How easy is it to climb the social mobility ladder into the middle class? It's a key question because the middle class is the ultimate source of social stability, innovation and democracy.

To answer this question, we must start with the rise of the middle class in Europe and the market economy which enabled that rise.

This article explores the specific cultural adaptations which set the stage for Europe's adoption of a market economy as the primary social-economic force, supplanting family and feudal ties.

When did Europe pull ahead? And why?

The author notes that Northern European economic expansion began in the 1300s, before the Protestant Reformation, the discovery of the Americas and before the printing press–all factors others have identified as key to Europe's rise to dominance.

He identifies the assimilation by Catholic Europe of two Northern European cultural traits–individualism and the ban on cousin marriages, which led to social trust extending beyond the immediate family– as critical preconditions for the acceptance of a market economy.

He then adds a third condition: the suppression / elimination of violent males from the social order via harsh secular and religious punishment of evil-doers. Murder rates declined as the most violent were executed or imprisoned in large numbers.

Here are some key excerpts from the article:

"Those three causes–individualism, impersonal sociality, and a pacified environment–allowed the market economy to grow beyond its former limits.

'The Market' could thus spread farther and farther beyond the marketplace, replacing older forms of exchange and ultimately replacing kinship as the main organizing principle of society.