Can There Be Equality and Justice Without Currency?

In my opinion, one of the more interesting sections of Aristotle's Justice came in his discussion of Rectificatory Justice, more specifically currency's role in determining exchanges. He claims that exchanges are formed "from a doctor and a farmer, and, in general, from people who are different and unequal and who must be equalized". In the broad sense when looking at a society, it's very true that the community would be very difficult to maintain if there were no currency, due to the extreme variety of goods which are produced and the large group of people who are participating. Using the farmer and the doctor as his example, he goes on to state that a measure is needed in order to help these members of society exchange their respective goods. This is logical, and he eventually concludes that without due to currencies role in equalizing everyone within that society, " there would be no association without exchange, no exchange without equality, and no equality without commensurability... Hence there must be some single unit fixed by a stipulation." However this notion confused me when I tried to apply it to communities in which there is no standard currency, and they live solely on either trade or generosity.

 In class we discussed how his theory worked because without a standard currency and market, people would have to trade based on their own individual idea of an item's value, but then how did communities function without a currency? One of the first examples that I remembered growing up was the Europeans who purchased plots of land from the Native Americans using only beads, furs, and trinkets due to the lack of common currency. Looking back it's clear that we fooled the Native Americans in a way, for our valuation of the land was clearly not the same in their heads, and had it been a more modern time with better communication, and more just traders, then the story would be vastly different. Yet this presents the idea that the Native Americans had always simply traded goods in exchange for other goods (with some research I found that they did have a form of currency called a Wampum) but before that was developed, since furs were a common type of exchange when North America was settled, it suggests that at one point furs were merely a good that's worth over time increased enough to be used as a currency. The notion of this societies existing by trading for another's product (furs), along with many others who I would guess traded goods or simply gave what they could afford and took what they needed, makes me question Aristotle's claim that a society cannot function without a single unit of exchange. I believe that within small local communities, living without a currency and working together would form perhaps a more equal or better functioning community then those who are constantly immersed in money and the problems it may bring.