http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horse_trading
Horse trading is, in the original sense, the buying and selling of horses, also called "Horse Dealing". Due to the great difficulties of evaluating the merits or demerits of a horse offered for sale, the selling of horses offered great opportunities for dishonesty. It was not to be expected that the sellers of horses would fail to capitalize on these opportunities; thus those who dealt in horses have had a reputation for shady business practices.
With the decline in the standards of business ethics in the U.S. in the Gilded Age, however, the activities of horse traders came increasingly to be seen by the business class not as symptoms of the moral depravity of horse traders, but as the natural, and not necessarily wholly undesirable product of a competitive market. Thus, for example, the New York Times in an 1893 editorial criticizing a proposed law to make it illegal for a newspaper to falsely state its circulation figures, 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."[1]
Such attitudes were reflected in the early 20th century adoption of horse trading as an approbatory term for what others would deem ethically dubious business practices; 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.
In a further development of meaning, horse trading has come to refer specifically to political vote trading, and this is now the most common sense of the term, largely displacing the older term, logrolling.
wow. another version of "get there firstest with the mostest"
preemptive warfare doctrine.
"Do unto the other feller the way he'd like to do unto you, an' do it fust."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Harum
David Harum; A Story of American Life was a best-selling novel of 1899 whose principal legacy is the colloquial use of the term horse trading.
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The main appeal of the work seems to have been to businessmen, attracted by its approval of a much more relaxed code of business ethics then was presented in most novels of the time.[3] Harum was an inveterate horse-trader and considered engaging in the dubious practices long associated with this activity as morally justified by the expectation that similar practices would be employed by his adversary. In principle, he contended that this made horse-trading quite different from other lines of business, yet in practice most business dealings seemed to him to be a species of horse trading, justifying considerable deviation from conventional standards of probity. The fact that these sentiments were placed in the mouth of an elderly country banker -- on the face of it, a clear spokesman for traditional values -- was particularly appealing in that it made these business ethics appear a reflection of the practices of shrewd businessmen through the ages rather than an indicator of moral degeneration.[4] Harum's version of the Golden Rule -- Do unto the other feller the way he'd like to do unto you, an' do it fust. -- was widely quoted,[5] and the term horse trading came into use as an approbatory term for what others would deem ethically dubious business practices.
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Originally posted by zeeblebotYes the Bible is curiously unhelpful on most significant ethical and moral decisions facing us today - but terribly helpful on personal hygiene and sexuality.
wow. another version of "get there firstest with the mostest"
preemptive warfare doctrine.
"Do unto the other feller the way he'd like to do unto you, an' do it fust."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Harum
David Harum; A Story of American Life was a best-selling novel of 1899 whose principal legacy is the colloquial use of the term horse ...[text shortened]... pprobatory term for what others would deem ethically dubious business practices.
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