[mikelitoris]

Invisible hand works in perfect markets which never exist in reality. It is used as a smokescreen by the people with insane amounts of money who can bend the rules to their will, to convince the rest of the people how the economy works. Like most of economics

[graemep]

Adam Smith himself never claimed it was that simple. He also wrote on ethics (and regarded that book as more important IIRC). He also warned that those is the same trade would inevitably conspire against the public.

[SoftTalker]

Or as John Adams said, "Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other."

I think interpreting this in a modern context, "religious" can be translated as "ethical"

[lasereyes136]

That is weird, people taking a body of work out of context to advance their agenda.

[gumby]

That’s basically all advocates of Adam Smith. I doubt that most of them have even read it — they’d be shocked by what he actually wrote.

[graemep]

His detractors do the same.

[gumby]

Quite likely, unfortunately. Having read both The Theory of Moral Sentiments and The Wealth of Nations I think he's insightful and had his head screwed on properly...and disagree with at least 90% of his fans.

[Lionga]

Regulations work with perfect governments that are all knowing, all powerful and only interested in the good of the people. It is used as a smokescreen by the governments who can (literally) bend the rules to their will, to convince the rest of the people how the economy works.

I would say this is ever further from reality than perfect markets.

So we probably need both.

[AtlasBarfed]

The reality of the US Government is that regulations only happen when sufficiently monied interests are diametrically opposed and then some sort of logic sometimes comes out of it.

At least the US model often feels the need to produce something that appears sensible on the surface, although usually with gotchas in subsection 14 part C paragraph 2.

The EPA, NHTSA, FAA, FCC, SEC, etc go through periods of wax and wane with being undermined, then publicly embarrassed, then reconstructed with legitimate people, then undermined, etc. But they exist and ... eventually ... impose regulation.

I have never heard anyone say credibly as a politician to get rid of them, and goddamn are there a lot of corporate forces that want them gone, so as institutions these regulatory agencies have proven themselves.

The FDA however ... I'm pretty down on.