Introduction

Abstract

Is there life without markets? In many cultures, this question appears nonsensical. Markets have existed for hundreds, even thousands, of years.¹ Gibbon described the auction of the Roman Empire upon the assassination of Pertinax in 193 AD (Gibbon, 1776/1983, I: 113ff). Braudel (1982: 27–28) believes that markets and market systems with fluctuating prices existed in embryo in Europe by the 12th century. The Silk Road was not so much a highway as a necklace of connected markets through which goods entered and left China in medieval times (Wood, 2002). Many markets in the USA date from the earliest years of colonisation (Pyle, 1971). In the 1720s, Daniel Defoe listed over 40 marketplaces for different products in central London alone (Defoe, 1724–1726/1991/2006: 184–189).