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Forced market entry

Thanks to a reading club that happens once a week in Khane (thanks SL!), I've been getting into Marshall Hodgon's The Venture of Islam (Book 1). The section titled "Muhammad's Challenge 570-624" has made me think about history unlike I did back at the IIS.

Particularly, one question: In any instance when a new way of transacting goods and services was introduced, was force necessary?

We could discuss market entry, but that would imply an assumption that there is a market in which people transact based on known and accepted methods. Today that means that cash and credit can buy you a good or a service. Barter could also do, but you may have to try extra hard.

But that assumption did not exist in 570 AD. Barter was a viable option, and so were other forms of currency which came from different lands. So in order for Muhammad to introduce a way of being - including a way of doing business that was based on a philosophy of why business should be done - there had to be some kind of significant shift in reasoning.

It's this significant shift I am contemplating now, particularly the methods by which the shift occurs. The section includes descriptions of the Nakhla Raids and the Battle of Badr, which were necessitated for various political, social and (my current interest) economic reasons. I'm not implying that the forms in which people transacted changed after these events, but the way in which they thought about transactions changed.

So, is force necessary when introducing a new way of transacting?

[Note for later: Highly undeveloped thoughts here. Need to fix.]

Comments

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