The market economy Smith envisaged allowed, as Smith himself noted, the existence of a small class of wealthy individuals who did not work but lived off the labor of others. Smith acknowledged that their unearned wealth not a moral merit of the society that bred them, but he considered their existence to be a small price to pay for a system that brought so much welfare to so many. In this respect, on a have your cake and eat it too reading, Smith can be regarded as in substantial conformity with Judeo-Christian ethics, even if not in perfect conformity. As the division of labor can be viewed as an efficient way to cooperate, similarly exchange can be viewed as an efficient way to share. Following what Smith called the natural human propensity to truck or barter, when you go to a market to buy or sell, you give something you do not need, and you get something you do need.
Exchange is the best way to share.
What sharing accomplishes is moving one person s surplus to another person s dinner table. On this have your cake and eat it too interpretation, Smith has no quarrel with Jesus, or with anyone else, about objectives. Smith is merely the advocate of more effective ways to achieve the same objectives that everyone agrees on. Lines from Smith could be quoted to show that Smith himself says in so many words that the whole purpose of exchange is use, and that if it were not for the value of the uses to which the merchandise exchanged is put, there would be no value in exchange. Smith also says that the whole purpose of agriculture and of manufactures is to supply the wants and conveniences of life.