It does vary by region. Russian serfdom was closer to a form of slavery, with serfs owned by the estates, while in Western Europe, serfs were usually formally f

It does vary by region. Russian serfdom was closer to a form of slavery, with serfs owned by the estates, while in Western Europe, serfs were usually formally free to leave but in practice unable to. The usual explanation for the emergence of feudalism in Western Europe involves market forces as well. As people fled the starving cities at the collapse of the Roman Empire, they had little choice but to agree to whatever terms rural estate landowners offered, which were generally not favorable terms. I think one reason a sort of libertarianism was popular in the early U.S. is that there was always an alternative option: go to the frontier and homestead. So people really felt that they had individual freedom, and could escape any onerous sharecropping arrangement by just heading west. But in Europe all land was already spoken for, so there was nowhere to go homestead.