This investor class has also become the nation's most powerful voting block. In recent elections, nearly two out of every three voters has been a stockowner. And yes, they are voting for capitalism -- meaning lower tax rates, limited government and greater opportunities for entrepreneurship.

 George W. Bush, a lineal descendant of Reagan, calls this the "ownership class." And though I can't prove it, I'm willing to bet that this group's demand for lower tax rates and entrepreneurial activity goes hand-in-hand with the cultural characteristics of hard work, thrift, personal responsibility and law-abiding behavior.

 Indeed, ownership is a self-help virtue, and it is held in much higher cultural esteem than the vice of government-dependant welfarism. This investor culture has at its core the very same ethical foundation that Adam Smith wrote about in 1759. This includes the rule of law that was so badly violated by Lay and Skilling, along with some other rotten apples like Tyco's Dennis Koszlowski, Worldcom's Bernard Ebbers and Adelphia's John Rigas.

 These crooks disregarded morality and the law, and in so doing, temporarily demoralized the stock market and American capitalism. They're the kind of people who would be celebrated by totalitarian socialists like Marx, Engle, Lenin, Stalin, Mao, Castro, Saddam Hussein or even Iran's Ahmadinejad -- the natural enemies of American market capitalism.

 But our government prosecutors are doing a fine job of re-imposing the rule of law and re-moralizing our economic system. Much more important than the misbegotten congressional regulatory scheme called Sarbanes-Oxley is the Justice Department's excellent work to simply enforce the laws on the books. Nothing concentrates the executive mind better than a 25-year jail sentence.

 There are approximately 5.5 million businesses in this country, according to the Commerce Department. So our notorious front-page crooks really are few and far between. But a new spate of corporate fraud and insider self-dealing has sprung up, with some CEOs engaging in the practice of backdating stock-option grants and other related forms of anti-shareholder compensation chicanery. The biggest demoralizing miscreant is William McGuire, CEO of United Health Group. In Washington, book-cooking at Fannie Mae has still to be properly punished. So the G-men have more work to do. Theirs is a noble purpose.

 Looking down from his perch in heaven, Adam Smith would be very proud.