I can’t believe it’s taken me this long to find Kevin Brancato. Nice blog! Gotta love the name — Truck and Barter. For those of you who never tire of hearing Adam Smith quotes for the nth time, even as n approaches infinity:

This division of labour, from which so many advantages are derived, is not originally the effect of any human wisdom, which foresees and intends that general opulence to which it gives occasion. It is the necessary, though very slow and gradual, consequence of a certain propensity in human nature which has in view no such extensive utility; the propensity to truck, barter, and exchange one thing for another. [emphasis added]

Whether this propensity be one of those original principles in human nature, of which no further account can be given; or whether, as seems more probable, it be the necessary consequence of the faculties of reason and speech, it belongs not to our present subject to enquire. It is common to all men, and to be found in no other race of animals, which seem to know neither this nor any other species of contracts.

With thanks to Liberty Fund and the Library of Economics and Liberty for having an online Wealth of Nations. My students thank you too.