To some extent it is true, as Adam Smith asserted, that our breakfast table is better supplied by the convergent outcome of activities of farmers, grocers and butchers carrying on private affairs with a view to private profit than it would be if we were served on a basis of philanthropy or public spirit.
Dewey references Adam Smith to illustrate how private business activities can benefit society more effectively than altruistic efforts.
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Nor can the liberating and confirming results of public action be construed to yield a wholesale idealization of states in contrast with other associations.
If one wishes to realize the distance which may lie between “facts” and the meaning of facts, let one go to the field of social discussion.
But in this respect he does not differ from those explicitly designated public officials who have also been known to betray the interest committed to them instead of faithfully representing it.
There is therefore no necessary connection between the private character of an act and its non-social or anti-social character.