That’s a David Mamet line, delivered by Danny Devito in the movie Heist.
Tell you what, how about you go into that McDonald’s bathroom and spend 3 hours cleaning it. In exchange, I’ll give you a brand new CD from Tower Records.
Not interested? But the market says these two things are about equivalent–they each sell for roughly 15$.
That’s the power of money–its action as an exchange medium allows us to compare values across the whole spectrum of our society. The comparisons may be flawed, warped, crude, or otherwise shadowy forms lit up on the wall of the cave, but if it weren’t for money, we wouldn’t be able to have the conversation at all.
Would we?
