>As he does elsewhere, Smith here makes the capitalist "passions" - the
>pursuit of "power and riches" - "stupid", i.e. irrational. He rationalizes
>what is irrational for the individual by conceiving it as the working of
>"the invisible hand", the "cunning of reason" of God's providence.
Reading the passages from the Theory of Moral Sentiments and the Wealth of Nations, I'm not convinced that Smith intended the figure of speech to mean the same thing in both places. In TMS, the pursuit of power and riches is irrational for the individual at least. In WN, the preference for investing in the home market is rational for the individual. What's the advantage of conflating the two (or more) hands?
Second, the texts do not, in my view, authorize the interpretation of an unequivocally providential outcome. "They keep off the summer shower, not the winter storm, but leave him always as much, and sometimes more exposed than before, to anxiety, to fear, and to sorrow; to diseases, to danger, and to death." Hey, if this is the best the grace of God can do, maybe it wouldn't be a such bad idea to see what His competition, the malicious spirit, has on offer.
Third, the context of the invisible hand in the TMS suggests to me a most un-Divine contrivance -- intricately connected to something both artificial and precarious. I wonder if the TMS hand, at least, refers not to a sentient five-fingered appendage but to something more mechanical like a lever or the 'hand' of a clock?
What I would also like to know is what is the history of the _reception_ of Smith's invisible hand and what was the status of its usage before Smith? Are we perhaps talking about the appropriation of an incidental metaphor (or metaphors) from the text in order to advance a claim that the text itself doesn't make? In other words, what invisible strings are attached to this marionette's now disarmingly all-too-visible hand?
Maybe the hand never was invisible, just subtle.
Tom Walker Bowen Island, BC 604 947 2213