Adam smith’s notion of the “invisible hand” has been quoted and misquoted many time in popular media and by many of our dear friends who wish to hold on to the belief that “capitalism” is the best institution in the world and that “market forces” are natural and necessary for a healthy society.  In cases where a specific industry is in a dire need of government regulation, opponents are quick to say that businesses must be left alone to self-regulate because the tenants of capitalism, supply and demand will fix all quarks in the system.  Those of us who don’t buy the text-book ideology are often ridiculed , but today on the heals of an “economic stimulus package”, we can once again point to how we do not, nor can we fully practice capitalism in the truest sense of the word. What is about to happen in the congress and with the help of the president and the Fed is an artificial manipulation of the markets in order to satisfy the status quo of wealth, consumerism and ultimately unfettered greed. Sure the package will have various ramifications, short term, long term, some positive and some perhaps negative, some intended and some unintended. None-the-less, we are once gain reminded that what we’ve been led to believe about our financial systems for years is in fact an illusion. Institutional economic collapse has happened before the reality of “globalisation” and it is happening again today with the complexities of globalisation… We don’t need a PHD in economics or listen to CNN to figure this out. The underlying human suffering and the desire to backfill happiness with wealth and power in an unprecedented rate globally I feel is closer to the truth of our current situation, and only once we are able to truly internalize this can we create solutions that will bring prosperity for everyone.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, January 23rd, 2008 at 8:35 pm and is filed under business, economy. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
 Print This Post  Email This Post