It has been commonplace to revile or praise the idea of the "invisible hand" for some time now. This metaphor is most typically applied to economics. The idea is that individuals, independently seeking their best interests, benefit the whole community as if guided by an invisible hand. Adam Smith is usually attributed as this metaphor's founder, which is partly true. However, Smith used the metaphor only once, and it was not a central thesis of his work (more here). It was John Stuart Mill and company, decades later, who applied the metaphor in the popular sense we hear it exalted and reviled today.
In his book God and Gold: Britain, America, and the Making of the Modern World, Walter Russell Mead devotes an entire chapter to the idea of invisible hands at work in the world. He shows that the economic version of the invisible hand is just the extension of a more deep-seated perspective. It is strongly linked to the idea that God guides history toward some end.
It does not matter much that the English-speaking world is not consistent in its embrace of the invisible hand. To use contemporary American political terminology, “liberals” are suspicious of the invisible hand in the economy, but have unbridled faith in its work, say, in arenas of civil liberties, freedom of religion, and the free press. Many “conservatives” take almost the opposite approach, placing more confidence in the economic and less in the social activities of the invisible hand. Many American Christians utterly reject the application of the invisible hand in the realm of biological evolution, while believing as firmly as Adam Smith that the free market brings the best possible order out of the chaos of human desires. While American and other English speakers quarrel endlessly and bitterly over the specific cases, in general we mostly accept at some level that processes we don’t understand but must allow to go forward are bringing greater benefits than we could gain if we attempted to rein them in. The world is benign; human beings are fitted to their society and their environment, and vice versa. That social conviction has been and still is a major force in the world history. (304-305)
Mead points to several non-economic examples of the invisible hand in the Anglo-American psyche. There is evolution. There is unanticipated knowledge that emerges from the discipline of science. There is the spontaneous order that emerges from common law. There is the idea of balance of power leads to better (though unplanned) order, whether in government institutions or religion through competing denominations. As Mead notes, it may be applied inconsistently, but the idea of an invisible hand is unique to the Anglo-American world. Later in the book, he explains why the failure of Anglo-Americans to realize their outlook is peculiar to others often leads to much misunderstanding and conflict with other cultures.
On an additional note, we hear today about emerging churches. The emergent folks consciously draw on emergence philosophy, the idea that "…complex systems and patterns arise out of a multiplicity of relatively simple interactions." In other words, complexity emerges as if by an invisible hand. Yet, as I've discovered over the years, and as Mead attests, this thinking is not always applied consistently. Most emerging church circles I've encountered are radical "invisible hand" emergence folks in ecclesiology. Yet when it comes to economic questions, a heavy preponderance of folks scoff and sneer at the idea of an "invisible hand." It is one of the more curious aspects I've learned about the movement.
Personally, I'm toward the invisible hand end of the debate on economic, political, and religious issues. But I'm not all the way to trusting in the invisible hand on any of them. Chaotic emergence within broad boundaries is what I think leads to optimal results … but there are still boundaries.
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