Horse trade , in its literal sense, refers to the purchase and sale of horses, also called "horse deals." Due to the difficulty in evaluating the superiority of horses offered for sale, horse sales offer great opportunities for dishonesty, leading to the use of the horse trading term (or horsetrading) to refer to bargains complex or other transactions, such as political voice trading. It is expected that horse sellers will take advantage of these opportunities and so those who deal with horses gain a reputation for fraudulent business practices.
Video Horse trading
Etymology
Because the standards for ethical business declined in the United States in the Gilded Age, the activity of horse traders was increasingly seen as a product of a naturally competitive market and, in part, desirable rather than as a symptom of moral depravity. In the 1893 editorial New York Times criticizing a proposed law to make it illegal for a newspaper to erroneously state its circulation figures, the authors state that "if lies are stopped by law, the horse trade business will end, and taverns and groceries in the winter will lose even from the limited events they now enjoy. "
Reflecting this attitude, the term horse trade is widely adopted as a way of describing what might be seen as unethical business practices in a more positive light. The possibility of the 1898 publication of Edward Noyes Westcott's David Harum - whose title character sees all business through horse trading lenses - plays a key role in this.
In the further development of meaning, horse trade has come to refer specifically to the trading of political voices. This is now the most common sense of the term, largely replacing the old term, logrolling.
Maps Horse trading
References
External links
Source of the article : Wikipedia
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