A student from Columbia University recently told me of a lecture there by Clinton adviser/Nobel prize winner Joe Stiglitz on “The Myth of the Invisible Hand.” Stiglitz, the student told me, really believes that human beings cannot recognize their own self interest or the mutual advantage inherent in trading with others. Thus, Adam Smith’s “invisible hand” is a myth.
All commerce requires governmental force, says Stiglitz, according to the student. In other words, Joe Stiglitz may be a wiz in math, but he apparently does not understand elementary economics. Like so many other Harvard/M.I.T./Columbia-trained economists, he tends to hold the political views of a totalitarian socialist.
3:23 pm on August 10, 2009
