The thesis that the act of exchange does not enrich anyone, which I always preach in my lectures, and which I also repeated in the previous post, usually raises an immediate objection from those who listen or read it.
“How so, after all, the opposite is seen all around! The glaring proof to the contrary, for example, are all the well-known and unknown merchants who have made greater or lesser fortunes on trade precisely!” What’s more, add those who have encountered Aristotle’s thesis of 24 centuries ago, and which is repeated by communists after their master, K.Marx: “the source of the wealth of merchants is exploitation.” “Is it not, then, from exchange that what they have comes?”
The whole issue here comes down to not listening or reading very carefully, what someone is preaching. So I will repeat the thesis, asking you to pay attention to the highlighted fragment: THE ACT OF EXCHANGE does not enrich anyone. Thus, what I am talking about here is an EVENT, which is a single act of exchange, i.e., something SINGLE, and not a PROCESS, i.e., a series of consecutive SAME EVENTS, which is a merchant activity.
In a single ACT OF EXCHANGE, each counterparty HAS something of his own that he offers to the other party; the seller HAS HIS GOODS and the buyer HAS HIS MONEY. When a transaction occurs at a price that is accepted by BOTH PARTIES, each gives back to the other what he has in exchange for what he receives. And it is the EQUIVALENTS that are the subject of the purchase/sale agreement. If the buyer bought the t-shirt in the previous example for 100 zlotys, then after the transaction he no longer has 100 zlotys, but in its place he has a t-shirt worth 100 zlotys. The same goes for the seller; in place of the t-shirt on the rack, 100 zlotys appeared at the counter or on the bank account. For each of them, there was only a change in the STRUCTURE of their assets, but they did NOT gain anything.
So much for the supplement. And what follows will be discussed in future posts.
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