"The one case in which he referred to the "invisible hand" was that in which private persons preferred the home trade to the foreign trade, and he held that such preference was in the national interest, since it replaced two domestic capitals while the foreign trade replaced only one. The argument of the two capitals was a bad one, since it is the amount of capital that matters, not its subdivision; but the invisible sanction was given to a Protectionist idea, not for defence but for employment. It is not surprising that Smith was often quoted in Parliament in support of Protection. His background, like ours today, was private enterprise; but any dogma of non-intervention by government has to make heavy weather in The Wealth of Nations."
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Classical economistsAcademics from ScotlandPhilosophers from ScotlandEconomists from ScotlandSociologists from Scotland
Original Language: English
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Sources
D. H. MacGregor, Economic Thought and Policy (1949), pp. 81-82
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Adam_Smith
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Adam Smith
1723 – 1790
schottischer Moralphilosoph und Ökonom
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