Invisible hand
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
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The invisible hand describes the unintended social benefits of an individual's self-interested actions, a concept that was first introduced by Adam Smith in The Theory of Moral Sentiments, written in 1759, invoking it in reference to income distribution.
By the time he wrote The Wealth of Nations in 1776, Smith had studied the economic models of the French Physiocrats for many years, and in this work the invisible hand is more directly linked to production, to the employment of capital in support of domestic industry. The only use of "invisible hand" found in The Wealth of Nations is in Book IV, Chapter II, "Of Restraints upon the Importation from foreign Countries of such Goods as can be produced at Home." The exact phrase is used just three times in Smith's writings.
Smith may have come up with the two meanings of the phrase from Richard Cantillon who developed both economic applications in his model of the isolated estate.
The idea of trade and market exchange automatically channeling self-interest toward socially desirable ends is a central justification for the laissez-faire economic philosophy, which lies behind neoclassical economics. In this sense, the central disagreement between economic ideologies can be viewed as a disagreement about how powerful the "invisible hand" is. In alternative models, forces which were nascent during Smith's lifetime, such as large-scale industry, finance, and advertising, reduce its effectiveness.
Interpretations of the term have been generalized beyond the usage by Smith.
Noam Chomsky
Noam Chomsky suggests that Smith (and more specifically David Ricardo) sometimes used the phrase to refer to a "home bias" for investing domestically in opposition to offshore outsourcing production and neoliberalism.
- "Rather interestingly, these issues were foreseen by the great founders of modern economics, Adam Smith for example. He recognized and discussed what would happen to Britain if the masters adhered to the rules of sound economics – what's now called neoliberalism. He warned that if British manufacturers, merchants, and investors turned abroad, they might profit but England would suffer. However, he felt that this wouldn't happen because the masters would be guided by a home bias. So as if by an invisible hand England would be spared the ravages of economic rationality. That passage is pretty hard to miss. It's the only occurrence of the famous phrase "invisible hand" in Wealth of Nations, namely in a critique of what we call neoliberalism."
See also
- Books
- Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal by Ayn Rand
- Essays on Philosophical Subjects by Adam Smith
- I, Pencil by Leonard Read
- The National Gain by Anders Chydenius
- The Theory of Moral Sentiments by Adam Smith
- The Visible Hand by Alfred Chandler
- The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith
- Articles
- Corporation
- Emergence
- Enlightened self-interest
- Free price system
- Invisible foot
- Laissez-faire
- Market fundamentalism
- Objectivism
- Opportunity cost
- Partial knowledge
- Philosophy of social science
- Rational egoism
- Rational selfishness
- Spontaneous order
