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[12]
There will therefore be reciprocal proportion when the products have been equated, so
that as farmer is to shoemaker,1 so may the shoemaker's product be to the farmer's product. And when they
exchange their products they must reduce them to the form of a proportion, otherwise one
of the two extremes will have both the excesses2;
whereas when they have their own,3 they then are equal, and can form an association together,
because equality in this sense can be established in their case （farmer A, food
C, shoemaker B, shoemaker's product equalized D4）; whereas if it were impossible for
reciprocal proportion to be effected in this way, there could be no association between
them.
1 See 5.10, first note.
2 That is ‘after any unfair exchange one party has too much by just the amount by which the other has too little. I ought to have given you ten shillings more or something worth that. Then I have ten shillings too much, and you have ten too little; these two tens are my two “excesses”; in respect of the exchange. I am better off then you by twice ten’ （Richards）. Cf. 4.10-12.
3 For this proverbial phrase see 4.8,14.
4 Or ‘shoemaker's product D multiplied to equivalence with C’ （Blunt）.
Aristotle in 23 Volumes, Vol. 19, translated by H. Rackham. Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd. 1934.
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