Smith’s invisible hand denies that economic evidence can exist

Evidence

Adam Smith’s invisible hand is the exact opposite of this. It is the critique of this paradoxical idea of total economic freedom and absolute despotism which the physiocrats tried to maintain in the theory of economic evidence. The invisible hand posits instead, as a rule,-thafthis is not possible, that there cannot be a sovereign in the physiocratic sense, and that there cannot be despotism in the physiocratic-sense, because there cannot be economic evidence. — Michel Foucault, The Birth of Biopolitics, 1466

Categorization

• SEED: An essay contrasting physiocratic ‘economic evidence’ with the liberal ‘no economic sovereign’ could frame a genealogy of modern technocratic vs. market governance.
• XREF: connects to: Even a model’s creator initially refused its empirically unpalatable conclusions — Donald MacKenzie, An Engine, Not a Camera: How Financial…, 248; Hayek modeled economic order on rules operating without being known — Dieter Plehwe, Quinn Slobodian & Philip Mirowski (eds.), Nine Lives of Neoliberalism, 172; Agent blindness to the collective good is necessary for Smithian economic benefit — Michel Foucault, The Birth of Biopolitics: Lectures at…, 1445

Broader Connections

• Agent blindness to the collective good is necessary for Smithian economic benefit #corroborates (0.80) — Michel Foucault, The Birth of Biopolitics, 1445
• Hayek modeled economic order on rules operating without being known #exemplifies (0.78) — Dieter Plehwe, Quinn Slobodian & Philip Mirowski (eds.), Nine Lives of Neoliberalism, 172
• Even a model’s creator initially refused its empirically unpalatable conclusions #exemplifies (0.72) — Donald MacKenzie, An Engine, Not a Camera, 248