Ray,
I hope you will forgive me if I reply briefly to your latest (at 14:00
15/06/02 -0400). One of my Handlo team (immensely more musically gifted
than me) has paid respect (privately) to your high musical reputation in
the US, and I must do so publicly in the case of the extensive historical
and philosophical knowledge that you repeatedly display in your typical FW
contributions.
The essence of your piece is that I can't claim that trade from the
earliest days of man is self-evident. True, I can't because my belief
depends on what I believe about man's nature. I *believe* it's
self-evident. However, I believe I can supply an argument that will
convince almost any rational person.
As homo sapiens expanded from his original family or group into the rest of
the world, it is a fact of the natural world that salt, an essential part
of man's diet, is not to be found in all the habitats he occupied. Thus, we
are to suppose that some groups happily endowed with salt would somehow
make their salt available to others -- often situated at long distances
within very extensive salt-free regions.
This would require repeated giftings from one group to another, or trading,
by which salt (probably the first currency, incidentally) would be
consecutively traded between neighbouring tribes in exchange for other
products in which each tribe had a comparative advantage (either by the
products being found in situ or by production).
Thus we would have a situation in which either the members of some groups
(with salt) would be working at an exhaustingly high rate in making sure
that they were gifting enough salt to all the other groups around them, or
a situation in which all adjacent groups would be working at an
approximately equal rate in trading products at which they were the most
efficient.
The first situation is so improbable, I suggest, that the above is as close
to proof of the very early initiation of free trade as is necessary to
convince most readers.
Keith
P.S. Forgive me for deleting your original posting (also containing the
copy of mine). This is not out of disrespect. I think some FWers are sore
pressed when see the K content of some long postings that they are invited
to read.
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Keith Hudson, General Editor, Handlo Music, http://www.handlo.com
6 Upper Camden Place, Bath BA1 5HX, England
Tel: +44 1225 312622; Fax: +44 1225 447727; mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
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