NCERT Solutions Exploring Society: India and Beyond Chapter 11 Why Do we Need Money? — THINK ABOUT IT

Book page 233 Updated on2026-09-05

Q1.

What are the instances of double coincidence of wants in the above example?

Answer

Every single swap in the farmer's chain needs a double coincidence of wants. There are four of them in the example.

#	The exchange	What must coincide
1	Ox → bags of wheat	The wheat-owner must want an ox, and the farmer must want wheat
2	Wheat → shoes	The cobbler must want wheat, and the farmer must want those shoes
3	Wheat → sweater	The sweater-seller must want wheat, and the farmer must want the sweater
4	Wheat → medicines	The medicine-seller must want wheat, and the farmer must want the medicines

And the imagined easy case on page 232 — one person offering shoes, sweater and medicines together for the ox — would be a fifth, and by far the least likely, instance.

Check it yourself: if the cobbler had wanted milk instead of wheat, the farmer would have had to insert yet another exchange (wheat → milk → shoes). Every mismatch adds a link to the chain.

Q2.

In the situation given above, what are the cases where you could encounter the lack of a common standard measure of value?

Answer

Wherever the two sides have to argue about the rate, there is no common standard measure of value. In the farmer's story that happens at every deal.

Ox for wheat. How many bags of wheat is one ox worth — ten, twenty, thirty? Nothing settles it except bargaining.
Wheat for shoes. The book says plainly that “a discussion would take place to arrive at the fair amount of wheat that you could exchange for shoes”.
Wheat for the sweater. The same argument all over again with a different person.
Wheat for the medicines. And again with a third person — who may value wheat quite differently from the first two.
Ox for shoes directly. Swapping an ox for one pair of shoes “would hardly be a fair exchange” — but with no common unit, neither side can prove how unfair it is.

Why it happens: without a shared unit, value is only an opinion. The cobbler may think wheat is plentiful and cheap; the farmer, who worked all season for it, thinks it is precious. If either feels the exchange is disadvantageous, the deal simply collapses. Money ends the argument by giving every good a price in the same unit.

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