We now examine the specific elements that, across the history of humanity, have permitted the transition from systems of non-liberty to the progressive establishment of freedom. What new circumstances opened the door?

Let us begin with the transformations of production itself. In the earliest epochs of human history, production was, properly speaking, destruction rather than creation. Hunting, fishing, and gathering took from nature's storehouse without adding anything new. Human groups did not create foodstuffs; they merely seized what they found. This imposed severe limits: the game had to reproduce, the fruit trees had to be sufficiently numerous, and once a territory was depleted, one had to wait an entire season or move on. Nomadic displacement modified the space in which these groups operated, but fundamentally they remained in a logic of destruction and seizure, not of production.

Here we encounter, once again, Rousseau, and his famous image of the man who first enclosed a piece of land, thereby becoming the original despoiler of a supposedly common earth. Paul Leroy-Beaulieu (1843-1916), in Le Collectivisme, demonstrated that this image is false. The land was not common to all humanity; it was common within a small human group, the tribe or the family, but it was considered the property of that group. There were significant and regular conflicts between tribes. No one imagined that the earth belonged in common to all different groups; they behaved like animals defending their territory.

The man who first enclosed a piece of land was not, therefore, a despoiler, but rather a generous benefactor. He transformed production by destruction into genuine production. By mastering the elements of life, through breeding and the beginnings of agriculture, he caused more resources to be born than he consumed. He created a true surplus of production, improving the environment in which he lived and drawing forth new wealth that he did not merely seize but genuinely created. This was a revolution, because entirely new conditions could arise from it: the hazards could be better understood and anticipated, the population could grow, and the new resources made it possible to finance collective protection, security, and the beginnings of social order.

Dupont de Nemours (1739-1817), one of the great Physiocrat economists who anticipated Turgot and, indeed, Adam Smith, wrote in 1765 in the Journal de l'agriculture, du commerce et des finances:

The logic behind this passage is clear: the new resources generated by genuine production make it possible to introduce a higher degree of security into human relations. There are more resources, therefore more exchanges, and peaceful, contractual relations can develop to a far greater extent than was possible in the warlike societies of the hunting epoch.

Yet here we encounter a paradox that explains the historically slow pace of progress. Security is a prerequisite for economic development but also a consequence of development, since only a production surplus can finance the institutions that guarantee social order. This cycle is very difficult to set in motion, and once started, it advances only slowly. But once it gains momentum, it tends to reinforce itself progressively.

The term "capitalism," though somewhat imprecise, allows us to identify what lies behind the emancipating technical and intellectual progress of recent centuries. At its core, capitalism represents the substitution of the tool and the machine for brute force as the central element of production. This is the end of domination based on physical power, and the beginning of peaceful production and exchange.

This transformation profoundly altered the status of individuals, and particularly of women. In hunting and warring societies, women's productive contribution was considered secondary, because it depended on physical strength in which they were disadvantaged. The arrival of sophisticated machines and tools, requiring less brute force and more spirit, direction, and intellectual vigor, enabled women to increase their productivity substantially and to participate in economic life on more equal terms. Self-ownership grew with capitalism and its technical and technological advances.

Technical progress also opened markets. Roads, and especially railways in the 19th century, expanded outlets, enabled national and international competition, and subjected societies increasingly to the logic of contract rather than constraint. The price of life itself rose, because the individual, being more productive from an earlier age to a more advanced one, could contribute, innovate, and exercise freedom throughout a much longer span of active existence.

These transformations also altered the value placed on innovation. In the most ancient societies, the innovator was viewed with deep suspicion, because he created uncertainty. In a world where one lived day to day, where hazards were overwhelming and security nonexistent, new ideas were dangerous. The human group would not follow an innovator who could not guarantee that his new methods would yield results, because the cost of failure was starvation.

New material conditions permitted new ideas to flourish. The historical tendency toward human perfectibility made innovation not merely tolerable but actively sought. In the Middle Ages, innovators were persecuted and burned; in modern societies, they have become heroes. This reversal is not a change of moral fashion; it is the direct consequence of material conditions that now allow experimentation, tolerate failure, and reward improvement.

When we examine the different stages of development, from the earliest societies with their meager production and extreme vulnerability to natural hazards, through to societies capable of deploying machines and tools that diminish the pressure of nature's uncertainties, we see a profound correlation between material conditions and the potential for individual freedom. Freedom is not an abstract philosophical aspiration; it depends fundamentally on the material conditions that enable human beings to free themselves from the most pressing necessities of existence.