He begins by debunking the idea that markets alone maximize public welfare. Even if one believes that market-related efficiencies tend to maximize national income (or gross domestic product), that measure of economic output does account for the value of programs--such as Social Security and food stamps--that reduce a citizen's fear and despair when confronting potential destitution. Kleinbard quotes extensively from Adam Smith, the eighteenth-century patriarch of market economists, when emphasizing each individual's connection to "the union of mankind.