Examples and Arguments
Since Smith's time, the principle of the invisible hand has been further incorporated into economic theory. Léon Walras developed a four-equation general equilibrium model that concludes that individual self-interest operating in a competitive market place produces the unique conditions under which a society's total utility is maximized. Vilfredo Pareto used an edgeworth box contact line to illustrate a similar social optimality.
Ludwig von Mises, in Human Action (see note 3 at the bottom), claims that Smith believed that the invisible hand was that of God. He did not mean this as a criticism, since he held that secular reasoning leads to similar conclusions.
The invisible hand is traditionally understood as a concept in economics, but Robert Nozick argues in Anarchy, State and Utopia that substantively the same concept exists in a number of other areas of academic discourse under different names, notably Darwinian natural selection. In turn, Daniel Dennett argues in Darwin's Dangerous Idea that this represents a "universal acid" that may be applied to a number of seemingly disparate areas of philosophical inquiry (consciousness and free will in particular). See also Social Darwinism.
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