Loony Tunes no. 50 (a milestone?)
With this 50th edition of Loony Tunes, started originally to mock today's daily flood of nonsense about magical, mythical "invisible hands", mainly in the US media, as the result of a wholly imagined entity in academic economics from the Cold War ideological contests between competing theories of Soviet Economics, which claimed the superiority of planned economies (Oscar Lange, 1938), and the theories of modern-economics from folk like Paul Samuelson, (1948), who demonstrated the counter-proposition that was evident in practice, that market, mixed capitalist economies were superior at delivering higher living standards to tens of millions living in the NATO countries. A lot of water passed under the bridge since 1948, and reflected in Samuelson's 20 editions of his Economics: an introductory analysis (McGraw-Hill), and as a result of the escape of a simple metaphor from Adam Smith's Wealth Of Nations into a mass misunderstanding among both economists of the highest calibre, including Nobel Prize winners, and others with less claim to being treated seriously, as shown in this modest Loony Tunes series.
1
John Dvorak at MarketWatch
HERE
"After Siri, what can
Apple do to boost sales of the iPhone 5 besides adding the halo of Steve Jobs
and his invisible hand?
2
Eric
Angevine writes for College Basketball Talk
“The Invisible Hand
concept is used by economists and Sunday talk-show pundits as shorthand (like what I did there?) for the
benefits of self-interest. Here’s an out-of-context Smith quote that might shed
some dusk on the subject:
‘.. 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.” …Obviously, the
question here is “who is this He we’re talking about?” In this case (and here
comes the basketball, I know you were wondering), He is Adam Smith. Not Adam
Smith the revolutionary economic thinker, but Adam Smith
the inconsistent but promising college basketball player.”
3
Dayton Daily News in
short story by Rob E. Boley HERE
“An invisible hand taps its fingers against
her spinal cord.”
4
“Sometimes the Invisible Hand just cold snuffs out
yer candle.”
5
BurlingtonFreePress.com Brent Hallenbeck HERE
“It's a wonder to
sit in a room and watch actors, set designers and lighting designers, all moved
by the invisible hand of the
director, delve into imagination you never knew existed.”
6
Indian Express HERE
“When expert opinion
was consulted, it was seemingly dictated by what the report calls the “invisible hand” of pharma companies,
sometimes the testimonials echoing each other word-for-word.”
7
Daily Crowdsource
Jonathan Moyall HERE
“Crowd purists will
argue that the “invisible hand”
of the crowd guides us to the projects that are worthwhile.”
8
“... in the scrawled
hand-written lyrics of “Isolation” (“Mother I tried, please believe me, I'm
doing the best that I can”) that cleverly wrap themselves around the cube's
four walls, complete with corrections, as if being written by an invisible hand.”
2 Comments:
"......what can Apple do to boost sales of the iPhone 5 besides adding the halo of Steve Jobs and his invisible hand?"
The iphone should add the the invisible hand as one of its apps.
Even though Paul Samuelson distorted its meaning I think the invisible hand used him to promote the free market in any way possible, as the most viable alternative to Soviet style economics. The invisible hand was determined to show that capitalism was superior to its arch rival. If it took exaggerations to make the point, so be it.
What Samuelson made of the invisible hand may not have been what Adam Smith had in mind. But the invisible hand was its on entity. After Smith died the hand lived on, which meant it was free to take on any meaning it wanted. However, the invisible hand may have taken things a bit to far once it became the only credible economic system in the world. It grew puffy and aloof, imagining itself as being capitalism instead of just its guide. But like Humpty Dumpty, who made things mean whatever he wanted, it fell of its wall and nearly couldn't be put back together again.
Wealthy Nations are still struggling to put capitalism back together. But this time the invisible is aiding and not abetting.
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