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You may keep your ten thousand talents; I am not in want of money, I have taken enough. Why only the half of your kingdom to the Euphrates? You offer me the part in exchange for the whole. Your daughter whom you speak of, I shall marry if I choose, whether given by you or not. Your family is safe; no ransom is required of you; come here yourself and make your suit to me, you shall have them free. If you desire our friendship, you have only to ask.
--
Alexander's answer to the peace treaty offered by Darius III, p. 38

 

Mary Renault

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The essence of exchange is the transfer of title. Here's the essence of what happens when I buy a gallon of milk from my grocer. I tell him that I hold title to these three dollars and he holds title to the gallon of milk. Then, I offer: If you transfer your title to that gallon of milk, I will transfer title to these three dollars.Whenever there's voluntary exchange, the only clear conclusion that a third party can make is that both parties, in their opinion, perceived themselves as better off as a result of the exchange; otherwise, they wouldn't have exchanged. I was free to keep my three dollars, and the grocer was free to keep his milk. If you think it's obvious that both parties benefit from voluntary exchange, then how come we hear pronouncements about worker exploitation? Say you offer me a wage of $2 an hour. I'm free to either accept or reject your offer. So what can be concluded if I'm seen working for you at $2 an hour? One clear conclusion is that I must have seen myself as being better off taking your offer than my next best alternative. All other alternatives were less valuable, or else why would I have accepted the $2 offer? How appropriate is it to say that you're exploiting me when you've given me my best offer? Rather than using the term exploitation, you might say you wish I had more desirable alternatives.While people might characterize $2 an hour as exploitation, they wouldn't say the same about $50 an hour. Therefore, for the most part, when people use the term exploitation in reference to voluntary exchange, they simply disagree with the price. If we equate price disagreement with exploitation, then exploitation is everywhere. For example, I not only disagree with my salary, I also disagree with the prices of Gulfstream private jets.By no means do I suggest that you purge your vocabulary of the term exploitation. It's an emotionally valuable term to use to trick others, but in the process of tricking others, one need not trick himself. I'm reminded of charges of exploitation Mrs. Williams used to make early on in our 44-year marriage. She'd charge, "Walter, you're using me!" I'd respond by saying, "Honey, sure, I'm using you. If I had no use for you, I wouldn't have married you in the first place." How many of us would marry a person for whom we had no use? As a matter of fact, the problem of the lonely hearts among us is that they can't find someone to use them.

 

Walter E. Williams

 

There is only one way to make money at writing, and that is to marry a publisher's daughter.

 

George Orwell

 

"Of him to whom less is given, less will be required, but our utmost exertions are required of us all. You are not without the capacity of veneration, and faith and hope, and conscience and reason, and every other requisite to a Christian's character, if you choose to employ them; but all our talents increase in the using, and every faculty, both good and bad, strengthens by exercise: therefore, if you choose to use the bad, or those which tend to evil, till they become your masters, and neglect the good till they dwindle away, you have only yourself to blame. But you have talents, Arthur - natural endowments both of heart and mind and temper, such as many a better Christian would be glad to possess, if you would only employ them in God's service. I should never expect to see you a devotee, but it is quite possible to be a good Christian without ceasing to be a happy, merry-hearted man"

 

Anne Bronte

 

Q. [McCallum] … are there other economists who have had a really major influence on your thinking? A. [Melzer] Well I mentioned Hayek. There are two ways. One is because of my interest in political economy. The other way is that Hayek was a pioneer in the use of information in economics. One of the papers that Karl and I wrote together that I continue to like was a paper called "The Uses of Money". In that paper we tried to incorporate information and the cost of information to explain why people use money. One of Hayek's most basic ideas is that institutions are a way of reducing uncertainty. Man struggles to find institutional arrangements which on average make life a bit more predictable. Our "Uses of Money" is not so much about money as we conventionally think about it, it's about the idea of a medium of exchange, the function of an institution called the medium of exchange and how the medium of exchange as an institution resolves a part of peoples uncertainty about the future.

 

Friedrich Hayek

 

The cumulative development of a medium of exchange on the free market — is the only way money can become established. ... government is powerless to create money for the economy; it can only be developed by the processes of the free market.

 

Murray Rothbard