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An abstract measure of value, said to be used by various peoples of Africa.
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The second example is found among the savages upon the African coast of Angola, where there is no real money known. The inhabitants there reckon by macoutes; and in some places this denomination is subdivided into decimals, called pieces. One macoute is equal to ten pieces. This is just a scale of equal parts for estimating the trucks they make.
The macoute, or unit of valuation, is neither actual nor visible, because it is entirely abstract and ideal, like all units. It is a method of measuring the value of one commodity by comparing it with another, through the instrumentality of an abstract unit which has neither length nor breadth.
The Negroes on the coast of Africa have a sign of value without money. It is a sign merely ideal, founded on the degree of esteem which they fix in their minds for all merchandise, in proportion to the need they have of it. A certain commodity or merchandise is worth three macoutes; another, six macoutes; another, ten macoutes; that is, as if they said simply three, six, and ten. The price is formed by a comparison of all merchandise with each other.
Money in the sense in which it is here employed is simply the medium of exchange for the transfer of capital. Its form is unimportant. It may be gold or silver, bank notes, or bank credits. lt may be the leather and wood of the Romans, or the cowry shells of the Indian, or even the macoute of the African, which was but a sign of value having no substantial existence.