F&D Magazine

Oren Cass on the Invisible Hand

OREN CASS

March 3, 2025

Photo courtesy of Oren Cass

In This Episode

Modern economics was built on ideas spelled out by Adam Smith in his 18th-century The Wealth of Nations. But while he used the term only once in that economic treatise, Smith is most remembered for “the invisible hand,” a metaphor Oren Cass says has wrongly been associated with the idea that the pursuit of profit is always socially beneficial and that markets are somehow magically guided by that principal. Cass is the founder and chief economist at American Compass. In this podcast, he says the contortion of Smith’s idea led to a blind faith in markets, whereas “the invisible hand” was about ensuring the alignment between private profit and the public interest. Transcript

Read the article in Finance and Development

Oren Cass

OREN CASS is founder and chief economist of American Compass, a think tank.

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