INVISIBLE HAND: The notion that buyers and sellers, consumers and producers, households and businesses, pursuing their own self-interests, do what's best for the economy--automatically, without any government intervention, as if guided by an invisible hand. This invisible hand was essential to the economic analysis of markets in Adam Smith's The Wealth of Nations. It has continued to be cornerstone in conservative economic policies that call for limits on government intervention in the economy. See also | market | free market | laissez faire | free enterprise | Smith, Adam | efficiency | competition | allocation | The Wealth of Nations | conservative | liberal |
