Osynliga Handen

"As for Adam Smith and Wealth of Nations. First of the all the idea of a unsubsidized, not state subsidized capitalism. We don't even bother talking about that. It has existed. It exists in a good part of the third world which is why the third world looks the way it does. It has never existed in any developed society for a very simple reason, the wealthy and the powerful won't allow it, as Adam Smith understood. They will use the levers of power to make sure that state power subsidizes them. "

"That's why [...] every developed society has developed just that way. That's one of the clichés of economic history. So we don't have to talk about that because it's never existed and it never will exist except for people who have it rammed down their throats. Now am I in favor of it, that's another question. Like in some mythical world would I like to see laissez faire capitalism. Well only under the conditions described by Adam Smith. The real Adam Smith, the one who wrote Wealth of Nations, not the one you worship before, but the one who wrote it and if you look at his argument for markets, it's pretty clear, I mean, maybe the argument's right maybe it's wrong but it's clear what it was, the argument was, I repeat, that under conditions of perfect liberty markets will lead to perfect equality. That's why markets are good, he said. They will lead to perfect equality and they will not force people to subject themselves to outside orders so they become less than human. ... If that were possible well, maybe so. But it's not in the cards."

Hmm, det där stämmer nog inte. Tvärtom skulle jag säga. Det radas upp så mycket bieffekter numera så man blir matt. Om ett läkemedel mot exempelvis nästäppa testas och en av försökspersonerna snubblar och bryter benet rapporteras benbrott som bieffekt. (sen kanske inte benbrottsbieffekten når ända till fass iofs) Sen finns det mycket att säga om att läkemedelsindustrin inte alltid är så sund, men det har knappast med liberal politik att göra. Jag skulle tro att om bieffekter undanhålls är det på initiativ av någon vilsen forskare (pga av hans egen prestige) och knappast företagets policy.

Länka gärna någon artikel om detta, låter intressant.

The Nobel Memorial Prize-winning economist Joseph E. Stiglitz, says: "the reason that the invisible hand often seems invisible is that it is often not there."

Stiglitz explains his position: Adam Smith, the father of modern economics, is often cited as arguing for the “invisible hand” and free markets: firms, in the pursuit of profits, are led, as if by an invisible hand, to do what is best for the world. But unlike his followers, Adam Smith was aware of some of the limitations of free markets, and research since then has further clarified why free markets, by themselves, often do not lead to what is best. As I put it in my new book, Making Globalization Work, the reason that the invisible hand often seems invisible is that it is often not there.

Whenever there are “externalities”—where the actions of an individual have impacts on others for which they do not pay, or for which they are not compensated—markets will not work well. Some of the important instances have long understood environmental externalities. Markets, by themselves, produce too much pollution. Markets, by themselves, also produce too little basic research. (The government was responsible for financing most of the important scientific breakthroughs, including the internet and the first telegraph line, and many bio-tech advances.)

But recent research has shown that these externalities are pervasive, whenever there is imperfect information or imperfect risk markets—that is always.

Government plays an important role in banking and securities regulation, and a host of other areas: some regulation is required to make markets work. Government is needed, almost all would agree, at a minimum to enforce contracts and property rights.

The real debate today is about finding the right balance between the market and government (and the third “sector”—non-governmental non-profit organizations.) Both are needed. They can each complement each other. This balance differs from time to time and place to place.

Noam Chomsky (lugn nu, Visf), while acknowledging the intelligence of Smith's thesis, criticizes how the term of the "invisible hand" has been used.

He also explains: Throughout history, Adam Smith observed, we find the workings of "the vile maxim of the masters of mankind": "All for ourselves, and nothing for other People." He had few illusions about the consequences. The invisible hand, he wrote, destroys the possibility of a decent human existence "unless government takes pains to prevent" this outcome, as must be assured in "every improved and civilized society." It destroys community, the environment, and human values generally—and even the masters themselves, which is why the business classes have regularly called for state intervention to protect them from market forces. (...)

The political economist E.K. Hunt criticized markets and the externalities emerging from market exchanges as being a route for self-advancement at the expense of social good. Hunt helped contribute to the literature on heterodox economics, helping to coin the term "invisible foot" in contrast to a presumably beneficient "invisible hand":

If we assume the maximizing economic man of bourgeois economics, and if we assume the government establishes property rights and markets for these rights whenever an external diseconomy is discovered [the preferred "solution" of the conservative and increasingly dominant trend within the field of public finance], then each man will soon discover that through contrivance he can impose external diseconomies on other men, knowing that the bargaining within the new market that will be established will surely make him better off. The more significant the social cost imposed upon his neighbor, the greater will be his reward in the bargaining process. It follows from the orthodox assumption of maximizing man that each man will create a maximum of social costs which he can impose on others. D'Arge and I have labeled this process "the invisible foot" of the laissez faire ... market place. The "invisible foot" ensures us that in a free-market ... economy each person pursuing only his own good will automatically, and most efficiently, do his part in maximizing the general public misery. "

George Carlin: - Comic Critic for Our Times (Part Two of Two).
"That invisible hand of Adam Smith's seems to offer an extended middle finger to an awful lot of people."