Digging for the roots of trading

Abstract

Cooperative behavior is commonplace in human social interactions. It is easy to recognize equivalent forms of behavior of non-human animals, such as mutual support among kin and cooperative hunting. Other forms, such as trading and large-scale collective action, are perhaps not uniquely human, but are much more widespread among humans than among non-humans. Here, I use the term trading as shorthand for interactions in which individuals exchange goods and services; bartering, vendor-customer and employer-employee interactions and so forth. Trading may not be recognized by everybody as a typical cooperative interaction, but it has the hallmarks of cooperation: (i) two or more individuals exchange goods and services in such a way that the participants involved are usually better off after the interaction, than before it, and (ii) the participants have to invest something in the interaction without a full guarantee of net gain.