Of Distracting and Dismal Confusions

Gavin Kennedy ()

Chapter 25 in Adam Smith’s Lost Legacy, 2005, pp 112-114 from Palgrave Macmillan

Abstract: Abstract The butcher, the brewer, and the baker (a comment on an 18th-century diet?), have the contents of our dinners to hand but are not yet persuaded to hand them over: ‘We address ourselves,’ says Smith, ‘not to their humanity but to their self-love, and never talk to them of our own necessities but of their advantages.’1 ‘When you apply to a brewer or butcher for beer or for beef you do not explain to him how much you stand in need of these, but how much it would be in [his] interest to allow you to have them for a certain price.’2 Man … works on the selflove of his fellows, by setting before them a sufficient temptation to get what he wants.’3

Keywords: Economic Science; Reciprocal Exchange; Selfish Conduct; Full Play; Ethical Quality (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2005
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:pal:palchp:978-0-230-51119-4_25

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DOI: 10.1057/9780230511194_25

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