Written by Lipton Matthews.
Thomas Sowell, the famous economist, has long argued that black West Indians outperform Afro-American blacks on income, education and occupational prestige because of cultural differences rooted in slavery.
Central to his argument is the claim that slavery in the British Caribbean encouraged habits of thrift, hard work and entrepreneurship through the provision ground system. Slaves, Sowell notes, were often allotted plots of land on which they could grow their own food. The cultivation of these plots and the sale of surplus produce in local markets allegedly instilled an ethos of self-reliance, which later translated into economic success in Britain and the US.
This argument is superficially plausible. Caribbean slavery did differ institutionally from that in much of the US, with market participation among slaves being more visible and more formalized in certain British colonies. However, Sowell exaggerates both the uniqueness and the long-term consequences of the provision ground system. Market participation under slavery was, in fact, widespread across the New World, and provision grounds did not function as engines of self-reliance. More importantly, the relative success of early West Indian migrants is largely attributable to selection effects.
Historian Pieter Emmer has critiqued the notion that provision grounds fostered entrepreneurial instincts. On his account, slaves grew food primarily to feed themselves, which actually reduced costs for planters. And they sold surplus opportunistically rather than strategically. Market participation under this system did not incentivize technological innovation, reinvestment or other hallmarks of genuine entrepreneurship. Instead, output was capped at subsistence plus a marginal surplus, which obviously discouraged scaling.
Emmer further notes that Caribbean slaves lacked access to competitive markets and, indeed, secure property rights. Land tenure was often informal and subject to planters’ discretion. Under such conditions, rational actors will avoid making long-term investments. The provision ground system thus functioned less as a training ground for capitalism than as a mechanism for externalizing subsistence costs onto the enslaved population.
Evidence from the post-emancipation period supports Emmer’s argument. Caribbean blacks did not surpass other groups in terms of agricultural productivity. In fact, indentured Indian laborers frequently outperformed Afro-Caribbean farmers. Emmer attributes this divergence to their different institutional and cultural histories. Indians arrived with extensive experience in individual landholding and price-oriented production. Afro-Caribbeans, by contrast, often favored collective landownership and family settlement patterns that prioritized social stability over individual success. Of course, pre-existing differences in relevant psychological traits may have also played a role.
A major oversight in Sowell’s argument is his implicit claim that market activity under slavery was exclusive to the British Caribbean. In reality, slaves in the US also participated in markets, cultivated personal plots and accumulated property.
Loren Schweninger has documented that slaves in the American South routinely raised livestock and even grew cash crops like cotton, which they sold in local and regional markets. Some individuals hired themselves out and retained their wages, amassing substantial sums of money. Proponents of slavery expressed concern that these practices undermined control. Legislative petitions complained that slaves who sold produce became “less dependent” and more difficult to dominate. Yet attempts to suppress this activity through fines and trading restrictions were largely ineffective because it reduced planters’ costs and curbed slave resistance.
Task systems granted slaves discretionary time, in which they bartered with whites, free blacks and other slaves. They transported goods and occasionally acted as intermediaries or “factors” for surplus or stolen produce. If market participation alone fostered entrepreneurship, native-born blacks would have had similar success after emancipation. But they didn’t.
Another reason to doubt Sowell’s explanation is that he discounts selection effects. Eleanor Marie and Lawrence Brown have demonstrated that early West Indian migrants were highly selected — relative to both native-born black Americans and other immigrant groups. They were disproportionately literate, skilled and urban. Many arrived with training in clerical work, teaching, nursing, skilled trades or maritime occupations, which positioned them well to exploit job opportunities in northeastern cities.
From 1899 to 1932, West Indian literacy rates exceeded 80 percent, surpassing many European immigrant groups from the same time period. West Indian migrants were actually better educated than Poles, Italians and other Southern Europeans, who benefited from racial classification as white and from access to ethnic networks. Their advantages arose more from positive selection rather than from any “Afro-Caribbean culture of success”.
Interestingly, the children of working-class European immigrants ultimately outperformed their West Indian counterparts on both income and occupational prestige. This may be because the children of West Indians had already reached their maximum genotypic IQ, whereas white immigrant children benefitted from environmental enrichment in their new home. (Early literacy rates understated their true potential.)
Mosi Ifantunji explicitly tested the idea of an “Afro-Caribbean culture of success”, and found only “mixed” support for it. Using comparative data on wages, family structure and labor force participation, he shows that once you control for education, immigration status and cohort, differences between Afro-Caribbeans and native-born blacks diminish sharply. Meanwhile, cultural variables like attitudes toward work and family discipline account for little of the observed variation.
Evidence that West Indians are harder-working or more reliable than native-born blacks is inconsistent. Anecdotes from Caribbean media, such as The Jamaica Gleaner, complain of absenteeism, low productivity and lack of discipline, mirroring concerns often voiced about black workers in the US. Hence, the “superior work ethic” of West Indian workers fails as an explanation for ethnic differences in performance.
Income and employment data reveal that West Indians are far from exceptional. About 16% of Caribbean immigrants in the US live below the poverty line, compared with 14% of immigrants overall. Likewise, Caribbean immigrants have a median household income of $66,500, which is lower than the figure for both immigrant households ($82,400) and that for native-born households ($81,400).
Thomas Sowell is undoubtedly a great economist, but in this case he’s simply wrong.
Provision grounds did not foster entrepreneurship, and market participation by slaves was not unique to the Caribbean. What’s more, the success of early West Indian migrants is mostly due to selection on education, skills and occupational readiness, rather than transmitted cultural traits — which is why later cohorts converged with native-born blacks as selection waned. Today’s Caribbean immigrants are neither particularly exceptional nor culturally distinct in ways that affect economic outcomes.
In short, West Indian exceptionalism is a myth.
Lipton Matthews is a researcher and YouTuber. His work has been featured by the Mises Institute and Chronicles. He is the author of The Corporate Myth. You can reach him at: lo_matthews@yahoo.com
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Thomas Sowell has always been delusional when it comes to the reality of Race