What was the most important document published in 1776? The Declaration of Independence is the easy answer for Americans, but many would argue that Adam Smith's "The Wealth of Nations" had a bigger and more global impact.
On March 9, 1776, "An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations" (commonly referred to as simply "The Wealth of Nations") was first published. Smith, a Scottish philosopher by trade, wrote the book to upend the mercantilist system. Mercantilism held that wealth was fixed and finite and that the only way to prosper was to hoard gold and tariff products from abroad. According to this theory, this meant nations should sell their goods to other countries while buying nothing in return. Predictably, countries fell into rounds of retaliatory tariffs that choked off international trade. (For related reading, see: The Basics Of Tariffs And Trade Barriers.)
The Invisible Hand
The core of Smith's thesis was that humans' natural tendency toward self-interest (or in modern terms, looking out for yourself) results in prosperity. Smith argued that by giving everyone freedom to produce and exchange goods as they pleased (free trade) and opening the markets up to domestic and foreign competition, people's natural self-interest would promote greater prosperity than with stringent government regulations. Smith believed humans ultimately promote public interest through their everyday economic choices. “He (or she) generally, indeed, neither intends to promote the public interest nor knows how much he is promoting it. By preferring the support of domestic to that of foreign industry, he intends only his own security; and by directing that industry in such a manner as its produce may be of the greatest value, he intends only his own gain, and he is in this, as in many other cases, led by an invisible hand to promote an end which was no part of his intention,” states Smith in “An Inquiry Into The Nature And Causes Of The Wealth Of Nations” (1776). This free-market force became known as the invisible hand, but it needed support to bring about its magic.
What is the Effect of the Invisible Hand on the Government?
The automatic pricing and distribution mechanisms in the economy—which Adam Smith called an "invisible hand"—interacts directly and indirectly with centralized, top-down planning authorities. However, there are some meaningful conceptual fallacies in an argument that is framed as the invisible hand versus the government.
The invisible hand is not actually a distinguishable entity. Instead, it is the sum of many phenomena that occur when consumers and producers engage in commerce. Smith's insight into the idea of the invisible hand was one of the most important in the history of economics and remains one of the chief justifications for free market ideologies. The invisible hand theorem (at least in its modern interpretations) suggests that the means of production and distribution should be privately owned, and that if trade occurs unfettered by regulation, in turn, society will flourish organically. These arguments are naturally competitive with the concept and function of government.
The government is not serendipitous; it is prescriptive and intentional. Politicians, regulators and those who exercise legal force (such as the courts, police, and military) pursue defined goals through coercion. However, in contrast, macroeconomic forces—supply and demand, buying and selling, profit and loss occur voluntarily until government policy inhibits or overrides them. In this sense, it is more accurate to suggest that government affects the invisible hand, not the other way around.
However, it is the absence of market mechanisms that frustrates government planning. Some economists refer to this as the economic calculation problem. When people and businesses individually make decisions based on their willingness to pay money for a good or service, that information is captured dynamically in the price mechanism. This, in turn, allocates resources automatically towards the most valued ends.
When governments interfere with this process, unwanted shortages and surpluses tend to occur. Consider the massive gas shortages in the United States during the 1970s. The then newly-formed Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) had cut production to raise oil prices. In response to this, the Nixon and Ford administrations introduced price controls to limit the cost of gasoline to American consumers. The goal was to make cheap gas available to the public.
