God and the invisible hand of the market
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Salaam everyone
Having studied a bit (western mainstream libertarian) economics I have realised something really tricky
The main founding doctrine of Economisc (as a science) is the so called theory of 'invisible hand of the market'. In wikipedia, 'the invisible hand of the market is a metaphor used by Adam Smith to describe the self-regulating behavior of the marketplace. Individuals can make profit, and maximize it without the need for government intervention. The exact phrase is used just three times in Smith's writings, but has come to capture his important claim that individuals' efforts to maximize their own gains in a free market may benefit society, even if the ambitious have no benevolent intentions'.
The more I studied economics the more I suspected that there is something wrong with this theory. Although it was just a metaphor in Smith's writing, nowadays is cited in EVERY handbook of Economics and economists love to use it especially after financial crisis of 2008-2010 when they had to address human tragedies and huge unemployment and bancrupcies.
I started to suspect that the whole idea of 'invisible hand of the market' is like a secular religion of the economists and liberal conservatives, it is a smoke and mirror method to justify injustice that is happening in the world where few benefit and the majority losses. Believing in this makes people helpless in the sense that they are told by their secular rabbis/priests/immams economists and politicians that they deserve the punishement of the Hand (God) because they were inefficient (sinful).
But what is the most ironical thing, although invisible hand is so much loved by the secular economists, in the Adam Smith writing it was a kind of meaphor relating towards God(The Providence), Smith was a deeply religious Protestant and this influenced his thinking. Now his murky ideas about the God's intervention in the markets supply demand and prices had been smuggled and claimed as a legitimate part of a so called Economic science.
As you can see mixing 'religious' beliefs into the science is an everyday matter of economist but what is tragic, they dont even realise that!!! brickwall
What do you people think about this and most importantly, what do you think are the psychological/social implication of this belief??
Peace
M. -
Did you read the original stuffs Adam Smith said about capitalism? They are actually very eerie. Wolves have a habit of wearing sheep's clothing. You are right when you said that invisible hand is metaphoric. However, that wolf Adam Smith's capitalsim formula was made mainly for the elite society. Target was to make the rich richer. He prescribed the idea of government intervention/security mainly for elite class. The point, according to him is that when the rich will get richer the poor will envy and even try to loot.
Bad intention is found within both capitalism and socialism. I wouldn't try to connect invisible hand with God. Capitalism with the concept of free hand is impossible to run because businesses always know how to game the market.