Horse trading, in its literal sense, is the buying and selling of

horse The horse (''Equus ferus caballus'') is a domesticated, one-toed, hoofed mammal. It belongs to the taxonomic family Equidae and is one of two extant subspecies of ''Equus ferus''. The horse has evolved over the past 45 to 55 million yea ...

s, also called "horse dealing". Due to the difficulties in evaluating the merits of a horse offered for sale, the sale of horses offered great opportunities for dishonesty, leading to use of the term ''horse trading'' (or ''horsetrading'') as a widespread

metaphor A metaphor is a figure of speech that, for rhetorical effect, directly refers to one thing by mentioning another. It may provide (or obscure) clarity or identify hidden similarities between two different ideas. Metaphors are often compared wi ...

for complex bargaining or other transactions, such as political

vote trading Vote trading is the practice of voting in the manner another person wishes on a bill, position on a more general issue, or favored candidate in exchange for the other person's vote in the manner one wishes on another position, proposal, or candid ...

. It was expected that horse sellers would capitalize on these opportunities and so those who dealt in horses gained a reputation for underhanded business practices.

Origin of the phrase

As standards for ethical business declined in the United States in the

Gilded Age In United States history, the Gilded Age was an era extending roughly from 1877 to 1900, which was sandwiched between the Reconstruction era and the Progressive Era. It was a time of rapid economic growth, especially in the Northern and Wes ...

, the activities of horse traders came increasingly to be seen as the natural and, in part, desirable product of a competitive market rather than as symptoms of moral depravity. In an 1893 ''

New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...

'' editorial criticizing a proposed law to make it illegal for a newspaper to falsely state its circulation figures, the author 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". Reflecting this attitude, the term ''horse trading'' was widely adopted as a way to describe what might be seen as unethical business practices in a more positive light. It is likely the 1898 publication of

Edward Noyes Westcott Edward Noyes Westcott (September 27, 1846 – March 31, 1898) was an American banker and author, best known as the author of ''David Harum''. Biography Edward Noyes Westcott was born on September 27, 1846, in Syracuse, New York. His father wa ...

's '' David Harum'' – whose title character saw all business through the lens of horse trading – played a key role in this.

As a political term

In a further development of meaning, ''horse trading'' has come to refer specifically to political

. This is now the most common sense of the term, largely displacing the older term,

logrolling Logrolling is the trading of favors, or ''quid pro quo'', such as vote trading by legislative members to obtain passage of actions of interest to each legislative member. In organizational analysis, it refers to a practice in which different o ...

. In some languages political bargaining is known as "cow trading" (, , ). In Sweden, the May 1933 agreement between the Swedish Social Democratic Party and the Swedish Farmers' League

References

External links

{{Wiktionary-inline, horsetrading English phrases Agricultural terminology !

Origin of the phrase

As a political term

See also

References

External links