The 20th Century Myth of the Invisible Hand

Dan Hirschman, a regular reader and correspondent of Lost Legacy, posts on his Blog, A Budding Sociologists Commonplace Sourcebook HERE

“The 20th Century Myth of Adam Smith’s Invisible Hand in Two Graphs”

For obvious reasons, Dan Hirschman's post is worth printing in full (follow the link to see the two graphs), both of which are a remarkable confirmation of Lost Legacy’s arguments regarding the supposed claims that Adam Smith’s use of the Invisible Hand Metaphor shows that the modern myths of its significance, as his major idea in his Works, were pure inventions of the Cold War decades.

“Longtime readers of this blog will know that I am a bit fascinated with the uses and misuses of Adam Smith’s work. For that reason, I am a big fan of Gavin Kennedy’s blog, Adam Smith’s Lost Legacy. Kennedy has been fighting against contemporary misinterpretations of Smith, with a special focus on the “myth of the invisible hand” (for an article-length summary of his position, see here). His work, along with Emma Rothschild, Warren Samuels, and others, has shown that the concept of the invisible hand emerged in 20th century economics, and was not central to Smith’s own writing. Smith used the phrase “invisible hand” just once in the Wealth of Nations, and it meant something more like “unintended consequences” than the harmonious workings of a perfect market. Emma Rothschild goes so far as to call it a “mildly ironic joke,” though I prefer to emphasize that the invisible hand was a common metaphor of the time that had little special significance for Smith. So, when did we start thinking of Smith as being the “theorist of the invisible hand” (and, around the same time, forget all his opposition to strict laissez-faire)? Gavin Kennedy’s historical work places the disjuncture in an oral tradition in England and the US in the late 19th to early 20th century. The myth remained somewhat confined until the publication of Samuelson’s extremely influential undergraduate text, Economics in 1948, which brought the myth to the masses (Kennedy 2010).

One way to see the influence of Samuelson’s publication, and to check the overall plausibility of the Kennedy-Rothschild-Samuelson (K-R-S) account of the myth of the invisible hand, is simply to check how often the phrase was referenced. Thankfully, JStor’s Data For Researchers tool makes this task trivial. Here’s a graph of counts of articles mentioning “invisible hand” over time:

There is a trickle of mentions leading up to the 20th century, with a takeoff following 1950 (and thus, a few years after Samuelson’s text was published).



Here’s a similar graph for mentions of “adam smith” AND “invisible hand”:


Mentions of "adam smith" and "invisible hand" in JStor's corpus.

Note that the trickles earlier on drop out – as “invisible hand” was a somewhat common metaphor in Smith’s time, it makes sense that other 18th and 19th century authors invoked it, but they did not appear to do so in reference to Smith. By the 1920s, and especially in the 1950s and after, we begin to see Adam Smith and the invisible hand coming together. A more detailed analysis is also possible in JStor, as we could look at the articles referencing both Smith and the invisible hand to see exactly how authors in the 1920s-1950s understood the phrase, and compare it to uses in articles from the 19th and early 20th century that did not reference Smith. Even in the absence of that more detailed analysis, I think we can safely say that the link between Smith and the invisible hand is a relatively recent creation. The evidence for the K-R-S position is strong.”

Comment
This is more evidence that the message is getting across to a wider audience after nearly seven years of Lost Legacy. I expect that the message will gain traction following publication of Warren Samuel's, Erasing the Invisible Hand (Cambridge University Press, 2011). Warren was a prominent and well-respected scholar in the History of Economic Thought community and his detailed assessment of the claimed significance to Adam Smith of his use of the IH metaphor and its relevance to modern economics are grossly exaggerated. It plays no useful role in modern economic theory.

Please pass on to other Blogs and colleagues Dan Hirschman's post.

