It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the…
Quote
It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker, that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own interest.
The story behind this quote
The sentence comes in Book I, chapter 2 of The Wealth of Nations, on the origin of the division of labour. Man “has almost constant occasion for the help of his brethren, and it is in vain for him to expect it from their benevolence only”. Better to interest their self-love: “Give me that which I want, and you shall have this which you want” is the meaning of every bargain. The line follows, and then its explanation: “We address ourselves, not to their humanity, but to their self-love.”
Smith, a former professor of moral philosophy at Glasgow, wrote the book over some ten years and published it in 1776. His earlier Theory of Moral Sentiments had made sympathy the basis of morals; here he shows how strangers serve one another without it.
The butcher, the brewer and the baker have become the classic image of a market run by self-interest. Smith is not praising selfishness: he is observing how exchange works, and the sentence is still argued over in every introduction to economics.
The source
The Wealth of Nations, Book I, chapter 2, 1776
Checked word for word in the work itself.
Author
Adam Smith
A professor of moral philosophy at Glasgow, Adam Smith published The Theory of Moral Sentiments in 1759 and, in 1776, An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations, the founding book of modern economics. His account of the division of labour,…
Quotes by Adam Smith