On Business and Equivalent Exchange

For as long as Man has roamed the earth and put value on different objects, people have always made deals under the concept of fair trade. Even back in the days when money was yet to be invented, people bartered their food, belongings, and services looking to get something at least of equal value in return. This vague concept of “equivalent exchange” is something that has propagated throughout the years, although now it's quite more complex.

In modern times, it's easy enough to believe that money is one of the main, if not the main, movers of societies. Almost all people are born, go to school, and eventually go to work fully accepting of the idea that earning money is the path to survival, comfort, and even happiness. Left and right, people are moving up career ladders and businesses are being built out of the ground, and all of this happens still following certain rules and laws on exchanges and business transactions. There are, decidedly, a whole lot of things you can do with money.

Even money, though, is still a representation of what humans consider to be “valuable”, and exchanges don't necessarily have to involve money—at least directly. In fact, it is possible to exchange entire properties and businesses nowadays, and while these things do involve money at certain points, the exchange itself is not mainly about money. At the root of it all, things just have to be fair because the moment it's not, trouble brews.