A merchant is a specialist in exchange, buying and selling goods to obtain a profit. To increase profits merchants strive to enlarge the sphere of exchange, drawing subsistence or prestige goods produced within the kin-ordered or tributary mode into the channels of commodity exchange, the market. This transformation of use values into commodities, goods produced for exchange, is not neutral in its consequences. It can seriously weaken tributary power if it commercializes the goods and services upon which that power rests. Granted too much latitude, it can render whole classes of tributary overlords dependent upon trade, and reshuffle social priorities to favor merchants over political or military chieftains. Thus, societies predicated on the tributary mode not only gave impetus to commerce but also repeatedly curtailed it when it grew too strong. Depending on time and circumstance, they have taught merchants to “keep their proper place” by subjecting them to political supervision or to enforced partnerships with overlords; by confiscating their assets, instituting special levies, or exacting high “protection” rents; by denigrating merchant status socially, supporting campaigns against commerce as sinful or evil, or even delegating mercantile activity to despised and powerless out-groups.