Not all trade are markets. Plus, while there might be evidence of Cro-Magnon trade networks, we can only infer from scant evidence what that actually was–the rest we have to deduce from conjecture. Unless we have a time machine that takes us back to that time, we can’t know exactly what was going on there.
Jetfx arguing for a specific definition of markets based on historical evidence, not a generalized, theoretical based ideology which has no basis in history.
There are discussions all over. Stross specifically mentions libertarians. I agree that it doesn’t seem important to the discussion of bitcoins but there you have it.
I don’t see how I’m showing off. It seems many people here are enjoying participating n the discussion.
One trade is a trade. A network of trading is a market.
Are you a libertarian of the homeschooled variety? It’s amazing that you missed how so incredibly much of the wealth of the early modern world was produced by colonialism and slavery, and perpetuated later by wage slavery and exploitation via unchecked capitalism. These are historical facts and cannot be ignored or argued away. Human “progress” has gone hand-in-hand since time immemorial with the exploitation and degradation of humans: hence governments and regulations and all of the messy necessities of modern life that libertarians hate because tyranny.
I suppose it’s possible you don’t. Depressing, that.
Not to be mean to the homeschooling crowd: if stupendousman is a product of the public schools, than I just became a libertarian, har har…
Sure, but pretty much all trade develops into markets.
That’s fine, but I was using the definition of free markets to make my points. Whether they existed historically wasn’t part of my points.
Apologies, but this is how I communicate. You seem like a knowledgeable person, surely you would do the same about a topic you enjoy discussing.
Well, I’m still not sure what to think of Bitcoin, and I am still fairly sure I fit in the socialist libertarian corner of the political matrix (do whatever you like that doesn’t harm others but be a part of solutions to general problems).
What I can say for absolute certainly is that this nested commenting/cascading commenting system has my head spinning. I read something, read the replies, then see the replies again later with different replies to them, then see more replies to the original comment, which also have replies, then I seem to see them all again, in blockquotes.
At a certain point one of these contentious threads will achieve sufficient complexity for attain sentience. I only hope it isn’t one of the libertarian/gun control arguments or we will all be toast as a gun toting libertopian AI siezes control of our military machines and goes on a rampage to reduce the competition with other life forms. All while spouting libertarian ideals and demanding that we stay away from his guns.
Citation?
Which, as Jetfx noted, was/is a theory, not an historical fact. Pretty much whenever government “got out of the way”, large corporations tended to exploit those with less resources.
You get used to it eventually. It helps once you figure out the little arrows. @codinghorror is, I believe, of the ‘let people work it out for themselves, then shout at them when they get it wrong’ school… 
Say it ain’t so!
Markets used to be (and still are) physical places where trade happened (a farmer’s market, stock market, cattle market, etc). That is not quite the same thing as the particular sort of economy that we’re discussing and isn’t what @stupendousman is advocating. As @jetfx pointed out, that is a specific thing that comes with the rise of states in the early modern period–what Adam Smith called political economy and what Marx called capitalism. The nature of trade is vastly different under the capitalist system, and tends to be dependent on force as created by the state.
That’s not essentially the definition, because it is far too simplistic. And saying “no it isn’t” again doesn’t actually address my argument that the definition is also one sided.
Certainly, but my point was that your definition is “an abstraction which has never existed”. And I’m surprised you cited black markets as markets without government since libertarians have long argued that black markets are the product of government interference. Besides black markets still rely on things like government created money.
I’m sorry. I tried to protect you from the truth for as long as a I could, but the truth is giant corporations with a bottom line of profit tend not to treat people well. Bernard Black describes life under the corporate yolk:
Ha ha, no you weren’t. You previously conflated markets in general with capitalist markets, and have claimed that free markets don’t require states, when this utterly historically wrong.
do you read your own posts?
There’s very little evidence to suggest any trading networks pre Neolithic Revolution. People certainly moved around geographically and traded items with other people, but not in any organized or permanent way that would constitute a network, and therefore a market.
The market, as opposed to an individual marketplace, is the sum of all trading and exchange in human society. That it is predates organized states is evident from obsidian knives and other objects found in Cro-Magnon sites hundreds of miles from their point of origin.
It’s an interesting side note that early Homo Sapiens did trade and flourished while Neanderthal, with no evidence of trading, died out.
You make the point that markets are not necessarily organized.
