What Did Smith Mean by the Invisible Hand?
澄清了斯密“看不见的手”并非让个人利益自动促进公共利益的力量,而是商人将资本留在国内以增加资本存量和军事实力的诱因,并指出斯密的修辞可能扭曲其经济学和自由贸易论证。
The invisible hand is not a power that makes the good of one the good of all, and it is not any of a number of other things it is said to be. It is simply the inducement a merchant has to keep his capital at home, thereby increasing the domestic capital stock and enhancing military power, both of which are in the public interest and neither of which he intended. Smith's exposition discloses how his rhetorical sallies could disfigure his economics, confuse his argument for free trade, and make him play fast and loose with facts and the ideas of others.