Quotation
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“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.”
Adam Smith · Moral philosophy · Enlightenment · 1776
What does it mean?
The usual reading takes the sentence as an account of market exchange: the dinner depends on the tradespeople's interest in the bargain, not on their love of the customer, and that is why address to interest is the ordinary mechanism. He is not denying benevolence. He wrote a whole book on sympathy. A rival reading treats the line as a proof that only selfishness is real, which contradicts the moral philosophy and overreads this paragraph; It stands in chapter 2, on the principle that gives rise to the division of labour.
Did Adam Smith really say this?
The library’s label is Well attested. Smith's own English in The Wealth of Nations, book one, chapter 2. The sentence is about the division of labour and exchange, not a claim that people have no benevolence. That claim is denied in the opening of The Theory of Moral Sentiments. The wording is secure.
Where it comes from
The Wealth of Nations I.2
Approximate date: 1776.
How to use it
The meal on a table in a flat in Leeds arrived through a shop that did not know the household and did not need to. Smith thinks that is the ordinary miracle of exchange, and he thinks it is not a theory of the whole evening, which may include a friend who brought pudding out of kindness. Using the sentence to mock the pudding misunderstands the page; Using the pudding to deny the shop misunderstands it the other way.
A mindset reading
Regard to their own interest is not a sneer, and it is not a complete psychology. In the same chapter he grounds the propensity to truck and barter in the desire to persuade, which is a social story. A rival use quotes the butcher in order to end every conversation about fairness in the market; The sentence says where dinner comes from; It does not say the terms of the trade are always right.
Understand the philosophy
The key term is self-interest in exchange, the regard to one's own interest that makes the butcher serve a stranger. Chapter 2 links this to the division of labour. The Wealth of Nations, 1776, is his English. The Theory of Moral Sentiments remains the account of benevolence and the impartial spectator; Reading this sentence as a retraction of that book is the myth the library's other Smith entries are there to block.
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FAQ
What does it mean?
The usual reading takes the sentence as an account of market exchange: the dinner depends on the tradespeople's interest in the bargain, not on their love of the customer, and that is why address to interest is the ordinary mechanism. He is not denying benevolence. He wrote a whole book on sympathy. A rival reading treats the line as a proof that only selfishness is real, which contradicts the moral philosophy and overreads this paragraph; It stands in chapter 2, on the principle that gives rise to the division of labour.
Did Adam Smith really say this?
Well attested. Smith's own English in The Wealth of Nations, book one, chapter 2. The sentence is about the division of labour and exchange, not a claim that people have no benevolence. That claim is denied in the opening of The Theory of Moral Sentiments. The wording is secure.
Which work is it in?
The Wealth of Nations I.2 Approximate date: 1776.