Book Review of Warren Samuels' New (and last) book

I have written (21 Feb) a review of Warren Samuels’ new (and last book) for EH.Net for SHOE (the Society of History of Economics) HERE

“Erasing the Invisible Hand: Essays on an Elusive and Misused Concept in Economics”
Samuels, Warren J.; Reviewer: Gavin Kennedy

“Warren J. Samuels (assisted by Marianne F. Johnson and William H. Perry), Erasing the Invisible Hand: Essays on an Elusive and Misused Concept in Economics. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2011. xxviii + 329 pp. $95 (hardcover) ISBN: 978-0-521-51725-6.

Reviewed for EH.Net by Gavin Kennedy, Edinburgh Business School, Heriot-Watt University, Edinburgh (Professor Emeritus).

"Warren Samuels was an American historian of economic thought located at the top of its first division. He started work for this book in 1983 and took 28 years to complete. This was no rushed job and it shows in his meticulous and, therefore, authoritative scholarly account of the now widely quoted “invisible hand” (pp. 20-26). Smith did not “coin” the phrase. It was prevalent in classical times from Aeschylus through to St Augustine, and later, in numerous seventeenth- and eighteenth-century theological texts, sermons, plays (Shakespeare), poems, and novels (Defoe, Walpole), and in political rhetoric (George Washington). 
 
Adam Smith used it only twice as a metaphor in his Theory of Moral Sentiments (1759) and Wealth of Nations (1776), and once in his History of Astronomy (1795, posthumous). After Smith, there was an absence of mentions of the invisible hand metaphor among economists to 1875 and near silence thereafter until it was rediscovered and re-invented into the “founding concept” of modern economics from the 1940s.

Samuels reports Amazon listing 33,888 books discussing the invisible hand (2009). The annual rate of mentions rose from “very low” (1816-1938), but the decade (1990-1999) recorded eight times the level of mentions between 1942-1974 and nearly 20 percent higher than for 1980-89 (p.18-19). In consequence, the invisible hand is now widely believed to be significant, and it has spread to other disciplines. Samuels dissects forensically this phenomenon of belief, though he understates the unique role of Paul Samuelson (from 1948) in popularizing modern notions of Adam Smith’s “invisible hand.”

Samuels discusses Adam Smith’s supposed use of the invisible hand in his political economy. Essay 3 examines the numerous modern identities of the invisible hand and Essay 4 discusses Smith’s argument that philosophical ideas help to “soothe the imagination.” Essay 5 examines conceptual problems associated with “naturalism” and “supernaturalism” in philosophy. Essay 6 examines the invisible hand as a “figure of speech,” which for me is Samuels’ most disappointing essay. Samuels continues with his examination of the invisible hand as “Knowledge’ (Essay 7) within the economic role of government, while Essay 8 addresses misconceptions that Smith was a doctrinaire advocate of “laissez-faire.” Samuels continues in Essay 9 on claims that Smith’s ideas led to the welfare theorem. Samuels’ conclusions in Essay 10 are best summarized by his question: “what is left of the invisible hand” (p. 293) and by his answer: “There is no invisible hand as that term is used in economics. Its continued use must at its base constitute an embarrassment. Almost all uses of the term add nothing to substantive knowledge” (pp. 290-91).
There are two parts to the enigma of “an invisible hand.” There was Adam Smith’s use of the invisible hand metaphor (what did Smith mean?) and second, there is how modern economists use the same figure of speech (what do they mean?). Samuels’ otherwise excellent and thorough account produces an ambiguous answer. He says that his “account clearly does not conclude the conventional view(s) of the invisible hand is (are) wrong, in whole or in part” (p. 295). However, “Conventional views” may well be true, if judged strictly as beliefs. Simultaneously and separately, beliefs in attributions to Adam Smith that assert his complicity in those conventional views are false.

Samuels’ problem is sourced in Essay 6 on “uncertain language.” He identifies “one dozen major responses” to the question of “what is the invisible hand?” plus “some four dozen identities” (p 135). However, his analysis of the role of metaphors is particularly disappointing because, while he provides an authoritative survey of the modern use of metaphors and associated figures of speech, he does not acknowledge Adam Smith’s own teaching on metaphors. Instead, Samuels sources his “conclusions” from eight twentieth-century linguistic authorities (from 1979 and 1993) and Samuel Johnson’s Dictionary (1755), of which Smith published a scathing critical review. Samuels makes no mention in the text nor in the bibliography of surely the prime witness as to what Smith meant by “an invisible hand,” that is, Adam Smith himself!

