Inherited Repugnance: Slavery's Legacy on Market Acceptance in Benin

We study support for a market-based organ procurement system among Benin residents whose family lineages descend from either enslaved people or slave-owners during the Dahomey kingdom. Descendants of enslaved families support compensating kidney donors less than descendants of slave-owners, and the gap does not extend to contested markets that do not involve the body. Differences in concerns for dignity or fairness, implicit bias, moral values, or trust do not explain these findings. The evidence points instead to an intergenerationally transmitted disposition. First, recounting slavery, descendants of enslaved families for on the body being handled and valued, and place their own ancestors inside the events, whereas slave-owner descendants narrate at a remove. Second, they report less contact with organ transplantation and transfusion, and show no reaction to personal exposure to an unmet transplant need, whereas slave-owner descendants respond sharply.