People forget the fundamental distinction between Adam Smith's version of The Invisible Hand and what I suppose you could regard as Bastiat's version… - Milton Friedman

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People forget the fundamental distinction between Adam Smith's version of The Invisible Hand and what I suppose you could regard as Bastiat's version. The French idea was that there is somehow a harmony in nature so that by natural forces if people were left free to pursue their own interests they would benefit everybody. Adam Smith's was a much more subtle and sophisticated argument, that it is possible to set up institutions under which people pursuing their own interests will benefit everybody. His invisible hand required the right set of institutions and I think that's the case. After all, the distinction between a collectivist society and a market or individualist society is not whether people pursue their own interests. If I take Russia, for example, the people in Russia are all pursuing their own interests but the institutions set up in Russia make what is in each person's own interest different from what it would be in the United States or in Britain.