Polly Wiessner

Posts About

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  Money and its Institutional Substitutes: The Role of Exchange Institutions in Human Cooperation

  This paper offers an increasing returns model of the evolution of exchange institutions building on Smith’s dictum that “the division of labor is limited by the extent of the market”. Exchange institutions are characterized by a tradeoff between fixed and marginal costs: the effort necessary to execute an exchange may . . .

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  Liberty As Legitimacy

  Lots of ink has been spilled in political philosophy over whether liberty is valuable as an end in itself, or as a means to some other end. I’d like to suggest that most discussions of political liberty can and should be understood in terms of legitimacy, and without invoking moral . . .

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  The Well-To-Do Minority

  The well-to-do minority is often in a more precarious position than the poor minority. Prejudice against him is far more potent and destructive than prejudice against the obviously downtrodden. The human mind naturally has sympathy with the downtrodden. It is true that this can be overridden by tribal instincts. But . . .