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Interesting. My take on it is slightly different: it feels like a necessary condition of economic progress is that you trust that you will get to keep the fruits of your labours.

The way this happened in our history (I'm assuming that it's not the only way) is through institutions like The Old Bailey and the codification of laws and the visibility into the not always completely fair, but always getting fairer, application of those laws that they provided.

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Well, I agree that certain institutions for law and order appear to be prerequisites for the sort of economic/technological progress that occurred during the industrial revolution. And it is plausible (though definitely not obvious) to me that such institutions really did arise from the slow and steady accumulation of ideas. But the sacredness of life as compared to property seems mostly a result of per capital wealth. I'd guess we can find many times and places in history where there have been periods of predictable (and reasonably just) law and order, without the sacredness of life.

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