I found that article weird. > The invisible hand promotes the good of society by leading entrepreneurs to invest at home rather than abroad. IIRC "the invisib

I found that article weird. > The invisible hand promotes the good of society by leading entrepreneurs to invest at home rather than abroad. IIRC "the invisible hand" was only mentioned once through out the whole Wealth of Nations, and I found it was a passing remark. I'm not sure why everyone focuses on that one sentence like it was a literature device. And about "investing at home rather than abroad", "protectionism is appropriate", and "Smith was concerned with a third category: mercantilism" from the article, I would say that mercantilism was less of an issue in Wealth of Nations compared to protectionism. In fact, I think Adam Smith was hinting that at the macro scale, protectionism is the opposite of the most important idea of the whole book - the Division of Labor! The best example he made to show how absurd protectionism was (i.e the Division of Labor at the macro scale): > The natural advantages which one country has over another, in producing particular commodities, are sometimes so great, that it is acknowledged by all the world to be in vain to struggle with them. By means of glasses, hot-beds, and hot-walls, very good grapes can be raised in Scotland, and very good wine, too, can be made of them, at about thirty times the expense for which at least equally good can be brought from foreign countries. ... As long as the one country has those advantages, and the other wants them, it will always be more advantageous for the latter rather to buy of the former than to make. It is an acquired advantage only, which one artificer has over his neighbour, who exercises another trade; and yet they both find it more advantageous to buy of one another, than to make what does not belong to their particular trades.