Apparently the Prof of my Business and Society course is a little confused on the meaning of ‘truck’ in Adam Smith’s writings about man’s propensity to ‘truck, barter and trade’. In fact he admitted to have no idea what the meaning of the first word is.
Nor could google or any online dictionaries could tell me exactly what ‘truck’ means in this context, especially the comparison between to ‘truck’ and to ‘trade’. I would like to find the definition and/or etymology of this term?
According to the following link :http://www.thefreedictionary.com/have+no+truck, It is the payment of wages in materials rather than money. That would also seem to be the meaning that forms the root of the phrase “to have no truck with (insert scoundrel’s name here)”. Though that might also be from a variation meaning “to barter”.
When the railway system in the UK was being built in Victorian times many of the workers were paid by the “truck” method. Their wages were in the form of tokens which could only be spent in shops owned by the construction company. The goods on sale were usually over-priced and of poor quality.
The counter this the Truck Acts were introduced which stated that wages could only be paid in cash.
This from a legal website :-
The Truck Acts of 1831, 1887 and 1896 made it illegal in Britain for an employer to pay his workmen other than in the current coin, or to impose any condition as to where the wages would be spent. Servants in husbandry were exempt from the act, and an employer could pay them in accommodation, food and non-intoxicating drink.
A fairly quick search suggests that “Truck” in this sense is from the Old French ‘troque,’ which actually means to barter or trade. It seems to have extended to actual produce produced for sale and from there to the system of paying in goods or tokens but I can’t see what distinction Adam Smith was drawing between the the three terms.