Smith discussed the role of metaphors clearly in his “Lectures on Rhetoric and Belles Lettres” ([1762] 1983): “Now it is evident that none of these metaphors can have any beauty unless it be so adapted that it gives the due strength of expression to the object to be described and at the same time does this in a more striking and interesting manner” (Smith, LRBL, Lecture 6, p. 29; see also Oxford English Dictionary, 1983).

Smith used the metaphor of “an invisible hand” to “describe in a more striking and interesting manner” their particular objects: it was the absolute mutual dependence of the “unfeeling landlord” on his serfs, servants, and tenants (‘no food, no labour’), and their mutual dependence on him (‘no labour, no food’), which mutual dependence led him to share his crops with them, unintentionally benefiting humanity through the “propagation of the species” (Theory Moral Sentiments, 1759, p. 185); and it was the insecurity felt by some, but not all, merchant traders, that led them to prefer to invest in “domestick industry” (mentioned four times), rather than risk the “foreign trade of consumption” (Wealth Of Nations, 1776, p. 456), also unintentionally benefiting society by adding to domestic revenue and employment. Smith’s use (History of Astronomy, 1795, p. 49) of the “invisible hand of Jupiter” simply states the pagan beliefs of Romans about their god, Jupiter, whom they believed (but never witnessed) cast his lightning bolts at humans. In all three cases, it is evident that for Smith the “invisible hand” does not exist; it is an imaginary figure of speech and an imagined pagan belief. We cannot see, but we can imagine; we may choose to believe or not to believe. The “invisible hand” “corresponds to nothing in reality,” it “contributes nothing to knowledge,” and is a “distraction and a diversion, (Samuels, p. 146).

Samuels simultaneously announces that “designating something – for example, the market, the price-mechanism, an entrepreneur, or anything else” – as the function ostensibly performed by something called “the invisible hand” literally adds nothing.

Warren Samuels has written an authoritative, detailed and mainly original contribution to scholarship, ably assisted by his collaborators, Marianne Johnson and William Perry."

Gavin Kennedy, professor emeritus, Heriot-Watt University, Edinburgh (gavinK9@gmail.com), is the author of Adam Smith: A Moral Philosopher and His Political Economy, second edition, (Palgrave, 2010) and www.adamsmithslostlegacy.blogspot.com/

Copyright (c) 2012 by EH.Net. All rights reserved. This work may be copied for non-profit educational uses if proper credit is given to the author and the list. For other permission, please contact the EH.Net Administrator (administrator@eh.net). Published by EH.Net (February 2012). All EH.Net reviews are archived at http://www.eh.net/BookReview.”

[PLEASE PASS ON TO READERS INTERESTED IN THE HISTORY OF ECONOMICS, AND TO GENERAL ECONOMISTS INFLUENCED BY THE MODERN MYTHS ABOUT ADAM SMITH AND THE IH METAPHOR].

These Guys Should Know Better

Rob Norton HERE
Concise Encyclopedia of Economics, quoted by “Utah” in the Rio Norte Line HERE

"Unintended Consequences" by Rob Norton

“The concept of unintended consequences is one of the building blocks of economics. Adam Smith’s “invisible hand,” the most famous metaphor in social science, is an example of a positive unintended consequence. Smith maintained that each individual, seeking only his own gain, “is led by an invisible hand to promote an end which was no part of his intention,” that end being the public interest. “It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, or the baker, that we expect our dinner,” Smith wrote, “but from regard to their own self interest.”

Comment
This authoritative source (from Liberty Fund) has been instrumental in spreading the fallacious notion of the entirely modern notion (from the late 1940s, pace Paul Samuelson) that there is “an invisible hand” at work in capitalist economies, and worse, that Adam Smith initiated the idea.

