LUNACIES OF THE MARKET

'Adam Smith, the father of modern economics, is often cited as arguing for the “invisible hand” and free markets: firms, in the pursuit of profits, are led, as if by an invisible hand, to do what is best for the world. But unlike his followers, Adam Smith was aware of some of the limitations of free markets, and research since then has further clarified why free markets, by themselves, often do not lead to what is best. As I put it in my new book, Making Globalization Work, the reason that the invisible hand often seems invisible is that it is often not there.'

Joseph Stiglitz, Making Globalisation Work

A selection of the inanities, insanities and inconsistencies that the invisible hand - there or not there - manages to conjure out of thin air. The believers tolerate the madness, certain that the hand knows best, and certain that it will lead us out of madness.

Blaming the invisible hand makes the following examples of a mad world rather than a mad bad one. In fact, there are more than enough people behind the hand that isn't there who understand full well what it is doing (or not doing). The insane ones are those of us who continue to believe that it is doing or not doing anything at all, let alone that it is noble and intelligent and full of good intentions.

See them all together here.