I was captivated by what seemed a paradox: on the one hand the banality of a barely differentiated Dickensian mob, of water carriers, bread sellers, shit shovellers, taxi drivers, pickpockets, and prostitutes; on the other the communal spirit of hill tribesmen whose fathers were earth priests and who expected to end their days as custodians of ancestral shrines. I was impressed by the energy and ingenuity of their efforts to enrich themselves and by the inevitability of long run failure for all but a handful. It seemed as if the economy was being made, unmade and remade from day to day.

XREF: Echoes the churn of early commercial capitalism and Schumpeter's creative destruction applied to a pre-modern urban setting.

Diego Gambetta, Trust - Making and Breaking…, loc. 2304