The Invisible Hand

‘Chicago’ Adam Smith was created in Milton Friedman’s department and replaced the authentic ‘Kirkcaldy’ Adam Smith who wrote the Wealth Of Nations.

One of the many atrocities committed by Chicago and its graduates who spread the word across US campuses, was the myth of the ‘invisible hand’, which some variants transmuted into ‘as if led by an invisible hand’, and most of examples of the myth in currency assert it was, first a ‘concept’, then a ‘theory’ and finally Smith’s most ‘important idea’.
Adam Smith's Lost Legacy

"Like the “free market” of Milton Friedman’s wettest dreams, the “marketplace of ideas” is heavily manipulated by well-paid professionals. These “markets” are virtually one and the same in the context of capitalism. Somebody’s always trying to sell you something—fear, beer, and all things in between.

In the case of “free market” capitalism there are a slew of manipulative forces at work: the WTO, NAFTA, the selective government subsidies predicted by Eisenhower’s parting “Military Industrial Complex” warning, the outsourcing of labor to countries with little regard for worker rights, pay or age, fraudulent Enron-type accounting, etc. The examples are numerous and I have left out many. Most understand that the “invisible hand” of the “free market” must by necessity be connected to an “invisible brain.” It would be dead meat otherwise.

Jefferson’s “marketplace of ideas” is similar, if not one and the same as the free market (they most often act in collusion). Our multi-billion dollar PR industry is the spokesperson of all other industries. It’s not akin to yelling “CONSPIRACY!” to acknowledge that specific people have control over what ideas are successful and multiply. We call them the media. The media is literally owned by giant corporations, which are under direction from its board members and CEOs to maximize profit in accordance with their charter. If they do not maximize profit they get sacked. They are also shielded from personal responsibility. So I say to you audaciously myopic Ayn b-Rand of libertarian free-marketeers clogging the well of civilized ideas (to say nothing of the fountainhead), “Where is your iconic, individual Superman now?” Out at the quarry raping self-victimized women, no doubt."
The Humanity of Political Deception and the Evolution of False Choice