- Downloads:
- Seeds of Progress_2.pdf
The mass of citizens who haven't the slightest idea of what makes an economy fruitful or unfruitful, perform trillions of little things that result in an abundance of goods and services beneficial to millions of others whom they have no conscious intention of benefiting. If these benefactors are not guided by politico-economic understanding, what then?
Adam Smith wrote an answer 200 years ago:
By directing that industry in such a manner as its produce may be of the greatest value, he intends only his own gain, and he is in this, as in many other cases, led by an invisible hand to promote an end which was no part of his intention.
Leonard E. Read was the founder of the Foundation for Economic Education — the first modern libertarian think tank in the United States — and was largely responsible for the revival of the liberal tradition in post–World War II America.
The Foundation for Economic Education, New York, 1980
