The Invisible Hand Hoax?
May 16, 2009
Kennedy-Klein exchange on Adam Smith’s invisible hand(s) gets covered by Brad DeLong and Freakonomics Blog.
Freakonomics says: “One scholar believes that Smith’s use of the phrase was a “mildly ironic joke”". (Is that ironic note, or what?)
In fact that one scholar is Emma Rothschild. Here is where she argues that Adam Smith’s use of the invisible hand is somewhat ironic and the idea of the invisible hand is un-Smithian:
- Rothschild, E. (1994) “Adam Smith and the Invisible Hand”, American Economic Review, 84 (2): 319 – 322.
- Rothschild, E. (2001) Economic Sentiments: Adam Smith, Condorcet, and the Enlightenment, Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
Rothschild may be right in arguing that the use of the invisible hand is somewhat ironic. However, it is not true that the idea is un-Smithian. See this short note, or check out The Invisible Hand in Economics (Chapters 2 & 5) for an extended discussion.
