ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on the concept of the invisible hand and uses the phrase only as a reference for the concept. Two intellectual developments gave birth to the invisible-hand proposition: first, contributions to the theory of market which originated in classical Greece and Rome; second, a controversy over human nature, launched by Thomas Hobbes' Leviathan. Smith argued that commerce has made three contributions to the improvements of the country. The first is the development of markets, the second is the creation of wealth, and here, the invisible hand pervades the whole process: the outcomes of commerce order, good government, liberty, and security all emerge without any one's intention and knowledge. Thirdly, commerce and manufactures gradually introduced order and good government, and with them, the liberty and security of individuals, among the inhabitants of the country, who had before lived almost in a continual state of war with their neighbors, and of servile dependency upon their superiors.
