Using Jefferson as a philosophical counter to Socialism can be a risky business; he was totally unfamiliar with the concept, it did not even exist as an idea in his time, and wouldn't for another half-century.

He was very familiar with capitalism, though, although he certainly would not have chosen that word to describe it, and I'm not even sure he was familiar with the work of Adam Smith, the theorist of capitalism and his contemporary. "Commerce" and "merchant" described the only economic theory he knew. However, the multinational corporation was a prominent feature of his time, and he was obviously familiar with the general rapacity and greed, and total lack of social responsibility, of the merchant class, something which has not changed a bit in the last two centuries as we can see from his writings. He made a distinction between "producers", (as a planter, he saw himself as one), and middlemen, which is how he viewed the banks and the merchants. And I'm sure Jefferson realized we can't ALL be planters, at least, not without slaves.

Jefferson's idea of economics was already obsolete and under attack in his time, the idea of a pastoral society controlled by independent freeholders, where one land section out of each township (less than 3%) was preserved for public use (presumably, the blacksmith, village store, school and the post office). The beginnings of the 19th century were characterized by social and technological upheaval, The French revolution and the implementation of industrial production through water power and, later, steam, were the new paradigms. He resisted that, and saw the American continent as a place to escape it. His is the same fantasy world we accuse the Greens of trying to implement today.

The American Revolution was not fought solely against the political and military authority of the Crown, it was a bourgeois revolution waged against the economic imperialism of British commerce, which collaborated with the Crown to exploit the colonies. That is the very definition of imperialism.

I am convinced that if Jefferson were alive now, he would see no fundamental difference between big government and big business. After all, there really isn't any.