One of capitalism’s bedrock promises — one that dates back to Adam Smith — is that competition in the free market benefits society at large. Somewhere along the

One of capitalism’s bedrock promises — one that dates back to Adam Smith — is that competition in the free market benefits society at large. Somewhere along the line, intoxication with efficiency caused us to lose sight of that principle at the expense of workers. Getting back to that promise will require policy changes and a renewal of forgotten values. Ugh. It was Smith's observation about capitalism, and a historically contingent one at that, not a promise. I don't know if the author fails to understand the difference or is just pandering to an audience that fails to understand the difference. There's a myopic nostalgia for never-when in so many of these half-baked proposals for social adaptation to automation. Provide everyone with rewarding lifetime careers again! Make capitalism great again, no matter that you have to tack on so many modifications that Adam Smith could no longer identify it from a police lineup! It's like inept geometers proclaiming that regular polyhedra are really just the best and newest kinds of spheres, because their culture is saturated in the mythology of Glorious Supremacy of Sphere.