[Music] in the 18th century Adam Smith used the metaphor of an invisible hand to describe how individuals making self-interested decisions can collectively and unwi inly engineer an effective economic system that is in the public interest this is how the Invisible Hand is usually understood today when there's plenty of grain on the market sellers drop their prices to make sales when it gets scarcer the price Rises and the financial incentive for growing it or importing it gets stronger the individual buyers sellers Growers and importers don't set out to act for the public good they just go about their business thinking about their own gains and losses buying wherever they can to get the best deal but out of their self-interested choices in a free market an efficient economy emerges and this allegedly is superior to any system the state could produce more recent enthusiasts of free markets such as Friedrich Hayek and Milton fredman have invoked the idea of an invisible hand as an argument against restrictions on trade not everyone sees the invisible hand as benevolent though those who are poorly paid or out of work as a result of its operations may feel that it is better described as an invisible [Music] boot