An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations

by Adam Smith

Is this improvement in the circumstances of the lower ranks of the people to be regarded as an advantage, or as an inconveniency, to the society? The answer seems at first abundantly plain. Servants, labourers, and workmen of different kinds, make up the far greater part of every great political society. But what improves the circumstances of the greater part, can never be regarded as any inconveniency to the whole. No society can surely be flourishing and happy, of which the far greater part of the members are poor and miserable. It is but equity, besides, that they who feed, clothe, and lodge the whole body of the people, should have such a share of the produce of their own labour as to be themselves tolerably well fed, clothed, and lodged.

This is a part of Adam Smith's book that pundits and "true believers" of both the left and the right conveniently forget about classical British liberalism. This was never about unbridled capitalism, but about improving the condition foe the entire society.