'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’s most famous sentence remains one of the clearest statements in all of social science: 

"'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.'

 "The point is simple and profound. We do not rely on the kindness of strangers to put food on the table. We rely on their self-interest. 

"The butcher supplies meat because he profits by doing so. 

"The baker rises early because customers will pay for bread. 

"Their desire to improve their own condition leads them, without any central direction, to serve ours. This is the central mechanism of a market economy. Self-interest, channelled through voluntary exchange, produces cooperation on a vast scale. No one has to love their customers or share their political views. They only have to respond to incentives. The result is a system that regularly feeds, clothes, and houses millions of people who will never meet. 

"Many ... still struggle to accept this. ... Yet the historical record is clear: societies that suppress self-interest in the name of [allegedly] higher motives tend to produce shortages, stagnation, and coercion. [Whereas s]ocieties that allow people to benefit from serving others tend to produce abundance. ...

"That simple alignment of interests remains the most powerful engine of social cooperation ever discovered."

~ Creative Deduction