A wistful and frank article in a respectable German newspaper, on what the authors referred to as “the world’s oldest profession”, set the Cranky Philosopher’s imagination alight. The article was written as a tribute to the “Welthurentag”, celebrated on 2 June in memory of a momentous protest against the exploitation of red-light workers in Lyon, France, on 2 June 1975. The authors lamented, among others, the deflation in the “red-light” trade caused by the economic decline resulting from the Corona pandemic and Russia’s attack on the Ukraine. Sounds familiar to all of us – economic and trade decline – doesn’t it?
The Cranky Philosopher’s imagination having been set alight, prepare for enlightenment. But, contrary to what you might have been told in the past, the light won’t be red.
The world’s oldest profession is: trade. A cranky assertion, no doubt; so, please allow the Cranky Philosopher to shine some light on it.
The dictionary (Oxford Languages) definitions of trade and profession are, unsurprisingly, human-focused ─
Trade: “1. the action of buying and selling goods and services; 2. a job requiring manual skills and special training.”
Profession: “1. a paid occupation, especially one that involves prolonged training and a formal qualification; 2. an act of declaring that one has a particular feeling or quality, especially when this is not the case.”
These definitions serve our everyday needs well enough, and also justify the popularly held conception of “the world’s oldest profession”. Cranky philosophers, however, relish in delving deeper beyond what pops into the eye. Let’s consider what a doyen in the study of trade had to say – Adam Smith, who in his seminal 1776 tome on economics, “An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations”, saw trade as having emerged from the division of labour. The Cranky Philosopher has emphasized certain parts below.
“This division of labour, from which so many advantages are derived, is not originally the effect of any human wisdom, which foresees and intends that general opulence to which it gives occasion. It is the necessary, though very slow and gradual, consequence of a certain propensity in human nature, which has in view no such extensive utility; the propensity to truck, barter, and exchange one thing for another. Whether this propensity be one of those original principles in human nature, of which no further account can be given, or whether, as seems more probable, it be the necessary consequence of the faculties of reason and speech, it belongs not to our present subject to inquire. It is common to all men, and to be found in no other race of animals, which seem to know neither this nor any other species of contracts.”(Smith, 2002[1])
Before discussing the other emphasized parts above, let us take note of the quote “common to all men, and to be found in no other race of animals”, which Smith further illustrated by the following statement:
“Nobody ever saw a dog make a fair and deliberate exchange of one bone for another with another dog. Nobody ever saw one animal, by its gestures and natural cries signify to another, this is mine, that yours; I am willing to give this for that.”
Whilst Smith’s statement was most likely true at his time, it behoves us to make a reassessment today in the light of advances in science and technology a quarter of a millennium later. For example, with the aid of artificial intelligence driven Microsoft Designer, it took the Cranky Philosopher only a few seconds to see one dog make an exchange of one bone for another with another dog.
Now, this doesn’t come as a surprise to the Cranky Philosopher, after having shared part of his life with several Siamese cats. Occasionally, one of them would trundle up to the Cranky Philosopher with some freshly caught prey in mouth, and drop it at his feet. The cat would then look up at the Cranky Philosopher, utter a pleading meow, pick up its prey and drop it again. This behaviour was remarkably reminiscent of barter at a bazaar, where a trader would address a prospective customer, pick up some of his or her wares as an offer, and put them back again. The language of trade has remarkable similarities across species. In the case of the cats and the Cranky Philosopher, the trade always proceeded favourably. The cat received a huddle and got to eat its prey.
The Cranky Philosopher might be rapped over the knuckles for his personal experience not constituting scientific proof – fair enough. Nonetheless, he feels encouraged to delve deeper into whether trade, in some elementary sense of “… [to] exchange one thing for another”, does not perhaps extend back to beyond the emergence of the human species. To again quote Smith: “… not originally the effect of any human wisdom…”, but: “… one of those original principles in human nature, of which no further account can be given …”. Note the use of “… in human nature …”, which allows speculation about a propensity that might predate the human species, and has been inherited through the course of evolution. An ominous foresight, considering that Smith’s insights predate Darwin’s theory of evolution by about a century.
