In the pursuit of life’s essentials, the question of sustenance resonates deeply with humanity. Adam Smith, an influential thinker despite his lack of devotion to the Kirk of Scotland, would have been familiar with the poignant request, “Give us this day our daily bread,” articulated by Jesus during the Sermon on the Mount. This plea addresses one of humanity’s fundamental concerns: how will we be nourished? Where will our next meal come from?
Smith’s reflections on these critical questions are found in one of his most notable quotations, described by Samuel Fleischacker as some of the most famous sentences he ever penned in the opening chapters of the Wealth of Nations: “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. We address ourselves, not to their humanity but to their self-love, and never talk to them of our own necessities but of their advantages” (WN 1.27).
While there are stark contrasts between Jesus’ supplication and Smith’s economic theory—such as the lavish dinner imagined by the 18th-century Scotsman compared to the simpler fare of a 1st-century Judean—there are surprising similarities as well. Both thinkers underscore the necessity of asking for sustenance. For Smith, the act of obtaining food is not simply transactional; it involves communication, specifically about the benefits to the providers.
Many interpretations of Smith highlight self-interest as the driving force behind human actions. For instance, Gregory Mankiw’s widely-used economics textbook asserts: “Smith is saying that participants in the economy are motivated by self-interest.” While Smith might have expressed a similar sentiment, he did not do so simplistically. His phrasing—featuring verbs of judgment like “expect” and “regard,” alongside terms that emphasize communication like “address” and “talk”—indicates a more nuanced argument. For Smith, acquiring dinner involves a dialogue centered on “their advantages.”
These words of connection are crucial; they reveal a broader concept that Smith elaborates upon in his discussions of interest in retail market transactions found in the Lectures on Jurisprudence:
If we were to explore the principle in the human mind that motivates this inclination toward trade, it is evident that it stems from a natural desire to persuade. The offering of a shilling, which seems straightforward, is, in fact, presenting an argument to convince someone to act in a way that benefits their own interests. People instinctively strive to sway one another’s opinions, even on trivial matters. If someone proposes an idea contrary to your belief, you will instinctively attempt to persuade them to change their mind. In everyday life, we engage in persuasion, honing skills at managing our affairs, or managing people. Just as artisans strive for efficiency in their work, individuals aim to achieve their objectives in the simplest way possible. This bartering involves appealing to others’ self-interest and often leads to successful outcomes. (LJ 352)
In essence, individuals possess an innate desire to persuade others, even on distant topics like China or the moon—both subjects Smith himself sought to influence in his essay, “History of Astronomy.” Money, then, serves as a modern tool akin to the efficiency-enhancing mechanisms Smith praises in Wealth of Nations.
To Smith, money is an “argument.” It holds the potential to be effective or ineffective, depending on context. Although Smith often embodied the absent-minded professor, there is no documentation of him attempting to persuade his baker through a formal paper or offering Jeremy Bentham a guinea in exchange for altering his views on usury. In the Lectures on Rhetoric and Belles Lettres, Smith clearly delineates that successful persuasion requires an understanding of context, remarking, “No one ever made a bargain in verse” (LRBL 137).
To reduce Smith’s assertion about the butcher, brewer, and baker to mere self-interest oversimplifies his point. Although many would agree that material self-interest is significant, Smith’s essence may be better captured by stating: “People have a fundamental drive to persuade one another; this impulse is as intrinsic as speech and reason—and through experience, they learned that appeals to their interests are effective in 18th-century commercial interactions.” Framed this way, self-interest-driven exchanges between vendors and customers are not a universal model for all human relationships, just as not everyone operates windmills or utilizes boiler valves. Rather, it represents one of many scenarios reflecting the overarching human tendency to persuade, which promotes the beneficial outcomes of the division of labor and is extensively examined in the Wealth of Nations.
Understanding the human “disposition of trucking”—revised to the more familiar “propensity to truck, barter, and exchange”—as a “necessary consequence of the faculties of reason and speech” reveals a more profound truth about our nature. One key insight to highlight is the mirror it holds for scholars, researchers, and writers alike. My purpose in writing this piece is to persuade you to view Smith through my interpretation. The act of writing itself serves as evidence of Smith’s claim, as do all contributions on AdamSmithWorks. Our desire to influence one another transcends mere self-interest; it represents an intrinsic aspect of humanity shared not only among us but also with those who provide us sustenance. “Give us this day our daily bread”: Jesus guides his followers in seeking divine nourishment, while Smith suggests that securing sustenance involves conversing with the baker.
[1] Samuel Fleischacker, On Adam Smith’s Wealth of Nations: A Philosophical Companion (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2009), 90.
[2] Gregory Mankiw, Principles of Economics, 7th ed. (Stamford, Ct.: Cengage, 2015), 10. Amartya Sen, The Idea of Justice (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2009), 186 concurs both with Fleischacker in calling these sentences the “most famous and widely quoted passage from the Wealth of Nations” and with Mankiw in taking them to reduce the motivation for economic exchange to self-interest.
[3] See Pierre Force, Self-Interest Before Adam Smith (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005), 129–30.
Editors’ note: In honor of the 250th anniversary of the publication of An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations, we are featuring some of our biggest hits from AdamSmithWorks, part of the Liberty Fund network. This piece was originally posted there.
