Richard von Strigl, Tausch (1928)

Richard von Strigl’s encyclopedia article examines exchange in six sections, moving from its historical and institutional conditions through its forms, participants’ gains, price formation, and exchange value to the interdependence of an exchange society. Its organizing distinction is between general principles of economizing and the particular relations arising when goods pass between separate economic agents. Exchange applies those principles under conditions of divided ownership, differing valuations, and mutual dependence; it does not exhaust the subject matter of economics.

Strigl begins with the division of labor, which requires goods to move between producers but does not logically require exchange. Transfers can also occur through compulsory obligations, while a centrally organized communal economy could allocate goods without exchange. Historically, exchange extended beyond household self-sufficiency alongside obligatory transfers, sometimes appearing as a gift customarily requiring a return gift. A predominantly exchange-based economy emerged only as compulsory deliveries receded. Exchangeability therefore belongs to an institutional order, not to goods as such:

Jedenfalls ist die „Tauschbarkeit“ nicht ein notwendiges Merkmal des wirtschaftlichen Gutes, sondern sie ist von den Verhältnissen der Organisation der Wirtschaftsgesellschaft abhängig.

English translation: In any case, “exchangeability” is not a necessary characteristic of an economic good; rather, it depends on the arrangements organizing economic society.

The decisive condition is private ownership that permits transfer. Yet this does not entail unrestricted bargaining: institutions may regulate exchange ratios, compel transactions, or exclude particular goods from commerce. Strigl consequently distinguishes exchange as a reciprocal transfer from free exchange, in which each participant can make a contribution conditional on an acceptable return. The distinction matters throughout the article because the presence of a transaction alone establishes neither freedom nor mutual advantage.

The second section differentiates barter from indirect exchange through an intermediary commodity, which becomes money under conditions of general acceptance. With developed specialization, indirect exchange displaces barter because trading partners seldom possess precisely the goods each other wants. Sale and subsequent purchase become separate operations rather than a single reciprocal delivery. Nor must performance and counter-performance coincide in time: exchanging present against future goods remains subject to general exchange principles, and a promise can constitute the current counter-performance. Strigl nevertheless resists extending “exchange” to production or consumption within one economy. Such analogies illuminate the unity of economic activity, but obscure what requires a distinct theory: relations among agents with different resources and valuations.

Given an exchange ratio, an agent compares exchange with alternative uses of the goods surrendered. Both parties can gain because each prefers what is received to what is relinquished. This is a claim about expected improvement relative to foregoing the transaction, not a guarantee of objectively successful decisions:

Der Grundsatz, daß jeder nur dann tauscht, wenn er bei diesem Tausch einen Vorteil für sich erwartet, gilt übrigens selbstverständlich auch dann, wenn die gegebenen Marktverhältnisse jemanden zwingen, einen Tausch zu machen, bei welchem er einen für ihn sehr hohen Preis zahlen muß, denn auch da wird der Einzelne ja nur dann tauschen, wenn er die im Tausche erhaltene Ware dringender braucht als die im Tausche hingegebene.

English translation: The principle that everyone exchanges only when expecting an advantage from the exchange also naturally holds when prevailing market conditions force someone to make an exchange in which they must pay a price that is very high for them, since even then the individual will exchange only if they need the commodity received more urgently than the commodity surrendered.

The qualification is important: severe market pressure does not invalidate the comparison, but a legal obligation to sell at a prescribed price can. Expectations may also prove mistaken because of errors about quality, other markets, or future prices. Strigl thus grounds the decision in the market situation as it appears to the individual.

Price theory addresses the further question of how exchange ratios arise. Free price formation brings quantities offered and demanded into equality; changes in their determinants alter prices. Official schedules, maximum or minimum prices, monopoly pricing, and collective wage agreements introduce other modes of determination. Where a price is given to the individual, the remaining choice concerns participation and quantity. Fixed prices therefore affect the economy through the transactions they permit or prevent.

The discussion of exchange value separates objective purchasing power from its subjective significance. Objective exchange value denotes the quantity of other goods obtainable; subjective exchange value reflects the importance an individual assigns to those obtainable goods. Economic planning compares direct use with acquisition through exchange. Its optimum occurs when use value equals subjective exchange value, or when the marginal utility of a good equals that of the goods obtainable for its unit.

The final section scales this reasoning up to the exchange society. Each agent helps determine market conditions while depending on everyone else’s offers and demands. Substitution, production costs, and shared productive resources also connect the prices of different commodities:

Letzten Endes bestimmt die Gesamtheit der gegebenen wirtschaftlichen Daten auch jeden einzelnen Warenpreis.

English translation: Ultimately, the totality of the given economic data also determines every individual commodity price.

This interdependence explains exchange’s central importance without making it the foundation of all economic theory. Strigl closes by considering catallactics, the treatment of economics as a theory of exchange relations. Such an approach can explain modern exchange economies only if it also investigates activity within individual economic units:

Gerade die Untersuchung dieser Vorgänge innerhalb der Einzelwirtschaft führt aber zur Ableitung gewisser allgemeiner Grundsätze des wirtschaftlichen Geschehens, die auch für andere Wirtschaften als nur für die Tauschwirtschaft gelten.

English translation: Yet it is precisely the investigation of these processes within the individual economy that leads to the derivation of certain general principles of economic activity that also apply to economies other than exchange economies.

The article’s conceptual contribution is therefore double: it identifies the distinctive institutional and interpersonal conditions of exchange while placing its laws within a broader theory of economic choice. Market interdependence requires specialized explanation, but the principles governing the allocation of goods extend beyond markets.