There Is No Invisible Hand
http://blogs.hbr.org/cs/2012/04/there_is_no_invisible_hand.html
I have read a great deal about the ‘invisible hand’ of the marketplace pushing the market toward an equilibrium and the only time I can recall believing that it had any association with reality was for a few minutes during an economics lecture way back. To me the _only_ society where there is any chance of the ‘invisible hand’ having any influence is in a market with extremely high levels of competition, very low barriers to entry and, most crucially, a consumer base that acts to keep itself highly knowledgeable. That _might_ be true in occasional market segments (fast food comes to mind), but in essentially all other markets there are one, or a very few, organisations that have an outsized impact on the market and thus skew any influence of the ‘invisible hand’ to the point of uselessness. Why it is such a cherished idea of economists is a bit of a conundrum to me, though I know that many (if not most) models posit consumers that are not idiots and just a brief look around will show that that assumption is totally flawed. I suppose that without making some of these basic (but wrong) assumptions economists would find themselves unable to complete their dissertation, thus be unable to make any meaningful contribution, so be reduced to living under bridges asking for handouts at intersections, so I guess these ‘simplifying’ assumptions are here to stay.
I happened across this article after getting an email stating that my little blog was being added to http://econacademics.org/ and checking out their main page (there were several other quite interesting articles that I might make time to read and comment on here). Whether this is nonsense or not I can’t tell; supposedly it is operated by the St. Louis FED which would imply that being one of the nearly 600 blogs they monitor might actually be flattering. I suppose if they actually link to one of my posts and all the sudden my readership sky rockets then I will be flattered, but until then I figure it is just a curiosity.
BTW, my blog rate has been curtailed because the computer I am operating from has lost access to my user profile and is no longer doing spell check for me. Since I can’t spell worth a damn and don’t want to look like an (barely literate) 7 year old, I am reluctant to post until I have the chance to get software to check my spelling.
A market manipulation that has an outsized impact may rule for a long time but it will eventually succumb to the forces of the survival instincts of the masses, however slow and dumb they may be.
You may, as the 1%, cause the deaths (say) of 90% of the 99%, but in the end, they’re going to take you down. You’re grossly outnumbered. Gross technological superiority won’t work.
Once more, one merely need to view history. Modern governments take note.