The Economics of Symbols, Clan Names, and Religion

Standard theories of exchange depict trade as an impersonal exchange between anonymous partners. Jevons’s (1871) “Law of Indifference,” in particular, emphasizes the impersonality of transactions: it is a matter of indifference to the buyer or the seller with whom they do business provided that they obtain the same (homogeneous) commodity at the same price. For a world of contract certainty, this is an acceptable theory. In a world of contract uncertainty, however, it is no longer a matter of indifference with whom one trades.

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