Agent blindness to the collective good is necessary for Smithian economic benefit

Evidence

So, in other words,.there.are two, absolutely coupled elements. For there-Lobe:certainty of collective benefit, for it to be certain that the greatest good is attained for the greatest number of people, not only is it possible, but it is absolutely necessary that each actor be blind with regard to this totality. Everyone must be uncertain with-regard to the collective outcome if this positive collective outcome is really to be expected. Being in the dark and the blindness ofall the economic agents are absolutely necessary. The collective good must not be an objective. It must not be an objective because it cannot be calculated, at least, not within an economic strategy. Here we are at the heart of a principle of invisibility. In other words, what is usually stressed in Smith’s famous theory of themvisible hand is, if you like, the “hand,” that is to say, the existence of something like providence which would tie together all the dispersed threads. But I think the other element, invisibility, is at least 278 THE BIRTH OF BIOPOLITICS 28 March 1979 279 as important. — Michel Foucault, The Birth of Biopolitics, 1445

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Smith’s invisible hand denies that economic evidence can exist — Michel Foucault, The Birth of Biopolitics: Lectures at…, 1466