Invisible Hand - "The Theory of Moral Sentiments"

"The Theory of Moral Sentiments"

The first appearance of the invisible hand in Smith occurs in The Theory of Moral Sentiments (1759) in Part IV, Chapter 1, where he describes a selfish landlord as being led by an invisible hand to distribute his harvest to those who work for him: "The proud and unfeeling landlord views his extensive fields, and without a thought for the wants of his brethren, in imagination consumes himself the whole harvest ... the capacity of his stomach bears no proportion to the immensity of his desires ... the rest he will be obliged to distribute among those, who prepare, in the nicest manner, that little which he himself makes use of, among those who fit up the palace in which this little is to be consumed, among those who provide and keep in order all the different baubles and trinkets which are employed in the economy of greatness; all of whom thus derive from his luxury and caprice, that share of the necessaries of life, which they would in vain have expected from his humanity or his justice...The rich...are led by an invisible hand to make nearly the same distribution of the necessaries of life, which would have been made, had the earth been divided into equal portions among all its inhabitants, and thus without intending it, without knowing it, advance the interest of the society..."

Elsewhere in The Theory of Moral Sentiments, Smith has described the desire of men to be respected by the members of the community in which they live, and the desire of men to feel that they are honorable beings. While Smith does not mention these social pressures in the above-cited discussion of the invisible hand, one might infer that the selfish and proud landlord hires servants in order to feel himself respected, and displays his wealth in a fine palace in order to gain the respect of others. In this sense, the invisible hand is in its first stage, a sort of system of social pressure that persuades the wealthy to do, of their own volition, what the society around them requires.