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Ancient times

The ancient economy was mainly based on subsistence farming. For most people the exchange of goods occurred through social relationships. There were also traders who bartered in the marketplaces. In Ancient Greece, when the word 'economy' arose, many people were bond slaves of the freeholders. Economic discussion was driven by scarcity. Aristotle (384-322 B.C.) was the first to differentiate between a use value and an exchange value of goods. (Politics, Book I.) The exchange ratio he defined was not only the expression of the value of goods but of the relations between the people involved in trade. For most of the time in history economy therefore stood in opposition to institutions with ''fixed'' exchange ratios as reign, state, religion, culture and tradition.