Actually, Adam Smith's concept of the "invisible hand" is rightly taken as one of the theoretical underpinnings of marketplace capitalism and even neo- liberalism. It doesn't matter if he only used the phrase twice: what matters is that it is a cogent expression of a certain view of market forces.
Now, Adam Smith himself lived at a time when an ideologist of the free- market mightly still honestly believe that he/she was standing for progress and on behalf of the people. Today the ideologists of the free-market are idealizing a system in deep crisis, which is clearly ravaging larger and larger masses of people, and which is devastating the environment and threating global collapse to boot; a system without a vision, without a future, and without any ideal except accumulating more, more, more money.They are hacks, and Adam Smith as a person, therefore, was quite different from them. Aside from his other, less endearing interests (such as moralism), he was interested in scientific investigation of the economy; and he could believe himself standing on the side of the welfare of the people; they are not so interested. But his theory is indeed the theory of the free-market. If a reaction to neo- liberalism is based on restoring the "true" teachings of Adam Smith, it will go nowhere. We cannot go back either to Smith's teachings or to the "mixed capitalism" of the immediate post-war period. We need to deal with issues of class struggle and societal planning and workers' control which directly go against both neo-liberalism and the "invisible hand". What is true of Smith is also true of the 18th-century French Physiocrats. They were far superior to today's neo-liberal hacks; but they gave the world the "laissez-faire" phrase. Or should one seek to resuscitate the "true" meaning of "laissez-faire" capitalism too? ----------------------------------- Joseph Green [email protected] ------------------------------------ Paul Cockshott wrote: > A good account of Smiths usage and how it has nothing to do with the usages > to which it is now put is given at: > http://adamsmithslostlegacy.blogspot.com/ > ________________________________________ > From: [email protected] [[email protected]] On > Behalf Of Paul Cockshott [[email protected]] > Sent: Monday, April 18, 2011 8:59 AM > To: Progressive Economics > Subject: Re: [Pen-l] invisible hand > > If I recall Smith correctly Smiith used the phrase twice, once in the Moral > sentiments to refer to the invisible hand of morality and once in the Wealth > of Nations to refer to competition acting as an invisible hand. > ________________________________________ > From: [email protected] [[email protected]] On > Behalf Of ken hanly [[email protected]] > Sent: Sunday, April 17, 2011 11:29 PM > To: Progressive Economics > Subject: Re: [Pen-l] invisible hand > > The Invisible Hand is a piece of ideological crapola meant to justify > rationing goods on the basis of income rather than need or dessert aka as the > free market. The hand helps up anyone with money and slaps down anyone who > does not. > > Cheers, ken > > > ________________________________ > From: Lakshmi Rhone <[email protected]> > To: [email protected] > Sent: Sun, April 17, 2011 3:36:12 PM > Subject: [Pen-l] invisible hand > > Nice comment by Joan Robinson: > > http://www.economistsview.typepad.com/economistsview/2007/07/morality-and-ec.html > > Haven't read Medema's new book on the invisible hand but Emma Rothschild on > Condorect and Smith and Kaushik Basu's Beyond The Invisible Hand are very > stimulating. > Rothschild treats Smith's references to an invisible hand as an ironic joke. > Basu shows that the invisible hand theorems depend on all kinds of untenable > assumptions; moreover the kind of behavior > that does tend to promote human flourishing is bound by norms in terms of > which certain rational self-interested actions actually become unthinkable. > Amartya Sen has tried to think out the full implications not of Smith's model > of economic man but of Smith's moral viewpoint of the impartial spectator. > From that viewpoint he develops a critique of contemporary ethical and > political phillosophy and Rawls in particular. > Lakshmi > > The University of Glasgow, charity number SC004401 > _______________________________________________ _______________________________________________ pen-l mailing list [email protected] https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l
