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06732_Field_TCUM T297.txt
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1996-04-10
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it tempts the other party. The other hand is extended in
demand toward the object which is desired in exchange. The
first hand lets go as soon as the second object is touched,
somewhat in the manner of a trapeze artist exchanging one
bar for another. In fact, Elias Canetti in Crowds and Power
argues that the trader is involved in one of the most ancient of
all pastimes, namely that of climbing trees and swinging from
limb to limb. The primitive grasping, calculating, and timing of
the greater arboreal apes he sees as a translation into financial
terms of one of the oldest movement patterns. Just as the
hand among the branches of the trees learned a pattern of
grasping that was quite removed from the moving of food to
mouth, so the trader and the financier have developed
enthralling abstract activities that are extensions of the avid
climbing and mobility of the greater apes.