Abstract
Given the close relationship between economic activity and material wealth, it is certainly important to closely examine motives as well as outcomes and to submit economic action to moral scrutiny. The association of economic thinking with greed, though, often illustrates frameworks that implicitly, or even explicitly, presume the benevolence of other institutions. In moving from the immoral businessperson to the realization of the moral society, such frameworks juxtapose the inherent greediness of economic activity with the benevolence of political power. This kind of moral logic lies behind the sentiment that the state is the only power capable of restraining the acquisitive appetites unleashed by markets.