This is certainly a nuanced look at a figure who is generally cited in stark black and white. The notion of the "merchant elite" setting the tone of politics wi

This is certainly a nuanced look at a figure who is generally cited in stark black and white. The notion of the "merchant elite" setting the tone of politics within the state -- and with neighbors and other competitors -- is a bit of a wake-up call. After all, for better or for worse, what finally dragged the US out of the Great Depression was World War II, and the sudden bulge of manufacturing it brought. The question is, are we, today, seeing self-interested corporations stimulating or antagonizing hard feelings between countries, states, tribes, or families as a way to push up profits? And a larger question remains: Is that inherently bad? I suppose that there are many who would think that it is not, by its nature, bad -- not if your nation, or ethnicity, or religion is not harmed. I think that this is the central question the article poses. Given that, what is the value of a single human life? Or, more broadly, what is the value of any living thing, or living system? Is it okay kill a man through black lung, in order to maximize profit from a coal mine? Is it okay to bulldoze and pave a vast swath of land, to harvest wood, replacing the forest with a monoculture that will not support diversity? Where does that end? Is a culture safe? A nation? There are, of course, a great number of people who think that one life lost is one too many, that an ecosystem is a living thing, that a culture is sacred. Smith seems to hew towards regulation of business and industry -- that the watershed must be considered in mountaintop removal mining, that heroin sales on the street are not in the best interest of society. (Even though illicit drug sales are probably the very best example of a truly open and free market.) I would lean with Smith on this account. Government has NO business in business. But truly free people must be free to regulate business in their own interest.