Long-distance trade required religious solidarity and watchful gods to sustain trust

Evidence

Long-distance commerce is an ideal case study of large-scale cooperation because it requires that merchant communities engaged in it be able to solve collective action problems related to anonymity and lack of accountability, travel through long geographic stretches and across cultural boundaries, and exchanges of precious goods that create ample opportunities for exploitation and cheating. Therefore, such networks (and the global communities supporting them) would not survive and prosper unless they were able to find ways to secure high levels of social solidarity. … What did these Roman merchants rely on to establish relationships of trust that made long-distance trade possible and profitable? They assembled themselves into religious fraternities, and they invoked watchful gods, in particular Mercury and Hercules, to enforce oaths and bind people into contractual agreements. — Norenzayan, Ara, Big gods - how religion transformed…, 197

Categorization

• XREF: Directly parallels the Big God mechanism (Norenzayan’s own thesis) applied specifically to ancient maritime trade; connects to Delos slave trade networks.
• ADDENDUM: Supports the Grafting & Growth article’s theme of religion-as-infrastructure, and the reader’s core analytical thesis about omniscient watchfulness enforcing cooperation.