If one accepts the premise that human beings are, a priori, ends unto themselves, and not means to ends, can any form of economy be considered moral? In communism, the good of the whole outweighs the good of the individual, although one could argue that for the whole to maximize its good, the individual would need to maximize his or her good. In capitalism, I am inclined to say that each individual is treated as an end, and not a means, through the exchange of mutually acceptable value equivalents (money, labor, being the key ingredients). But aren't we also assuming that another person will be a means to our ends (by selling you my goods, I gain energy in the form of whatever you give me, and you gain the goods for a price, each of us thus engaging in a form of means to an end)? Is it moral to allow two people to use each other as means to their own ends, even if they do so freely? And can we even argue that in a free society, persons engaing in commerce do so freely? are they not bounded by the society in which they live? Is it then moral to say that survival within the context of one's life is in itself a moral reason to use another as a means, rather than strictly as an end?