A key fallacy that is inseparably part of Economics, along with equilibrium, is the idea of profit maximization. The idea of maximization has its origins in Newton's Calculus which in turn has its origins in Physics. Smith and Hume never mentioned maximization nor calculus anywhere in their writings on the political economy. In fact, The Wealth of Nations has no equations at all*!  So how in the world did it enter and be so fundamental to Economics?

We trace its entry into economic thought through the marginal revolution, specifically with William Stanley Jevons who combined John Stuart Mill's flawed utilitarianism philosophy (the pursuit of private pleasure) with Calculus.

In essence, this combines a bad philosophy with a mathematical tool that is not meant for humans. Smith wrote a whole chapter explaining the dangers of utility. Mathematics applies to physical, unconscious objects which have no free will, and not to human minds which can change drastically. Through math, you can predict precisely where a ball will fall, but you can never accurately predict a person's actions, much less those of a society through numerical data. If the latter were possible, then there would be no such thing as recessions, wars, and terrorism, as humans naturally avoid pain, and philosophically, it would imply that everything in existence is predetermined, which in turn would destroy the need for existence.  

According to Adam Smith, profit is one of three kinds of revenue in society, the others being rent and wages. In a healthy society, all revenue is fairly distributed, according to natural rates, by agreements or higgling and bargaining, between profit earners, rent earners, and wage earners, which we call merchant class, ruling class, and working class respectively. If more revenue goes to one class than natural, then the other classes suffer, deprived of the revenue that they need to continue generating value for society. If most of the revenue goes to the merchant class, then the working class will have less money to learn new skills and maintain their families, leading to less skills and productivity for society, while the ruling class will have less funds for basic services and be less able to maintain a strong government. This often leads to some kind of crisis, of which the merchant class can avoid by moving overseas, unlike their government and people who are stuck.

Manufacturers who live on profits leave easily at the first signs of non-profits.

Unknown to the merchant class, however, concentrating and confining this revenue within the mercantile republic alone, with current investments in overgrown sectors such as technology, oil, and financial services, which are among the only remaining profitable ones, places their own capital in a precarious, imbalanced situation.

In the past, big socio-economic disorders have been caused by small 'stops'.  For example, the 1997 Asian Financial Crisis was caused by a single country (Thailand) while the 2008 Financial Crisis was caused by a single bank (Lehman Brothers).

If profit maximization is allowed, then tax maximization and wage maximization must be allowed too. The government must be allowed to imposed the death penalty for anyone who pays incorrect taxes no matter how small. Workers must be allowed to hold strikes anytime they feel that their wages are insufficient, just as CEOs are anytime allowed to fire employees who do not contribute to profitability or to stop operations that are unprofitable because of high tax payments. From a philosophical perspective, all these are absurd.

Smith's solution was the establishment of perfect economic democracy for all three classes, through the ruling class (thus the name Political Economy) or in the government regulating economics, not to control it, but to ensure that no class dominates the others.

This democracy would lead to more competition and lower nominal prices, but greater revenue on the whole. Smith advocated lower profits and the regulation of overgrown industries as a solution to Britain's bad situation then. In the current context, this equates to breaking up big corporations, increasing competition and producing lower profits which would naturally force some to move to other industries needed by society. However, all these run counter to Economics and private pleasure.

To truly solve current economic problems, an alternative science to Economics must be created before any true 'economic reform' can produce real, lasting solutions. This science is called SORAnomics, derived entirely from Smith's Political Economy and Hume's Metaphysics or Science of Man (also as Socrates' Dialectics). Included in this science is the clear definition of perfect liberty* as social liberty which puts emphasis on society and real happiness or lasting peace, instead of giving too much focus on the self (ego) and its temporary pleasures. This science is then used to create a Social Resource Allocation (SORA) system which is a real-world institution tasked to implement this economic democracy and prevent the problems of the old system.

Without social liberty, societies would merely stay exposed to big socioeconomic problems, since global capital is currently very much centralized in investment banks and institutions, whose singular decisions can crash markets arbitrarily. At the moment, such problems can be seen afflicting the Middle East, through the Arab Spring, which began as socio-economic protests, and ended up with the destabilization of their own governments and the suffering of their own people. More generally, this manifests as the rising inequality which will be felt by more and more people very subtly (especially by millenials) as time goes by.