Trade and conflict in the third world

Although marketplaces are often defined as zones of peace, trade quite often assumed the form of piracy, raids or war (Evers and Schiel 1987 ). Trade and conflict are closely related, particularly since one of the major solutions to the traders’ dilemma requires social differentiation and a distancing from the surrounding society (see Chapter 1 ). The result is the often-noted fact that traders tend to be members of ethnic minorities. In his well-known essay on The Stranger, Georg Simmel writes: Throughout the history of economies, the stranger everywhere appears as the trader, or the trader as stranger. As long as the economy is essentially self-sufficient, or products are exchanged within a spatially narrow group, it needs no middle man: a trader is only required for products that originate outside the group. Insofar ... the trader must be a stranger. Simmel 1908 : 686; cited in Fallers 1967 : 7)