Quote of the day: on free market and free men

In reviewing Nicholas Phillipson's book, Adam Smith: An Enlightened Life, Adam Gopnik writes in the New Yorker (subscription required) that

[Adam Smith] believed not that markets make men free but that free men move toward markets.  The difference is small but decisive; it is most of what we mean by humanism.

This sentence is essentially now being tested through the so-called Chinese model of economic development, which countries like Rwanda are too glad to adopt.  In this model, it is clearly not a case of free men moving toward markets.
Yet another test of that sentence comes through the likes of hard core Republicans and the the Wall Street Journal ideologues who believe that freeing the market will lead to free men. 

In both these Chinese and WSJ approaches to market and men, the priority is clear: economic interactions.

But, Adam Smith the philosopher was focused on humans, which is why Gopnik writes of humanism. "Sympathy alone, Smith makes plain, isn't enough to make us good. ... For Smith, the market is imaginative sympathy on speed."  How does the market make us sympathetic?  "Mere love is not sufficient for it, till he applies in some way to your self love. A bargain does this in the easiest manner."  Where do you find this bargain among a sympathetic community?  The market.   

Gopnik writes about Smith's other book that all these free marketers ignore at our peril--The Theory of Moral Sentiments--and weaves in David Hume into this narrative and the mentoring role he played.  After reading this book review, I am all the more curious about David Hume--his life and intellectual contributions.  Will begin the hunt for a book on this; any recommendations?