The Baker, the Butcher and the Brewer Does Not Operate Because They Care for You but Out of Self Love.
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.
Although Adam Smith sometimes displays more knowledge both of human nature and of how an economy actually operates than do today’s supporters of a free market, nevertheless, it would appear that this passage can reasonably be regarded as nothing more than a simple affirmation of basic self-interest, self-interest which is held to be the proper and only effective motive for economic activity. But let us look at this statement both in light of its application to the individual tradesman or craftsman – the butcher, the brewer the baker- and as applied to the economy and society as a whole.
When we look at the individual craftsman or merchant about whose motives Adam Smith’s speaks with such confidence, we might raise two questions. The first concerns the “self-love” and “advantages” which are alleged to be the sole motive of these tradesmen. For self-love, or self-interest, is susceptible of two meanings. By the first is meant an ordered and proper regard for oneself, a regard compatible indeed with love of neighbor and even sanctity. But by the second is meant a self-interest which is disordered in that it has no care for the needs of others and seeks its own desires exclusively. If it happens also to benefit another, this is neither here nor there. This second type is one of the effects of the sin of our first parents, one of the results of original sin. Since Smith contrasts self-interest with both “benevolence” and “humanity” it is reasonable to think that he is speaking of the second, of the disordered kind of self-love.
Supporters of the kind of economics that stems from the tradition of Adam Smith generally take as one of their fundamental points that this second type of
Although Adam Smith sometimes displays more knowledge both of human nature and of how an economy actually operates than do today’s supporters of a free market, nevertheless, it would appear that this passage can reasonably be regarded as nothing more than a simple affirmation of basic self-interest, self-interest which is held to be the proper and only effective motive for economic activity. But let us look at this statement both in light of its application to the individual tradesman or craftsman – the butcher, the brewer the baker- and as applied to the economy and society as a whole.
When we look at the individual craftsman or merchant about whose motives Adam Smith’s speaks with such confidence, we might raise two questions. The first concerns the “self-love” and “advantages” which are alleged to be the sole motive of these tradesmen. For self-love, or self-interest, is susceptible of two meanings. By the first is meant an ordered and proper regard for oneself, a regard compatible indeed with love of neighbor and even sanctity. But by the second is meant a self-interest which is disordered in that it has no care for the needs of others and seeks its own desires exclusively. If it happens also to benefit another, this is neither here nor there. This second type is one of the effects of the sin of our first parents, one of the results of original sin. Since Smith contrasts self-interest with both “benevolence” and “humanity” it is reasonable to think that he is speaking of the second, of the disordered kind of self-love.
Supporters of the kind of economics that stems from the tradition of Adam Smith generally take as one of their fundamental points that this second type of