“Adam Smith is, of course, justly lauded for his advocacy of free markets and limited government. Particularly famous is his idea that each person’s pursuit of self-interest leads, as if by an invisible hand, to socially efficient outcomes.”

—  Robert Barro

Nothing Is Sacred (2002)

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Robert Barro 18
American classical macroeconomist 1944

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“The free market’s the best mechanism ever devised to put resources to their most efficient and productive use. … The government isn’t particularly good at that. But the market isn’t so good at making sure that the wealth that’s produced is being distributed fairly or wisely.”

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“Adam Smith's invisible hand does exist, but as an emergent property of a complex system. It has a fuzzy tendency to reduce big price discrepancies, but it acts in a rather haphazard way.”

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Source: The Other Side Of The Coin (2008), Chapter 4, Right Versus Left, p. 135

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