rulers; rather, it was a product of
those deep historical determinants of growth.
The deeper determinants approach also has problems. Barro estimated the
exact impact of the various proximate determinants of growth, finding for
example that educational enrolment in 1960 had a stronger (and positive)
impact on income growth after 1960 than any other proximate determinant. By
contrast,Darity, focusing on a single historical case study, does not engage
with comparative questions. Much of Central and Eastern Europe was subject
to a slave trade organized by the Ottoman Empire until the nineteenth century,
but such countries are today developed. Why the difference? Inhabitants of
Britain were subject to slavery by the Romans until the fifth century and by the
Vikings and Normans over the subsequent centuries but escaped the ‘original
sin’ lock-in effect to later industrialize. Darity suggests such a lock-in effect
has lasted several centuries for Africa, but how long will it last? Why was 500
years enough time to escape in Britain but 200 years not enough in Sub-
Saharan Africa? Why hasn’t the expansion of global trade in goods and serv-
ices over recent decades strengthened the incentives in Sub-Saharan Africa to
ov ercome those anti-production incentives left over from the slave trade? What
explains the very different economic and social outcomes among ex-slave
countries such as the rapid economic growth and flourishing democracy of
Ghana and the failing dictatorship of Chad? How were Europeans able to
enslave Africans? How did Europeans acquire the shipping technology, the
guns and the political organization necessary to be the slavers? Darity has only
pushed the question further back in time; the original sin cannot be the slave
trade. The original sin was whatever created the power and willingness of one
society to enslave another. Big-picture explanations offer plausible analytical
narratives but lack the rigorous statistical method quantifying the impact of
alternative explanations. Other big explanations offered by scholars for the
Great Divergence include Christopher Wolmar’s focus on the spread of railway
transport; Jared Diamond’s emphasis on geographical differences in
10 Introduction