In Response to “Invisible hand”

Unfortunately, it does not seem that we have an ‘Adam Smith’ approach to our economy. Also, the economy is not some entity that can be defined and given limits but is the term we give to describe the current state of a conglomeration of multiple financial and societal factors related to ourselves as consumers and producers. If we were in fact a capitalist society, certain things we have all taken for granted (ie minimum wage) would not exist as the workers themselves would have to determine their value to their employees apart from a government-enforced minimum wage. It would seem that our current system in many ways suffers from inefficiency through the government’s ‘propping-up’ of corporations who, in Adam Smiths ideal world, would fade away due to their poor management and in turn a new, better business could emerge. The problem with a pure capitalist system, which would exist without certain protections like minimum wage and social security, would be the problems experienced for the working person during the industrial revolution—suffering the consequences of competing in an unregulated market despite the risk or reality of injury to themselves simply so they could eat. At the same time however, a capitalist society could, by way of the organized worker, find certain non-written regulations through the grouping of workers into unions in order to protect them from poor treatment. A purely capitalist system, like most extreme systems, does not work, as it does not take into consideration the dynamism of humans. Just as we often call ourselves ‘capitalist’, we call ourselves a democracy as well, which is just as far from the truth. In order to be successful (though its not looking that way right now) a government and economic system have to be aimed in the view of moderation, of finding a middle ground between the highly regulated and the completely unregulated system.