Self-Interest and Public Good

The foundation of Smith's system is the empirical observation, "I have never known much good done by those who affected to trade for the public good."  So, Capitalism is based on an Empirical proposition, plus, it is vulnerable to the suspicion that it reflects his Phenomenalist orientation, according to which, because all Experience is constituted by private data, there is no actual 'public' realm.  It is thus contingent not only on Empirical grounds, i. e. it can be refuted by any example of a philanthropic businessperson, but on Methodological ones, as well, i. e. it can be refuted by the mere availability of an alternative orientation, e. g. Perspectivism, according to which the presumed Private-Public antithesis is actually a difference of degree of scope, ranging from narrower to broader.  Regardless, his circumscription of the efficacy of personal endeavor, such that a transcendent Invisible Hand is required to transform it into a public good, is equivalent to delimiting the potential political power of individual citizens, who, unlike the inhabitants of Rousseau's model, are, accordingly, incapable of any say in the General Good, contrary to the premises of a Democracy.