That is all Adam Smith said and knew about it. Smith’s interest was more ethical than economic: acting in one’s own interest is not necessarily bad or reprehensible from the moral point of view. We address ourselves, not to their humanity but to their self-love, and never talk to them of our own necessities but of their advantages.” 2 “It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker, that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own self-interest. The efforts of the individual are led, as if, by an invisible hand: As Smith affirms, this chain-linked impact on society is not followed, perceived, or known by any single person in his own individual efforts-he does not even need to know it. What Adam Smith actually said was that an individual’s behavior and decision-making, insofar as it is driven by certain rules (for example, looking for profit to the satisfaction of customers), adds value to all the individuals who behave similarly-and in this way they all add value to society together. In practice, it is still too invisible, so governments are tempted to make it more visible through political interventions. The basic problem with the “invisible hand of the market” is that it is a metaphor, not a concept or principle only simpletons refer to it as such. By preferring the support of domestic to that of foreign industry he intends only his own security and by directing that industry in such a manner as its produce may be of the greatest value, he intends only his own gain, and he is in this, as in many other cases, led by an invisible hand to promote an end which was no part of his intention.” 1 He generally, indeed, neither intends to promote the public interest, nor knows how much he is promoting it. “ … every individual necessarily labors to render the annual revenue of the society as great as he can. The Invisible Hand of the Market Milan Zelený
0 kommentar(er)
