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Thomas Moser and I may be talking past each other.  He suggests that 
legal history begins with a concern about markets.  I do not know much 
about that subject, but I suspect that the law, like the church, was 
concerned with controlling the spread of the market in order to mintain 
traditional society. 
 
Tony Brewer tells us, "Agriculture was thoroughly commercialized by the 
sixteenth/seventeenth century."  I do not deny that there was 
commercialization, but what does that mean?  If a women took a few eggs 
to market, is her farm a commercial operation?  Or do we think of the 
commercialization as operating on the periphery of their agricultural 
economy? 
 
I agree with Olav Velthuis that we cannot easily divide all societies 
into commercial/non-commercial categories, but Polanyi's work might help 
us to put the manic commericalization of our world into perspective. 
 
Michael Perelman 
Economics Department 
California State University 
E-Mail [log in to unmask] 
 
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