The Politics of Invisible Hand: Individual Actions, and the Emergence of Macro-Level Social Phenomena

Abstract

This article critiques of the account of invisible hand theory that individual actions bring about macro-level social benefits. The standard account of the invisible hand theory asserts that individual actions, motivated mostly by self-interest, advance the common good inadvertently and unknowingly. The invisible hand theory provides explanation how social reality, such as emergence of language, social morality and culture, evolve through individual actions. The account of the invisible hand embedded in self-interest is generally attributed to Adam Smith. Adam Smith’s account of the invisible hand is centred on self-interest and freedom. In the invisible hand theory, freedom unfetters individual actions based on self-interests and promotes a kind of competition in an economic sense, which is known as capitalism. Certainly, the account of the invisible hand theory, which is based on only self-interest is un-Smithian. I argue that although the invisible hand theory provides an adequate explanation to evolution of language, morality, culture, and market, yet it promotes an unbridled capitalism, which in economic sense, may cause malign consequences. In qualitative research methodology, I adopt the empirically informed philosophical analysis method to documentary resources, including journal papers, academic books, and proceedings of conferences and congresses.