ABSTRACT
We have seen what constituted the creation, the preservation, and the use of wealth by isolated man. The same transactions occur in precisely the same manner and with the same goal among men united in society, with the single difference that the former needed only to consider himself, and that in the creation of his wealth he never lost view of its use, that is, his own enjoyment and his own rest; whereas the latter, living among a great number of fellow citizens with whom he has a continual exchange of services, works so that others may enjoy and rest, and he counts on the work of others for his own enjoyment and rest. Exchange had not only things as its objects; it extended also to labor, the means through which all things are produced. He who possessed stores of food, offered to feed him whose granaries were empty, on condition that the latter would work for him.