One excellent antidote to the “invisible hand” myth is Warren J. Samuels’ last book (he passed away just before it was published): “Erasing the Invisible Hand: essays on an elusive and misused concept in economics”, 2011, Cambridge University Press). I suggest that the good people of Liberty Fund read it.

Generalising from a single instance of Smith’s use of the IH metaphor and joining it to another quotation on an different subject is always dangerous when presenting Adam Smith’s ideas.

A Must-Read Book For All Modern Economists

Warren Samuels with the assistance of Marianne F. Johnson and William H. Perry, 2011, Erasing the Invisible Hand, Essays on an Elusive and Misused Concept in Economics, New York and Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0-521-51725-6

This is a welcome and authoritative contribution to a central problem in modern economics, specifically that of the so-called ‘invisible hand’ and its prescriptive implications for policy. Its author is well-known among economists for his life’s work in the broad field of the history of economic thought, especially, of course, among historians of economic thought, where he is well-known and rightly admired.

Sadly, Warren Samuels (14 September, 1933 – 17 August, 2011) died just before his last major book was published last September. Many messages of sympathy and commendation have circulated among the various academic communities across the world (see, Lost Legacy, 19 and 21 August for mine HERE http://adamsmithslostlegacy.blogspot.com/2011/08/sad-loss-to-history-of-economic-thought.html) .

Samuels started on his thorough examination of the ‘invisible-hand’ in 1983 and, 28 years later, it was completed and published in September, 2011. His examination begins with Adam Smith’s initiation, so to speak, of the debate in 1744 when he began his Essay on Astronomy while at Oxford, published posthumously in 1795. He made two further mentions only of the IH in his two other works, Moral Sentiments (1759) and Wealth Of Nations (1776). Smith did not invent the IH metaphor; he used what had been widely used by many others in the 17th and 18th centuries (and was used by many others going back to classical times).

After Adam Smith, there was a long period of silence about his use of the now famous metaphor until the last quarter of the 19th century, when scattered references surfaced occasionally through the 20s and 30s of the 20th century and then flooded into print from the 1950s (with over 33,000 book titles on Amazon) and daily mentions on all media (see Google).

Warren Samuels' main critical focus is on the uses and the various attributed meanings given to the IH from the 1940s by modern economists. His examination of the modern period is detailed, exhaustive, and relentless. He provides the data: between 1816 and 1938 the “average” number of references was “very low” [I would say close to zero, especially from 1790 to 1875); from 1944 to 1974 that number “doubled”, from 1975 to 1979 it “doubled again”, between 1980-89 it became 6.6 times higher than between 1942 to 1974, between 1990-99 it was 8x that of 1942-74, and less than 20% higher than the 1980-89 level. In 2000-06 mentions fell back to 60% of the 1990-1999 level (p 18). In short, the ‘noise’ of the modern periods became awesome, in contrast with the trappist-like silence of the period 1790-1875.

I agree with Warren Samuels there is some connection with the Cold War years when “capitalism’, as an idea, was under pressure from the Soviet challenge, and I would add, from domestic challenges from communist, social democratic and anti-colonial movements at least to 1989.

By the time that Warren concludes his ten essays, no stone is left unturned. There is nowhere left to hide from Samuels' definitive and confident conclusion: there no such thing as an actual “invisible hand” at work, or present, in the economy, at any level or for any particular purpose. The idea adds nothing at all to our understanding of how markets or anything else works. It is empty of relevant meaning. It is a myth, a religious-like belief, yet some of the finest economists of our modern age, including several Nobel Prize winners, believe in it with a worrying passion.

However, even with this welcome demolition of the IH myth, I have one area of concern with Warren Samuels' absolutely splendid book. At Lost Legacy since 2005, I have focussed a lot on Adam Smith’s use of the IH metaphor, in particular on the simple test of what Adam Smith taught on the role and use of metaphors. Strangely, Warren devotes Essay 6 (pages 135-63) to a thorough examination of ‘figures of speech’, including metaphors, using mainly specialists in modern English literature, with a singular exception of a two references to Dr Johnson’s Dictionary (1755), whom Smith criticised for being "insufficiently grammatical".

