Abstract
The continual increase in consumption and speed of change give an indication of how important marketing was to the economy, but such simple statistics do not show how and where the actual buying and selling was done, who was doing it, how often they were doing it, and what they thought of the activity of marketing. In order to understand marketing as a social process it is necessary to examine its spatial organization, because, at its most basic level, marketing is simply the means by which goods produced by a person or group of people are transferred to others for consumption. Market exchange differs from other forms of social exchange, such as gift giving or mutual help, in that the value of the goods being exchanged is judged, and something is given directly in return. Such exchanges are, of course, sales, and in complex economies the value of things or services being bought and sold are measured in abstract, monetary terms. Within marketing structures, abstract monetary valuation allows more and more goods to be transferred bilaterally between strangers, and over longer distances to many different areas, which increases the availability of items in any one market area. Thus, producers are able to specialize in one item of trade, which can be sold in one market, or many different markets, while at the same time enjoying the availability of many other producers’ speciality goods also available to be bought in the same markets. It was this process, organized around the expansion of the means to supply demand, which Adam Smith celebrated as the division of labour, and which was facilitated by increasing numbers of people acting as middlemen and retailers of goods produced elsewhere.2
God has set all things to sale for labour and keepeth open shop come who will.
(Thomas Wilson, Arte of Rhetorique, 1553)1
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Notes
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© 1998 Craig Muldrew
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Muldrew, C. (1998). The Structure and Practice of Marketing Activity,and its Expansion. In: The Economy of Obligation. Early Modern History: Society and Culture. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-26879-5_3
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