"I wonder what Adam Smith would make of all this?" pondered Mr. Annan (although he wasn’t referring to the failure of his own hardwired redistributionism). “Maybe he would see the crisis as the consequence of failure to put economics at the service of the common good."

Maybe not.

Smith believed that great common good was provided by the pursuit of self-interest. He also believed that great danger lay in “partnerships" between government and business. Mr. Annan has done more than anybody (prodded by advisers such as Maurice Strong and Jeffrey Sachs) to promote such partnerships and lumber business with social and environmental “leadership," thus diverting them from job creation.