Whatever can be said for the genius of Adam Smith, he was only a man, and because he was a man, he was wrong about some things.  The first of them was that labor alone creates value (it doesn't).  The second was that businessmen act like Homo economicus (they don't). It may be safely said that nobody ever has ever acted like Homo economicus.  It may be strongly hoped that no one ever will.  Homo economicus at the bottom of the matter isn't really a man, but a machine, and like all machines, it has a singularity of purpose.  A man does business for glory or vanity or dominion or liberty or riches or security or to support a family or to avoid his family or to get a lot of lovers or a collection of cars.  He can do it for some, and he can do it for all.  A machine has no humanity and therefore does business for the sake of doing business.  Homo economicus has only one purpose, and that is the bottom line – the...(Read Full Article)