What Warren does not do is consult the most relevant source: Adam Smith, a better guide than Dr Johnson! Smith’s teaching on metaphors is highly relevant, particularly when we try to consider what he meant when he used the IH metaphor so sparingly. In his Lectures on Rhetoric and Belles Lettres, delivered from 1748-64, for which we have a set of student notes [1763] 1983. Smith’s words cut through all the speculation about the meaning of the IH metaphors, which negates the wilder assertions of those modern economists and philosophers who have invented and continue to invent numerous ‘meanings’ of the IH as discussed (all demolished in a scholarly and always polite manner by Warren Samuels).

Adam Smith was clear: a metaphor “describes in a more striking and interesting manner it object” (LRBL, page 29); and the definitive guide to the English language, The Oxford English Dictionary (1983) endorses Smith’s 1763 definition. So what is the problem?

Currently, I am writing a longer scholarly review of Warren’s book for EH.Net (an internationally read eReview service for history of economics specialists across academe), in which I shall report on Warren Samuel’s assessments of the modern myths of the IH and its ideological role in recent and current economic policy and political debate (see Lost Legacy passim). When it is published in March I shall report it to Lost Legacy.

A Post Commented Upon - and my Reply

Mark Thoma, Professor of Economics, University of Oregon, writes the popular Economist’s View (HERE):

Yesterday Mark Thoma posted my piece (21 August) on the exciting (to me) news about:

“Warren Samuels on the "Invisible Hand" from the Coordinating Problem Blog (18 August) (HERE):
http://www.coordinationproblem.org/

“Gavin Kennedy has been trying to extinguish the invisible hand myth for some time now”:
Warren Samuels on the "Invisible Hand," Adam Smith's Lost Legacy: More good news on Warren Samuels new book in the publisher’s blurb, posted in the Coordinating Problem Blog (here):
The post, “Warren Samuels (1933-2011)”, is by Peter Boettke of George Mason University, Fairfax, Virginia, and the academic home of my friendly sparing partner on the “invisible hand”, Daniel Klein. (and etc.,)

To which a reader at Economist’s View commented (24 August):

"Reality Bites said...

So the concept and meaning of "invisible hand" has changed over the years, so what? This is typical of most ideas that are important to societies. In fact, crucial notions HAVE to change in order to remain relevant to the current society while still offering a link to the past.

A friend who is a professor of history wrote his thesis on Civil War re-enactments and how they've changed over time. Both the reasons for re-enactments and how they are perceived has also changed. Another example is the Confederate flag, what it means and the values represented have consistently changed as society has changed.

"that several dozen identities given the invisible hand renders the term ambiguous and inconclusive"

Gee you mean like the terms freedom, liberty, love, and honor?
Many terms are so broad and grand that they have multiple meanings and cannot be pinned to a single definition. I would argue that our most important ideas and concepts fit that description.

We do not live in a static world. Ask any linguist and they'll tell you words and meanings change all the time as long as the language is alive. Why should we be astonished that the concept of the invisible hand has changed? This new book is obviously political commentary posing as some sort of research.”

And to which I posted a short to reality Bites reply today:
(August 25)

"The point you make is valid about concepts changing, but the fact also remains true that Adam Smith's use of the metaphor did not/cannot change - he died in 1790. What is illegitimate is the attribution to Adam Smith of ideas he never held.

The myth that Adam Smith had a 'concept' or 'theory' of 'an invisible hand' is absolutely untrue. He used it as a metaphor for something else, known in the English language as 'its 'object', in Moral Sentiments (1759) for the actions of feudal landlords and in Wealth Of Nations (1776) for the risk-aversion of some, but not all, merchants in protectionist Britain (remember he taught Rhetoric to his classes from 1748 to 1751 in Edinburgh and from 1752-64 in Glasgow) and and knew the proper role of metaphors, and always used good English grammar, in everything he wrote.

