According to Luc Boltanski, Adam Smith envisioned a market economy that was essentially empathic.

It is important to remember that the Wealth of Nations was written prior to the Industrial Revolution. Smith did not build his understanding of the market on the metaphor of machines or factories. He did not take self-interest to be some kind of natural and mindless force like pressurized steam, with one man driving a price as low as possible against another man driving it as high as possible, stabilizing as the forces equalize against one another. That mechanistic vision of the market was an industrial revision manufactured to the specifications of a mechanic’s imagination.

Adam’s market was a deeply pluralistic social network of human beings seeking mutually satisfactory deals with other people in a community of shared interest.

This makes experience design less a revolution than a reformation movement. Assuming we change anything long-term…