Ludwig von Mises on Money and Inflation.pdf - The Ludwig von ...

CHAPTER
ONE
Human Cooperation
Human cooperation is different from the activities that took place under
prehuman conditions in the animal kingdom and among isolated persons
or groups during the primitive ages. e specific human faculty that distinguishes
man from animal is cooperation. Men cooperate. at means
that, in their activities, they anticipate that activities on the part of other
people will accomplish certain things in order to bring about the results
they are aiming at with their own work. e market is that state of affairs
under which I am giving something to you in order to receive something
from you. I don’t know how many of you have some inkling, or idea, of
the Latin language, but in a Latin pronouncement 2,000 years ago already,
there was the best description of the market—do ut des—I give in order
that you should give. I contribute something in order that you should
contribute something else. Out of this there developed human society,
the market, peaceful cooperation of individuals. Social cooperation means
the division of labor.
e various members, the various individuals, in a society do not live
their own lives without any reference or connection with other individuals.
anks to the division of labor, we are connected with others by working
for them and by receiving and consuming what others have produced for
us. As a result, we have an exchange economy which consists in the cooperation
of many individuals. Everybody produces, not only for himself
alone, but for other people in the expectation that these other people will
produce for him. is system requires acts of exchange.
e peaceful cooperation, the peaceful achievements of men are effected
on the market. Cooperation necessarily means that people are ex-
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