Enter Joshua Lederberg, with his astounding discovery that bacteria exchange DNA, the genetic code of life-forms. In brief, the study of the genetic code shows that cells need proteins to operate, and that the code for making proteins is stored in DNA and RNA. This store of the code of living forms also permits the transmission of that code from one generation to the next. However, such generational transfer was not the subject of Lederberg’s experiment, but a phenomenon that he termed bacterial conjugation (http://www.dnaftb.org/18/index.html ).
Edward Tatum had made in his laboratory mutations in the bacteria, Escherichia Coli (E. coli), to further study the “one gene, one enzyme” phenomenon, and in 1946 he was joined by Joshua Lederberg. The bacterium E. coli can normally synthesize all the nutrients it needs. For example, E. coli has enzymes that bind and convert precursor molecules into essential nutrients like the amino acids methionine , proline , and threonine, as well as the vitamin biotin. The mutant strains Tatum had made, however, were unable to synthesize some of these nutrients. For example, Mutant#l had two genetic mutations that made it unable to synthesize the amino acid methionine or the vitamin biotin. It was still able to make all the other amino acids and vitamins. On the other hand, Mutant#2 had two genetic mutations that made it unable to synthesize the amino acids proline or threonine, but could still make the others as necessary. The two mutant strains were allowed to grow together for some time on a plate that was supplemented with the nutrients that each the crippled mutants, respectively, required to survive. Thereafter, individual bacterial cells were isolated and allowed to grow on a bacterial plate without any supplements. The survivors reproduced and established a visible colony on the plate, and must therefore have had all the genes needed to make all their required nutrients. Effectively, the two mutants must have exchanged with each other those DNA molecules that each of them respectively possessed, whereas the other did not and was in need thereof.
The Cranky Philosopher would call this a fair trade.
Hang on, you might ask – what about the “profession”? Well, here we’ll also have to look beyond what pops into the eye at first sight. Did the bacteria do something they were paid for? Not in the regular sense as understood by the human species – but, they were “paid” with their survival. Regarding “training” and “qualification”, let’s try to change our perspective from that of a human to that of a bacterium, and try to “see” things its way.
Let’s learn from Prof. Robert M. Hazen about his journey right back to the origins of life on Earth (Hazen, 2005[2]). At the conclusion, he extols “the remarkable power of emergence to drive increases in the complexity of natural systems. The theory or emergence argues for an inexorable evolution of the cosmos, from atoms to stars to planets to life. Such emergent step arises from interactions among countless agents. Each emergent event produces an outcome that is much greater than the sum of its parts. Each emergent process is reasonable and sequential, and each step increases the degree or order and complexity.” Some remarkable steps on this journey are outlined hereafter.
In 1989, David Dreamer published results from his research on ancient lipid molecules, which led Hazen to the conclusion:
“David Dreamer’s great discovery taught us that one of life’s most basic requirements – the separation of the inside from the outside – appears to be an integral part of the fabric of the universe…Even before the formation of planets … essential raw materials for life were abundant in the deep freeze of space. The universe is littered with lipid molecules that are poised to organize spontaneously into cell-like structures.”
From this, the Cranky Philosopher would further conclude that the emergence of the “I” appears to be an integral part of the fabric of the universe, by far predating Descartes’: “I think, therefore I am.”
With non-philosophical sobriety, life may be defined as a chemical process with three definitive abilities: (a) to grow, which requires the ability to metabolize; (b) to evolve; and (c) to reproduce. Clearly, all of these are only feasible within the controllable confines of a cell. There exists some controversy about whether life emerged in cells that were first able to metabolize, or those that were first able to build a genetic code facilitating evolution and reproduction. The truth is very likely a cooperative chemical phenomenon, arising between metabolism and genetics. Whilst this would require the parallel emergence of two chemical systems, it stands to reason that a cooperative coupling of metabolism and genetics emerged early in the history of cellular life. The emergence of complexity, instead of progressive chaos, is hardly imaginable without cooperation as a necessary factor – when considering “cooperation” in a very elementary sense underlying the complexity of our current understanding thereof.
The Cranky Philosopher wishes to rest his case with the above. From the viewpoint of a bacterium, “looking” back to its origins, its progenitors have trained extensively to qualify themselves to exchange DNA. With the benefit of hindsight a quarter of a millennium after Smith, perhaps trade didn’t so much emerge from the division of labour than from just simply – “elementary, my dear Watson” – cooperation.
The Cranky Philosopher hopes that politicians, who generally don’t like to think the way economists do, will take note.