Difference between revisions of "Invisible Hand"
From Critiques Of Libertarianism
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| − | The invisible hand mythology is allegorical. What actually constrains markets to be mostly beneficial is the very visible and coercive hand of government. Government stays the hands of profit-seekering capitalists, limiting their actions to consensual exchanges rather than the coercive or monopolistic exchanges that would otherwise predominate. Government stays the hands of non-owners from making peaceful use of owner's goods. Government does this through the institutions of law, property, personal rights, courts, etc. As consumers, we cannot walk down the street without the knowledge that all the property of others that we view is denied to us by government. As business people, we cannot threaten nor cheat lest government punish us. That is why we are constrained to capitalism: no invisible hand, but a very real, public and omnipresent threat if we stray from the institutional norms of capitalism. | + | <!--The invisible hand mythology is allegorical. What actually constrains markets to be mostly beneficial is the very visible and coercive hand of government. Government stays the hands of profit-seekering capitalists, limiting their actions to consensual exchanges rather than the coercive or monopolistic exchanges that would otherwise predominate. Government stays the hands of non-owners from making peaceful use of owner's goods. Government does this through the institutions of law, property, personal rights, courts, etc. As consumers, we cannot walk down the street without the knowledge that all the property of others that we view is denied to us by government. As business people, we cannot threaten nor cheat lest government punish us. That is why we are constrained to capitalism: no invisible hand, but a very real, public and omnipresent threat if we stray from the institutional norms of capitalism. --> |
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| + | Why do people prattle about "as if an invisible hand" when it is government alone that visibly constrains the businessmen to mere economic competition rather than the violence, monopoly and theft of mafias? It is government that visibly constrains the consumer to mere purchase rather than ignoring the system of property and anarchistically using whatever is desired, either peacefully or forcefully. It is that government coercion that redistributes from the businessman to the consumer a large part of the consumer surplus. It is that government coercion that allows the accumulation of property that permits civilization. | ||
According to [http://ngrams.googlelabs.com/graph?content=invisible+hand&year_start=1800&year_end=2000&corpus=0&smoothing=3 Google Books Ngram Viewer], usage of this term has increased threefold since 1960. This might have to do with increasing promotion of capitalism as neoliberal propaganda. | According to [http://ngrams.googlelabs.com/graph?content=invisible+hand&year_start=1800&year_end=2000&corpus=0&smoothing=3 Google Books Ngram Viewer], usage of this term has increased threefold since 1960. This might have to do with increasing promotion of capitalism as neoliberal propaganda. | ||
