Jacob Viner concluded, unsurprisingly, that Adam Smith was not a doctrinaire laissez-faire advocate.
... reminded me about the mis-interpretation of "invisible hand".
Another post at Economist's View "Creed of Greed Not Supported by Adam Smith" back in October last year has following:
This creed is based on the false view that Adam Smith believed that that personal greed generates the public virtue of economic growth. In fact, Smith would have been revolted by this misrepresentation of his views, as he actually wrote the following:
“Justice [the human virtue of not harming others]…is the main pillar that supports the whole building. If justice is removed, the great fabric of human society which seems to have been under the darling care of Nature must in a moment crumble into atoms….Men, though naturally sympathetic, feel so little for others with whom they have no particular connection in comparison to what they feel for themselves. The misery of one who is merely their fellow creature is of so little importance to them in comparison to even a small convenience of their own. They have it so much in their power to hurt him and may have so many temptations to do so that if the principle of justice did not stand up within them in his defense and overawe them into a respect for his innocence, they would like wild beasts be ready to fly upon him at all times. Under such circumstances a man would enter an assembly of others as he enters a den of lions.”
...The quote found above ... from The Wealth of Nations states that unbridled greed destroys a free market system.
The pernicious view that “economic man” is selfish and rational and that Smith’s invisible hand will clean up the mess has been perpetuated by the Chicago School of Economics. ...
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