Adam Smith in His Time and Ours: Designing the Decent SocietyCounter to the popular impression that Adam Smith was a champion of selfishness and greed, Jerry Muller shows that the Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations maintained that markets served to promote the well being of the populace and that government must intervene to counteract the negative effects of the pursuit of self interest. Smith's analysis went beyond economics to embrace a larger "civilizing project" designed to create a