Bargaining with the Butcher, Baker, and Brewer: A New Look at Smith’s Most Famous Sentences

“Give us this day our daily bread.” While Adam Smith may not have been the most devout member of the Kirk of Scotland, he was certainly well-acquainted with this phrase from the Sermon on the Mount. This prayer encapsulates a crucial aspect of human existence: how do we secure our sustenance? Where will our next meal come from?

These inquiries were paramount for Smith. His perspective is encapsulated in what Samuel Fleischacker termed “the most famous sentences [Smith] ever wrote,” found 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 Jesus’ prayer and Smith’s economic theories seem worlds apart, they share an underlying commonality that often goes overlooked. For both Jesus and Smith, the act of acquiring food hinges on the necessity of asking for it.

Many interpretations of Smith’s assertions about the butcher, brewer, and baker have simplified his argument to suggest that self-interest is the sole motivator of human action. Gregory Mankiw’s popular economics textbook summarizes it this way: “Smith is saying that participants in the economy are motivated by self-interest.” While this interpretation holds a kernel of truth, it fails to encapsulate the full depth of Smith’s argument. He could have expressed it as, “The butcher, brewer, and baker provide us with dinner not out of benevolence, but out of self-interest.” But that’s not what he wrote.

Smith’s actual language—employing verbs of expectation and communication such as “expect,” “regard,” “address,” and “talk”—distinguishes his nuanced argument from a mere reduction to self-interest. For Smith, the process of obtaining dinner involves engaging in dialogue about “their advantages.” These verbs aren’t mere embellishments; they point to a larger idea, elaborated in Smith’s discussions of interest in retail transactions found in the Lectures on Jurisprudence:

“If we should enquire into the principle in the human mind on which this disposition of trucking is founded, it is clearly the natural inclination every one has to persuade… The offering of a shilling, which to us appears to have so plain and simple a meaning, is in reality offering an argument to persuade one to do so and so as it is for his interest…” (LJ 352).

In essence, humans possess a fundamental urge to persuade others, even on seemingly trivial matters. Money serves as a modern tool for this persuasion, much like the windmills and automatic boiler valves that Smith admired in the Wealth of Nations.

For Smith, money operates as an “argument.” It can be a compelling argument or a poor one. Although Smith is often portrayed as the absent-minded professor, there are no records of him attempting to convince his baker to provide bread with a carefully crafted paper or offering a guinea to sway Jeremy Bentham’s opinion on usury. The Lectures on Rhetoric and Belles Lettres illustrate that effective persuasion hinges on understanding the conventions of different rhetorical genres: “No one ever made a bargain in verse” (LRBL 137).

Thus, to reduce Smith’s insight regarding the butcher, brewer, and baker to a mere statement about self-interest is to diminish its richness. A more accurate paraphrase might be: “People inherently desire to persuade one another—it’s as fundamental as speech and reason—and have learned over time that in a commercial economy, appeals to self-interest can be particularly effective.” Viewed this way, the self-interest at play in vendor-customer interactions is just one instance within a broader spectrum of human relations, akin to the various ways people harness technology like windmills. While this exchange is vital for promoting the benefits of labor division, it remains just one facet of a greater whole.

Understanding the human “disposition of trucking”—renamed the “propensity to truck, barter, and exchange”—is crucial for comprehending Smith’s broader philosophical framework. This insight not only highlights the economic principles of his time but also reflects a more profound truth about human nature: our innate desire to persuade and connect. As I write this analysis, I, too, am engaged in the act of persuasion—attempting to convey my interpretation of Smith’s thought to you. This piece serves as a testament to the very nature of our interactions, which extend beyond mere self-interest. “Give us this day our daily bread,” Jesus instructs his followers to beseech God for sustenance. Smith, more pragmatically, suggests that to secure our food, we should engage in conversation 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 with Fleischacker’s assertion regarding these sentences.
[3] See Pierre Force, Self-Interest Before Adam Smith (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005), 129–30.

Editors’ note: In celebration of the 250th anniversary of the publication of An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations, we are revisiting some of our most impactful pieces from AdamSmithWorks, a part of the Liberty Fund network. This article was originally posted there.