Trade relationship

The definition names what the relationship permits rather than what it exchanges, which is where its danger sits. Interactions of unequal force are allowed, and where they are allowed power accumulates, since an initial advantage can be used to come out ahead in every subsequent interaction. That is the compounding Marsh describes as centripetal, and a relationship that permits it will produce it. Her practical statement of the problem is direct. A trade relationship must occur among equally advantaged partners if one is not to be taken at a disadvantage, and dependencies are abhorrent in a trade relationship, which excludes anyone dependent and disadvantages anyone unequal. Since dependency is the human condition rather than a deviation from it, the conditions under which trade is safe are rarely met. Calling it endosocial places it with charity and honour rather than with connection and dignity, and the reason is the absence of a tie, since trade is conducted between those without social ties or the desire for them and establishes no conduit. Marsh's observation about what happens to someone who loses standing shows the relationship being used as a penalty. A person who has lost their good standing in an approval economy would be forced into a trade economy relationship to recover, which makes trade the fallback for those the society will not simply include. Her alternative is participation rather than exchange, since a reputation economy allows you to participate in trade and an approval economy allows you to become part of a society.

Contract theory assumes formally equal parties and much of contract law exists to address the cases where they are not, through doctrines of unconscionability and duress. Bargaining power is a standard concept in labour economics and industrial relations. Feminist and care ethics traditions have argued at length that the independent contracting individual is a fiction concealing dependency, which is Marsh's objection stated in another vocabulary. Her contribution is to make the accumulation automatic rather than incidental, since a relationship permitting unequal force does not merely allow exploitation but generates concentration whether or not anyone exploits deliberately.