Haggis & the Wealth of Nations

I had always thought Adam Smith’s celebrated phrase, “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,” was a piece of accurate if abstract economic reasoning. A recent journey to St. Andrews, Scotland, to help the Mont Pêlerin Society celebrate the bicentennial of the publication of Adam Smith’s The Wealth of Nations, has thrown new light on the origin of the phrase. The idea still seems correct, even self- evident, as all great ideas seem, once they are articulated. But why did it occur to Adam Smith, rather than to contemporary great French economists such as Quesnay or Turgot? My journey convinced me that the idea would occur naturally to a Scot, and never to a Frenchman. No one living in Scotland could fail to discover—even on a short journey—that his dinner was not connected to anyone’s benevolence. Res ipsa locquitur. And how. Smith might have added that the main source of the dinner must be the malevolence of the cook. But perhaps he thought this obvious.

The Scots—those I met—seem pleasant, friendly, and attractive people. But prolonged observation discloses also something dour and brooding about them. My guess is that they are, like so many of us, ambivalent about the world, not always sure, and often in conflict about whether to love or hate it. They express this ambivalence in a way all their own. In their relations to each other they show their friendly side—no better drinking companions, and excellent drinks too. But once they are in the kitchen and let loose on what, before they worked on it, was edible material, their rage against the world finds expression. Within an incredibly short span, they render some of the best fish, or fowl, the world has ever known all but totally inedible.

EH

About the Author

Ernest van den Haag

I had always thought Adam Smith’s celebrated phrase, “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,” was a piece of accurate if abstract economic reasoning. A recent journey to St. Andrews, Scotland, to help the Mont Pêlerin Society celebrate the bicentennial of the publication of Adam Smith’s The Wealth of Nations, has thrown new light on the origin of the phrase. The idea still seems correct, even self- evident, as all great ideas seem, once they are articulated. But why did it occur to Adam Smith, rather than to contemporary great French economists such as Quesnay or Turgot? My journey convinced me that the idea would occur naturally to a Scot, and never to a Frenchman. No one living in Scotland could fail to discover—even on a short journey—that his dinner was not connected to anyone’s benevolence. Res ipsa locquitur. And how. Smith might have added that the main source of the dinner must be the malevolence of the cook. But perhaps he thought this obvious.

The Scots—those I met—seem pleasant, friendly, and attractive people. But prolonged observation discloses also something dour and brooding about them. My guess is that they are, like so many of us, ambivalent about the world, not always sure, and often in conflict about whether to love or hate it. They express this ambivalence in a way all their own. In their relations to each other they show their friendly side—no better drinking companions, and excellent drinks too. But once they are in the kitchen and let loose on what, before they worked on it, was edible material, their rage against the world finds expression. Within an incredibly short span, they render some of the best fish, or fowl, the world has ever known all but totally inedible.