Was Adam Smith’s ‘invisible hand’ on right or left? | Letters

Readers respond to an editorial about rescuing the economist from being invoked by rightwing free-marketeers

Your editorial (11 March) is correct in insisting that the economist and philosopher Adam Smith used “invisible hand” only once in The Wealth of Nations: to discuss investing at home or abroad, not as a general description of economic structure.

If the capital is invested at home, the decision to do that being purely a selfish and personal one, then, as if led by an invisible hand, this benefits the domestic economy.