This is a good point - but do 'steam engines' matter in terms of economics? Smith was pre-industrial revolution, concerned about the mechanisms of efficiency, p

This is a good point - but do 'steam engines' matter in terms of economics? Smith was pre-industrial revolution, concerned about the mechanisms of efficiency, pricing etc.. That one piece of the process was able to leverage the energy of coal ... definitely 'changes everything' in terms of output, but perhaps it doesn't change the fundamental economic equation. But this is a great comment.