Adam Smith saw self-interest as the driving motivation of human affairs. Lux traces the failure of societies based on self-interest, from the misery of Charles Dicken's England, through the Great Depression, to the culture of narcissism of the past decade. He shows how Smith, and the economists who followed him, made a fundmental mistake: self-interest by itself leads to social strife, ecological damage, and the abuse of power. By recognizing Smith's mistake, we as a society can move forward to a time when benevalence rather than greed becomes the economic motivation of our society.