The most famous passage in Adam Smith’s An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations is this:
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.
Just a few sentences prior to it, though, Smith writes:
Nobody ever saw a dog make a fair and deliberate exchange of one bone for another with another dog. Nobody ever saw one animal by its gestures and natural cries signify to another, this is mine, that yours; I am willing to give this for that. When an animal wants to obtain something either of a man or of another animal, it has no other means of persuasion but to gain the favour of those whose service it requires.
I wonder if Smith understated the ability of animals or, at least, the ability of cats, to engage in exchange.
Check out this heart-warming video. I found plausible the idea that the cat thought he was exchanging something that someone else thought to be valuable, a leaf, for something he valued, a piece of fish.
HT to my lovely wife, who is always on the lookout for sweet animal stories.
READER COMMENTS
Andrew_FL
Jun 13 2024 at 9:53pm
Capuchins have been taught to use money
Animals in general may engage in a lot less “economic” behavior but some are clearly capable of it, to some degree.
Monte
Jun 13 2024 at 11:07pm
“I wonder if Smith understated the ability of animals or, at least, the ability of cats, to engage in exchange.”
Interestingly enough:
*Excerpted from Smithian Exchange Among Non-Human Animals
Jon Murphy
Jun 14 2024 at 9:18am
I think what you ask is an open question, though I do not think the cat in the video understands exchange qua exchange. Exchange qua exchange requires that “this is mine, that yours” style of abstract thought. That “mine/thine” distinction, coupled with the understanding that there is a right way and a wrong way to acquire a thing, is foundational for the concept of property, and thus exchange.* The cat could merely be acting like the digital computer in the Chinese Room.
All that said, cats could be an exception and do, in fact, possess the abstract thought needed to understand and participate in exchange. I have found cats to be very rational and deliberate. They self-domesticated, seeing the benefits of cooperation with humans. Cats are very big on reciprocity. What many people consider aloofness is really the cat deciding whether a person is worth dealing with and loving. It is possible, perhaps even probable, that cats are able to engage in exchange qua exchange, rather than merely mimicking it.
*Bart Wilson’s book The Property Species goes into detail on this point. I love Bart’s book and it has fundamentally changed how I consider and teach property and property rights.
MarkW
Jun 14 2024 at 10:47am
Yes. Cats are supposedly excellent visual learners. So you can teach your dog a trick to get a treat as a reward, if your can is watching, it may perform unbidden too, to also get a treat. I suspect that’s what’s happened here. The cat observed a ‘trick’ — if you present a leaf, you get a fish. The cat has no notion, I don’t think, that the ‘leaf’ is valuable.
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