Wealth and Good

In Wealth of Nations, Smith does not address his earlier promotion of Sympathy, so that the relation between the latter and Self-Interest, which is the motor of his later work, remains unresolved.  The disconnection also leaves ungrounded and unexamined the status of Wealth as a Good, either of an Individual, or of a Collective.  Thus, for example, he does not defend his program against the familiar counter-examples of an individual suffering from either the pursuit or the possession of Wealth, nor does he consider that the acquisition of National Wealth can sacrifice social cohesion.  So, even if Self-Interest and Collective-Interest can be systematized, it does not follow that Wealth should be the object of Interest in either case.