Quote from: Cnut237 on Today at 06:58:59 AM

Quote from: _Miracle on September 17, 2021, 09:13:52 PM

There are many observations made in the book and one of them is that a supply chain and/or market can move itself quite efficiently without outside regulations and controls.

The book was written when the US was still a colony of England. It was written before we knew how to produce electricity. I don't think it can say a huge amount about the advanced market economies of the modern world.

I tend to view capitalism as a process rather than an end state. I don't see how it can have an equilibrium position. I am not educated in this either, so forgive my ignorance, but if the contention is that a system based on the pursual of self-interest and profit at the expense of others (because capitalism is a competition, isn't it?) contains within itself some invisible mechanism that pulls society towards economic stability and equilibrium... then it just sounds like wishful thinking. I mean, the 2008 crisis couldn't have arisen unless the excesses of capitalism had increased instability to such a point that everything was ready to collapse. Perhaps the answer is that I misunderstand the concept, but it perplexes me that some people still believe that an invisible hand exists, and my only conclusion when I compare this belief to the utter absence of evidence for its existence, is that it is simply a psychological prop used to support an idea that is outdated and incorrect.

This is one of those threads that opens up many avenues of discussion, and I may be veering off-topic.

LOL---if you could see my reaction (like oh noooo you didn't just say that about TWoN Grin

)

You would be surprised. I'd venture to guess that most modern day Economist have read it or had to be "schooled on it" in some class.
Milton Friedman got me interested in the book to begin with and then constant misrepresentations made me finish reading it.
It is really quite an extraordinary amount of data that he collected for those times.

"The Invisible Hand" *no ominous background music included

Here is an O.K. interpretation *stolen from the internet
"a metaphor for the unseen forces that move the free market economy"

I would say the unseen forces in any type of economy---> Us people, the personal choices we make that move markets.