In conceptualising a civilised society as a market society with a highly developed division of labour, Mises drew on the thought of Adam Smith, whom he credited with the discovery of the eternal law of social evolution that every civilisation must follow if it is not to fall back into barbarism. … The idea that commerce was civilising gave impetus to the dichotomy later expressed under the oppositions 'civilised-uncivilised', 'advanced-backward', and 'developed-undeveloped'.

Jessica Whyte, The Morals of the Market, loc. 111