💰 Moneypublished 2w ago
Adam Smith Mentioned the "Invisible Hand" Only Once in His Masterpiece
Modern debates frequently invoke the "invisible hand" as Adam Smith's central thesis, assuming he championed completely unregulated free markets. In reality, across the roughly 1,000 pages of his 1776 foundational text, The Wealth of Nations, the phrase appears exactly once. Far from endorsing unrestrained self-interest, Smith used the metaphor narrowly to explain why domestic merchants prefer investing capital close to home rather than overseas, unintentionally bolstering national industry and employment.
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