Horse trading, in its literal sense, is the buying and selling of

horse The horse (''Equus ferus caballus'') is a domesticated, one-toed, hoofed mammal. It belongs to the taxonomic family Equidae and is one of two extant subspecies of ''Equus ferus''. The horse has evolved over the past 45 to 55 mi ...

s, also called "horse dealing". Due to the difficulties in evaluating the merits of a horse offered for sale, the sale of horses offered great opportunities for dishonesty, leading to use of the term ''horse trading'' (or ''horsetrading'') as a widespread

metaphor A metaphor is a figure of speech that, for rhetorical effect, directly refers to one thing by mentioning another. It may provide, or obscure, clarity or identify hidden similarities between two different ideas. Metaphors are usually meant to cr ...

for complex

bargaining In the social sciences, bargaining or haggling is a type of negotiation in which the buyer and seller of a Goods and services, good or service debate the price or nature of a Financial transaction, transaction. If the bargaining produces agree ...

or other transactions, such as political

vote trading Vote trading is the practice of voting in the manner another person wishes on a bill, position on a more general issue, or favored candidate in exchange for the other person's vote in the manner one wishes on another position, proposal, or cand ...

. It was expected that horse sellers would capitalize on these opportunities and so those who dealt in horses gained a reputation for underhanded business practices.

Tea Horse Road

The Tea Horse Road or ''Chamadao'' (), now generally referred to as the Ancient Tea Horse Road or ''Chamagudao'' () was a network of caravan paths winding through the mountains of

Sichuan Sichuan is a province in Southwestern China, occupying the Sichuan Basin and Tibetan Plateau—between the Jinsha River to the west, the Daba Mountains to the north, and the Yunnan–Guizhou Plateau to the south. Its capital city is Cheng ...

Yunnan Yunnan; is an inland Provinces of China, province in Southwestern China. The province spans approximately and has a population of 47.2 million (as of 2020). The capital of the province is Kunming. The province borders the Chinese provinces ...

and

Tibet Tibet (; ''Böd''; ), or Greater Tibet, is a region in the western part of East Asia, covering much of the Tibetan Plateau and spanning about . It is the homeland of the Tibetan people. Also resident on the plateau are other ethnic groups s ...

Southwest China Southwestern China () is a region in the People's Republic of China. It consists of five provincial administrative regions, namely Chongqing, Sichuan, Guizhou, Yunnan, and Xizang. Geography Southwestern China is a rugged and mountainous region, ...

. This was also a tea trade route. There are numerous surviving archaeological and monumental elements, including trails, bridges, way stations, market towns, palaces, staging posts, shrines and temples along the route.

Origin of the phrase

As standards for ethical business declined in the United States in the

Gilded Age In History of the United States, United States history, the Gilded Age is the period from about the late 1870s to the late 1890s, which occurred between the Reconstruction era and the Progressive Era. It was named by 1920s historians after Mar ...

, the activities of horse traders came increasingly to be seen as the natural and, in part, desirable product of a competitive market rather than as symptoms of moral depravity. In an 1893 ''

New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''NYT'') is an American daily newspaper based in New York City. ''The New York Times'' covers domestic, national, and international news, and publishes opinion pieces, investigative reports, and reviews. As one of ...

'' editorial criticizing a proposed law to make it illegal for a newspaper to falsely state its circulation figures, the author declared that "if the lying were stopped by law, the business of horse trading would come to an end, and the country taverns and groceries in the Winter season would be deprived even of the limited eventfulness which they now enjoy". Reflecting this attitude, the term ''horse trading'' was widely adopted as a way to describe what might be seen as unethical business practices in a more positive light. It is likely the 1898 publication of Edward Noyes Westcott's '' David Harum'' – whose title character saw all business through the lens of horse trading – played a key role in this.

As a political term

In a further development of meaning, ''horse trading'' has come to refer specifically to political

. This is now the most common sense of the term, largely displacing the older term, logrolling. In some languages political bargaining is known as "cow trading" (, , ). In

Sweden Sweden, formally the Kingdom of Sweden, is a Nordic countries, Nordic country located on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. It borders Norway to the west and north, and Finland to the east. At , Sweden is the largest Nordic count ...

, the May 1933 agreement between the

Swedish Social Democratic Party The Swedish Social Democratic Party, formally the Swedish Social Democratic Workers' Party ( , S or SAP), usually referred to as The Social Democrats ( ), is a social democratic political party in Sweden. The party is member of the Progressiv ...

and the Swedish Farmers' League which came to shape the economic politics of Sweden during the 20th century, known as the

Nordic Model The Nordic model comprises the economic and social policies as well as typical cultural practices common in the Nordic countries (Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway, and Sweden). This includes a comprehensive welfare state and multi-level colle ...

, was called "the cow trade"

References

External links

{{Wiktionary-inline, horsetrading English phrases Agricultural terminology !

Tea Horse Road

Origin of the phrase

As a political term

See also

References

External links