The road to market is smoothed by trust

From Shakespeare Grew Up in a Changing Economy, and People Felt Stress Then Too by Virginia Postrel.  The subheading is Even when the standard of living is going up, people don't necessarily feel good. Why?

In his 1998 book, The Economy of Obligation historian Craig Muldrew examines the expansion of what he calls “marketing” in Elizabethan England. By this term he means the specialized commercial relations we now take for granted: “the way in which goods were bought and sold, and moved around by traders, wholesalers and other middlemen, and how credit was used to facilitate such exchange and create wealth generated through profit.” Over a relatively short period, England went from an economy dominated by household production and direct selling by local farmers and craftsmen to a more complex and extended commercial order.

Goods like coal, soap, iron, and textiles traveled around the country, becoming much more readily available to ordinary people outside London. In the Norfolk town of King’s Lynn, for example, the amount of soap imported from London more than tripled from 1566 (when Shakespeare was a two-year-old) to 1586. The economic expansion included entertainment as well. Alehouses boomed, as did consumption of beer, formerly a luxury. A popular music industry began, with 3 million to 4 million printed ballads sold for a penny or two each in the late 16th century. Foreign goods like sugar, currants, lemons, and peppercorns became more common. In 1581, Muldrew reports, “21,000 oranges and lemons reached Norwich in time for [London’s] Bartholomew Fair.”

A couple of observations.

This is one element of the continuing refutation of the MSM harking back to better times.  THESE are the better times.  The best times in the entirety of human history for the greatest percentage of people everywhere.  

The development of trade/commerce was part and parcel with the development of trust, be it via guilds, institutions, family, or cultural compatibility.  The institutions were the means to the end.  Trust leads to trade.

In this way, the development of trade/commerce is in some ways distinct from capitalism.  They are closely related in nature and time and they both depend on different forms of trust, but their particular pathways are different.