If Adam Smith were alive today, he might be compelled to write a third book that would extend his arguments in The Theory of Moral Sentiments and An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations more directly to an issue Americans need to recover.
The topic would be social wealth, or the web of relationships that turns individual talent into broad-based opportunity — what sociologists today call social capital.
In today’s economy, what you know matters. But who you know — and who knows you — also matters. Both form the basis for an individual’s personal and vocational identity. All are necessary for the pursuit of opportunity. In short, Knowledge + Networks + Identity = Opportunity.
