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On Smith and the relation between wealth and happiness, Charles Griswold Jr. in "Adam
Smith and the Virtues of Enlightenment" (CUP, 1999) provides quotations (and reads Smith)
to the effect that Smith understands the complaint of moralists and insists that
'consumption is the sole end and purpose of all production' (WON IV.viii.49). As Luigino
Bruni writes, while Smith does believe that the pursuit of wealth can be deceptive, at the
same time he seems to advocate it -- as Griswold puts it "the conditions of our material
prosperity are tied to those of our spiritual poverty" (ibid.: 16).
 
"Because of his on keen awareness of the ironies and shadows of the Enlightenment, Smith
is in a position to offer as valuable insights into the reasons while the Liberal
Enlightenment social and institutional arrangements and ideals are not altogether at odds
with the tradition of the virtues and of the community is based on virtues.  His antidote
to the problems sketched in the preceding paragraphs include, strikingly, commerce,
religion, education, and other "mediating institutions" (as we now call them)."....(20)
 
Nitasha Kaul 
 
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