The principles set down by Smith may be easily recognised today, but were truly revolutionary in his time. Smith argued that man’s basic and most important motivating force in all economic affairs is the drive of self-interest. Secondly, there is in nature an order of things that compounds and translates these individual self-interest strivings into a unified mass, resulting in the common social good. Finally, from the interaction of these two principles he draws his conclusion that the best economic system can result only where it is left strictly alone