-->Yet assuming that Smith's complex insights into what creates the wealth of nations are accurate, why have they been embraced and largely implemented by some societies and not others? As history amply demonstrates, unless a broad majority of a population implicitly or otherwise believes that a competitive free market paradigm advances their welfare, it cannot for long be imposed on them by an authoritarian or even a democratically elected government.

That an"invisible hand" converts self-centered behavior into a greater good is a profoundly abstract notion that--while largely, but by no means fully, embraced by developed nations--has been held only tentatively, even recently, by many developing nations. If not in some sense seen as generally equitable and fair, the distribution of income that emerges from competitive free-market capitalism will not have the support in law that is a necessary condition for markets to produce wealth.