ABSTRACT
The first and most celebrated economic treatise in the English language, Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations, purported to show how in a price economy people by pursuing their own selfish economic ends automatically ensured the most effective promotion of the common good and the maximization of social welfare. At its most extreme, this implied that there was no need to evaluate individual economic acts; there was an overwhelming presumption that the profit and loss mechanism which governed them would make them consistent with each other and with a grand design which would benefit everybody.
