Adam Smith is telling us that investors aren’t chained to one flag. Capital travels to the places where it can serve people best—where the rules are honest, contracts are kept, and talent is free to work. When owners of stock can move, they connect faraway towns and nations, turning local effort into global opportunity.

That’s not a cold detachment; it’s a powerful kind of citizenship—belonging to the wider human family. It pressures governments to earn trust instead of demand it, and it rewards communities that respect property, keep taxes and red tape in check, and welcome enterprise. The result? More ideas, more jobs, lower costs, and a rising standard of living that doesn’t stop at a border.