I’m not too familiar with the book, but on the basis of what I have read, I think it misses the mark by a bit. I think the main thesis is something about modern economic institutions turning people into utility maximizers as opposed to being more cooperative. Austrian thinkers and more recent readers of Adam Smith simply explain this by pointing to the obvious fact that trade conducted at a distance minimizes personal connections between the parties to the trade, and that this will lead to more weight being placed on purely economic considerations.
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