For
example, a shoe is used for wear, and is used for exchange; both are
uses of the shoe. He who gives a shoe in exchange for money or food to
him who wants one, does indeed use the shoe as a shoe, but this is not
its proper or primary purpose, for a shoe is not made to be an
object of barter. The same may be said of all possessions, for the art
of exchange extends to all of them, and it arises at first from what
is natural, from the circumstance that some have too little, others
too much. Hence we may infer that retail trade is not a natural part
of the art of getting wealth; had it been so, men would have ceased to
exchange when they had enough. In the first community, indeed, which
is the family, this art is obviously of no use, but it begins to be
useful when the society increases. For the members of the family
originally had all things in common; later, when the family divided
into parts, the parts shared in many things, and different parts in
different things, which they had to give in exchange for what they
wanted, a kind of barter which is still practiced among barbarous
nations who exchange with one another the necessaries of life and
nothing more; giving and receiving wine, for example, in exchange
for coin, and the like. This sort of barter is not part of the
wealth-getting art and is not contrary to nature, but is needed for
the satisfaction of men's natural wants.
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