Ramesh – I agree with you entirely regarding Adam Smith. Too many people — including conservatives — use Adam Smith as a stand-in for a Marxist caricature of capitalism.

But it’s also worth noting how sad it is that Alan Greenspan — a very old man — is only discovering this late in life that there are “universals in human behavior — beyond profit taking.” If Gross’s account is true and fair (I’m a tad skeptical), that’s really a very sad, almost pathetic, commentary on Greenspan.