Capitalism as zero-sum combat was certainly not the way many of the most prominent economists of the past half-century preferred to think about commercial exchange. In Capitalism and Freedom, the Nobel Prize-winner Milton Friedman assigned trade a central role in defending his vision of a highly complex society organized largely without the help of the visible hand of government. “The possibility of co-ordination through voluntary co-operation,” he wrote of this vision, “rests on the elementary—yet frequently denied—proposition that both parties to an economic transaction benefit from it, provided the transaction is bi-laterally voluntary and informed.” Set aside for a moment the italicized clause as well as the qualifier “yet frequently denied”—more on them later. For now, it is enough to point out that Friedman presents an ideal of commercial exchange that emphasizes not only a both-sides-win vision of trade but also the essentially civil nature of such engagement.

The civilizing effect of commerce has been a central argument on behalf of industrial development and liberal trade policies since at least the 18th century. “In times when industry and the arts flourish,” the Scottish philosopher David Hume wrote, “men are kept in perpetual occupation, and enjoy, as their reward, the occupation itself, as well as those pleasures which are the fruits of their labor.” Indeed, he continued, “[t]he more these refined arts advance, the more sociable men become,” with the result that “they must feel an encrease in humanity, from the very habit of conversing together, and contributing to each other’s pleasure and entertainment.”

The 1754 essay from which these observations are drawn influenced Hume’s dear friend and fellow Scot Adam Smith as he organized the lectures that would later evolve into The Wealth of Nations. Among the many challenges Smith confronted in his attempt to establish the first principles of a new economic theory was how to square a system predicated on self-interest with the sociable demands of civilized society. His answer anticipates (and no doubt influenced) Friedman by stressing the inherently cooperative nature of commercial exchange.

In the unusually lyrical passage that concludes the opening chapter of The Wealth of Nations, Smith celebrates the “joint labour” that is required to meet even the most basic needs of a typical worker. “Were we to examine, in the same manner, all the different parts of his dress and household furniture”—shirts, shoes, table, and chairs, to say nothing of the food he eats or the roof over his head—“we shall be sensible that without the assistance and co-operation of many thousands, the very meanest person in a civilized country could not be provided, even according to, what we very falsely imagine, the easy and simple manner in which he is commonly accommodated.” For Smith, the cooperative nature of capitalism helped to blunt the selfish tendencies his system otherwise seemed to endorse. Humans not only had to work together for a complex economy to develop, but, as Hume had suggested, such daily engagement strengthened bonds of trust, established common purpose, and fostered mutual understanding.