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Markets have existed without empire overlords thoughout history though. Egyptians did not have to enforce trade rules to their neighbours, and despite whatever
by cblconfederate 5y ago
Markets have existed without empire overlords thoughout history though. Egyptians did not have to enforce trade rules to their neighbours, and despite whatever clashes everyone traded with each other in the mediterranean. It is exogenous rules that required the protection of an empire, such as the raids of pirates, or the threat from another empire. Since our current world order started after WW2, the governments have grown, but so have the monopolies, and we ve never seen them split, we just take them for granted after a while (e.g. mastercard/visa). In fact, if anything, government's role has been to pick the winners that better cooperate with them in order to ensure their mutual survival. It may be true that markets eventually do grow their own hierarchies, but this does not mean that imposing rules externally a priori is any good.
- colechristensen 5y agoThere absolutely was regulation in Bronze Age markets. There were taxes and tax breaks for favored merchants, there were embargoes and wars fought over goods.
- cblconfederate 5y ago> regulation by whom?
- colechristensen 5y agoThe local king / mayor
- cblconfederate 5y agosure but what about inter-kingdom trade (and even, not all cities belonged to an empire)
- colechristensen 5y agoYou taxed and regulated at ports of entry
- cblconfederate 5y agoThat's not a regulated market, you can sell elsewhere
- CRConrad 5y agoIf that's your criterion for what constitutes a regulated market, then there can be no such thing as a regulated market, because you can always sell elsewhere. And defining a concept in a way that means it can't exist makes no sense, so that criterion can't reasonably define this concept. (Was that a reductio ad absurdum?)