The myth was invented within an oral tradition (what lecturers taught their students in Cambridge in England) and Chicago in the USA) about Adam Smith. Paul Samuelson, a graduate of Chicago, popularised the myth about Adam Smith's 'invisible hand' in his famous textbook from 1948.

It is its attribution to Adam Smith that is the problem, because this gave the myth credibility (now widely believed in economics) and gave the modern policy implications of the myth its traction in government practices and beliefs, with, arguably, negative consequences.

That makes the debate important, not trivial.”

Comment
I ignored the last sentence of “Reality Bites”:

"This new book is obviously political commentary posing as some sort of research".

This description by “Reality Bites” of the work of Warren Samuels as "political commentary posing as some sort of research" is only worthy of the following appropriate comment:

When ignorance predominates, vulgarity asserts itself

WARREN SAMUELS ON THE "INVISIBLE HAND"

More good news on Warren Samuels new book in the publisher’s blurb, posted in the Coordinating Problem Blog (HERE) :

The post, “Warren Samuels (1933-2011)”, is by Peter Boettke of George Mason University, Fairfax, Virginia, and the academic home of my friendly sparing partner on the “invisible hand”, Daniel Klein.

Regular readers will see immediately why I am so excited to read an outline of its main theme and one of its concluding assertions: that ‘no such thing as an invisible hand exists’. Yes, it was a metaphor.

This conclusion is from a most highly respected source in the history of economic thought.

The scholarly profession will sit up and note what Warren Samuels says, even if it has not responded positively yet to the six-year campaign of Lost Legacy to alert it to the errors of the modern myths about Adam Smith’s use of the invisible hand metaphor.

“Erasing the Invisible Hand” (Cambridge, 2011) is described by the publisher as follows:

“This book examines the use, principally in economics, of the concept of the invisible hand, centering on Adam Smith. It interprets the concept as ideology, knowledge and a linguistic phenomenon. It shows how the principal Chicago School interpretation misperceives and distorts what Smith believed on the economic role of government. The essays further show how Smith was silent as to his intended meaning, using the term to set minds at rest; how the claim that the invisible hand is the foundational concept of economics is repudiated by numerous leading economic theorists; that several dozen identities given the invisible hand renders the term ambiguous and inconclusive; that no such thing as an invisible hand exists; and that calling something an invisible hand adds nothing to knowledge. Finally, the essays show that the leading doctrines purporting to claim an invisible hand for the case for capitalism cannot invoke the term but that other non-normative invisible hand processes are still useful tools.”

Review copies are circulating - but none has come this way.

Ross Emmett's Tribute Warren Samuelson

Ross Emmett published on the AMHE Blog (HERE):
this tribute to Warren Samuels, who died this week. It is worthy of the widest circulation and our respect as Warren Samuels was justly celebrated as an international scholar of the History of Economic Thought.

"RIP, Warren J. Samuels (1933-2011)"

"Warren Samuels passed away yesterday at his home in Gainesville, Florida. Warren was an eminent historian of economic thought, whose work ranged across the field’s breadth. His first published works in the field were a pair of articles on the physiocratic system (published in the Quarterly Journal of Economics) that served to reshape thinking about the physiocratic view of the economic role of the state. On the other end of the time spectrum, he was a pioneer in doing and encouraging work on the history of post-war economics. This breadth of scholarship is exemplified nicely in the book that he completed not long before his death, Erasing the Invisible Hand: Essays on an Elusive and Misguided Concept in Economics, which was brought to completion with the assistance of Marianne Johnson and will be released by Cambridge University Press in September. We’ve suffered a great loss as an intellectual community in his passing.

Many of you knew Warren well, so there is no need to rehearse at length his publications or his forays into many other areas of economics. Warren was one of the first historians of economics to treat the history of economics as a branch of intellectual history. This was, for him, a part of the larger intellectual conversation about the role of governments and markets in modern society that was his lifelong pursuit. His well-known studies of policy in classical economics (The Classical Theory of Economic Policy) and in Pareto (Pareto on Policy) were major contributions to that discussion. His perspective had a significant effect on the students who studied with him over the years, and on those of us who were the recipients of his comments and advice at conferences and via correspondence.

