Friday, October 15, 2010

What Appears in the World's Media

Here is just some of today’s nonsense on the invention of “Adam Smith's invisible hand of the market”.

The spread of this nonsense to the general public and media is largely down to the laziness of those modern economists who never bothered checking what Adam Smith wrote – any copies of Wealth Of Nations on their shelves are token badges of a loose association with the history of economic ideas – some might be copies bought for them by admiring scholarly colleagues as a retirement gift or just an attempt to pass themselves off a someone worthy of association with the man himself.

Courtesy of Google General Alerts on the ‘invisible hand’ metaphor (the alert for ‘Adam Smith’ is just as bizarre):

Carbon Price Is Not A Silver Bullet « TheRealEwbank
By Leigh Ewbank
Carbon pricing advocates are happy to leave decarbonisation to the invisible hand of the market regardless of its ability to deliver the reductions needed to avoid dangerous climate change. Australia can learn valuable lessons by taking ...
TheRealEwbank - http://therealewbank.com/

Telco 2.0: Guest Post: Future Broadband: Free, Funded by Apps?
As such, the toll-free Online Access model relies wholly on the “invisible hand” of commerce to allow market participants to determine what type of content the online provider should pay for and what type of content the end-user should ...
Telco 2.0 - http://www.telco2.net/blog/

Liberals and anti americans, when do you think that profit and ...
By admin
First, the pursuit of profit can be anti-social when the economy suffers from "market imperfections," when Adam Smith's famous "invisible hand of the market" just doesnt' function as it's supposed to. For example, suppose the market is ...
jianbei answers - http://www.jiangbeicn.com/

Ad Watch: Wild thing
msnbc.com
Even Adam Smith (author of the “Invisible Hand” theory of the market) believed government should play a role. So see NO country in the WORLD exemplifies a ...

African Socialism – a Nyerere perspective - by Job Shipululo Amupanda
New Era
Adam Smith and the likes have successfully harvested these thoughts with his 'invisible hand of the market' rhetoric. He teaches the world to surrender the ...

McAdams talks issues
Mat-Su Valley Frontiersman
“I don't believe that the invisible hand of the free market is well positioned to provide those things,” he said.

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1 Comments:

Blogger entech said...

Amazing how far and wide a simple metaphor can travel.

I get a lot of pleasure (and education) from following the links in your blogs. I have just found a quote on the reactions to Lord Brownes review of University funding (no longer resident so no thoughts or comments).
“The review combines grand reforms that will allow the invisible hand of the market to sweep through the sector and smaller-scale interventions to ensure poor students and graduates are protected.”
Reminds me of how evolutionary theory seems to get applied to everything: even where it is quite obviously simply development.

I have been reading your posts about Ian Ross’s book and your own book on Smith, both at affordable prices. I have just ordered a copy of your book (purely sequential as i want both books), hopefully as a result the invisible hand may put a small amount of honey on your morning toast.
David

1:52 am  

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