If market exchange evolved from some preadaptation observable in humans or animals, then a careful examination of analogies with nepotistic exchange (such as courtship feeding in birds) or symbiotic exchange (such as pollination) is a logical course of action to pursue. In following this approach the first part of this chapter demonstrates the existence of some tempting analogies of market exchange drawn from the behavior of certain animals and plants, as well as from the nonmarket sphere of human affairs. It also demonstrates the risk of drawing premature, if not fanciful, explanations from such analogies.

Alternatively, if market exchange evolved de novo, then the major thrust in the inquiry is best directed toward the mechanisms of the market and the deep structures of exchange itself. This approach is undertaken in the second part of this chapter with the hope that intricacies of market exchange as we know them could provide a clue to their origin. At issue is a catalyst in the form of an activity, or perhaps a single commodity, with the power of spurring exchange between exceedingly reluctant traders at some remote point in antiquity.

Bateman's syndrome

There are certain parallels between the choice of mating partners and the choice of trading partners – chief among them is asymmetry. The asymmetry in the case of sexual selection is due to adaptive pressures that for a widely recognized reason – known as Bateman's principle – act differently on the reproductive behavior of males and females. In a pattern that cuts across nearly all the species of higher organisms, as already noted by Darwin (1874), females are more selective.