3 ms·

They generally also believe in the invisible hand of the capitalist market.

• mason240 13y ago
  That is something that can only "believed" in or "disbelieved" as much as gravity can be "believed" in or "disbelieved."
  • wildwood 13y ago
    Gravity can be tested just by dropping your pencil. The invisible hand takes a lot more faith and fervent wishing, IMO.
    • icebraining 13y ago
      To test the invisible hand, as described by Smith, you just need to buy something useful from someone who just sold it for money, and not out of any desire of helping people. People just inflate the concept to ridiculous levels, which were clearly not intended by the author.
  • ssivark 13y ago
    One has to be careful when applying the "invisible hand" idea. You can't just take an "ideal" situation (fixed point) and say that the system will evolve towards that. For an example, I refer to my comment on this HN thread -- https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6313482 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6313482
  • qu4z-2 13y ago
    I believe in the invisible hand, but I also believe it's drunk.