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But Smith’s best-known works and ideas — the 1776 book "The Wealth of Nations," his invisible hand theory — have been misappropriated over the years, twisted into support for capitalism as some sort of morally good, biologically determined atom-smashing that takes place anytime two or more humans exchange goods or services.

Remember all those 1776 patriots who have suddenly gone silent?

Though the higher education system in the United States is older than the country itself—Harvard first opened its doors to students more than a century before the 1776 American Revolution—women were still not able to earn bachelor’s degrees for the better part of the century that followed the founding.

Thus, by 1776 the constitutional monarchy of King George III, the monarchy Americans deemed so tyrannical that they rebelled against it, was not democratic because its royal head was selected by heredity rather than election, but it was already fully committed to the rule of law—the fundamental principle that the law is above even the king.

In these respects, today’s America resembles the America of 1776, when divisions threatened the future of the democratic experiment.