From the outset of his career, Warren recognized the importance to the intellectual historian of correspondence, course notes, unpublished manuscripts, public lectures, etc. What we now collectively refer to as archival materials. Not only did he promote the use of these materials in historical research, but he also amassed an extensive personal collection of these materials, which he began to publish in 1989 in archival supplements to Research in the History of Economic Thought & Methodology. The very first supplement contained the notes he had obtained from economist Robert L. Hale and Sinologist Homer H. Dubs of John Dewey’s course on Moral and Political Philosophy at Columbia University. The second supplement contains the only authorized publication of Frank Knight’s infamous lecture on “The Case for Communism.” Warren and George Stigler went back and forth for some time regarding the publication of that piece! Dewey and Knight were, perhaps not surprisingly, two of Warren’s intellectual heros. The materials he amassed will continue to be published in the research annual for many years to come. His collection of photographs of economists is already available online from the Center for the History of Political Economy at Duke University.

Warren was also a tireless editor of volumes that touched upon almost any aspect of his wider interests. I have lined up on my bookshelf over 80 volumes that he edited on the history of economics, economic methodology, or recent economic thought. Mine is probably not a complete set! All of these were undertaken to encourage scholarship in areas that interested him (and, by extension, which he thought would interest others). Many of them are also the means by which he encouraged the work of young scholars.

We all experienced his generosity to students, young scholars and anyone else who wanted to join the great conversation. His goal and passion was to broaden and enrich that conversation, and he was as happy to engage a young scholar as he was a Nobel laureate. To that end, he and Sylvia made a substantial contribution to the History of Economics Society to endow its Young Scholars program.

Among the many professional societies to which he belonged, the History of Economics Society was always the one closest to Warren’s heart. He was a founding member of the Society, and served as its 8th President. The Society honored him in 1997 with its Distinguished Fellow award; two years earlier he was the recipient of the Association for Evolutionary Economics Veblen-Commons Award. He was the long-time editor of the Journal of Economic Issues and the founding editor of Research in the History of Economic Thought & Methodology.

[I wish to acknowledge the helpful advice I received from Jeff Biddle, Marianne Johnson and Steve Medema.
Ross Emmett]"

[En Noticias / News el 20/08/2011 por Manuel Bautista]

News of Warren Samuels' Imminent Account of the Invisible Hand

I have mentioned several times that Warren Samuels is publishing his considered analysis of the use to which the “invisible hand” has been put over the centuries, and that I am waiting eagerly to read the finished material which he is about to publish.

In 2007, I attended the History of Economics Society annual meeting at George Mason’s University, Fairfax, Virginia and I listened to Warren presenting his paper as a foretaste of what his researches (since 1983) concluded. The session was well attended. He took questions afterwards and I also spoke to him and his wife momentarily during breaks in other sessions.

Naturally, I was particularly interested in his themes as I presented my own draft paper “Adam Smith and the Invisible Hand” (revised and published by Econ Journal Watch (May 2009) HERE: and see also:
HERE:

Warren Samuels is an impressive scholar and he is rightly highly regarded by all members of HES.

Yesterday, I posted a comment on the current enquiry about visualising (film clips, videos, and slides) the invisible hand for a lecture to non-economists. The contributions continue, most taking the enquirer’s project seriously.

Of greater import to the broader discussion, Ross Emett has sent to me a reference to a summary of Warren’s 2007 paper HERE:

At the time in June 2007, there was no paper from Warren available and I was unaware that his paper had been released since, and I am indebted to Ross Emett for sending the link to me.

I strongly recommend all readers of Lost Legacy to follow the link and to read Warren Samuel’s draft paper.

As soon as the main manuscript is published, I shall notify readers of where to order a copy. From the draft, I think Warren’s scholarship on the invisible hand is going to become definitive.

He does not support my approach, not does he particularly disagree with it; he puts the debate into its proper context of a much wider debate on the role of philosophical thinking. I shall refrain from commenting further until I read his considered thoughts.