Compensation.  What one offers another in trade for goods or services.  Most often today, it’s money.  That is, I pay the service station money in exchange for gasoline.  Or, I pay the tavern in cash in exchange for beer.

Occasionally, the compensation may be something besides money.  Then it becomes a sort of barter.  One party trades a good or service in exchange for another; wheat for milk.  Dental work for electrical work.  Whatever.

Another example is health care.  Rather than our employer compensating us in cash, they instead compensate us in insurance.*

Imagine, if you will, if our employer compensated us in groceries rather than cash–just like health insurance.  What would our world look like?

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