SOURCE: "'A Small Party': Moral and Political Leadership in Commercial Society," in Adam Smith in His Time and Ours: Designing the Decent Society, The Free Press, 1993, pp. 164–74.

In the following excerpt, Muller analyzes Smith's views on the moral and political roles of the intellectual as social scientist in commercial society.

Commercial society, in which every man becomes to some degree a merchant, encourages the spread of characteristics associated with the prudent pursuit of self-interest—the "inferior virtues" of moderation, self-control, frugality, and decent behavior toward others. But that does not mean that the rarer and more demanding virtues, such as valor, strong benevolence, and fortitude, are obsolete. While Smith taught that the road to national wealth lay in commerce rather than in conquest, he believed that the nation still needed the ability to defend itself and therefore required the fortitude and bravery of the military hero. While welldesigned...