《国富论》是一本写给皇帝看的书，从宏观角度，如何增长一个国家的财富，因此立点极高。

第一编最后，斯密是这样说的：

然而，不论在商业或制造业的任何部门，商人的利益在某些方面总是和公共利益不同的，甚至是相抵触的。商人的利益总是要扩大市场，缩小竞争的范围。扩大市场常常是与公共利益颇为一致的，但是缩小竞争范围总是会违反公众利益，使商人能将自己的利润提高到自然的水平以上，从而为了他们自己的好处向其余的同胞课征一种荒谬的税捐（杨敬年翻译如此，我估计是实现利益转移的意思，即掠夺大众财富，据为己有）。对于来自这个阶级的有关任何新的商业法律或规定的建议，永远必须十分小心地去听取，不经过长期的认真的审查，不但要十分仔细，而且要十分当心，决不能采取。那是来自这样一个阶级的人们，他们的利益从来不和公众利益完全一致，他们常常想要欺骗公众甚至想要压迫公众，因而在许多场合，他们确实欺骗了公众，压迫了公众。

原文如下：

The interest of the dealers, however, in any particular branch of trade or manufactures, is always in some respects different from, and even opposite to, that of the public. To widen the market and to narrow the competition, is always the interest of the dealers. To widen the market may frequently be agreeable enough to the interest of the public; but to narrow the competition must always be against it, and can serve only to enable the dealers, by raising their profits above what they naturally would be, to levy, for their own benefit, an absurd tax upon the rest of their fellow-citizens. The proposal of any new law or regulation of commerce which comes from this order ought always to be listened to with great precaution, and ought never to be adopted till after having been long and carefully examined, not only with the most scrupulous, but with the most suspicious attention. It comes from an order of men whose interest is never exactly the same with that of the public, who have generally an interest to deceive and even to oppress the public, and who accordingly have, upon many occasions, both deceived and oppressed it.