"Tell me," said the king, "you are a mystic, a philosopher, a man of unconventional understandings. I have become interested in the issue of value. It's an interesting philosophical question. How does one establish the true worth of a person or an object. If I were to ask you to estimate my value, what would you say?"
"Oh, " Nasruddin said, "I'd say about two hundred dinars."
The emperor was flabbergasted. "What?! But this belt I'm wearing is worth two hundred dinars!"
"I know," said Nasruddin. "Actually I was taking the value of the belt into consideration."
A Medieval Turkish Story quoted in
David Graeber Debt The First 5000 Years (2011) p273