For if this be not so, there will be no
exchange and no intercourse. And this proportion will not be
effected unless the goods are somehow equal. All goods must
therefore be measured by some one thing, as we said before. Now this
unit is in truth demand, which holds all things together (for if men
did not need one another's goods at all, or did not need them equally,
there would be either no exchange or not the same exchange); but money
has become by convention a sort of representative of demand; and
this is why it has the name 'money' (nomisma)-because it exists not by
nature but by law (nomos) and it is in our power to change it and make
it useless. There will, then, be reciprocity when the terms have
been equated so that as farmer is to shoemaker, the amount of the
shoemaker's work is to that of the farmer's work for which it
exchanges. But we must not bring them into a figure of proportion when
they have already exchanged (otherwise one extreme will have both
excesses), but when they still have their own goods. Thus they are
equals and associates just because this equality can be effected in
their case. Let A be a farmer, C food, B a shoemaker, D his product
equated to C. If it had not been possible for reciprocity to be thus
effected, there would have been no association of the parties.
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