Far from being something entirely new or novel, Elon Musk embodies something Adam Smith identified in The Wealth of Nations as one of the most pernicious political forms of the modern age: the East India Company. Most people don’t realize this, but Smith’s text, particularly the fourth book, is a sustained critique of the East India Company, which he identified as a monstrous hybrid of merchant and sovereign, “the worst of all governments for any country whatever.” Smith was most concerned about the role of the East India Company in India, but its reach was global and the repercussions revolutionary. The irony here is considerable. The Wealth of Nations was published in 1776, the same year as the American Revolution. […]