Page 103 - IANUS Diritto e finanza - Rivista semestrale di studi giuridici - N. 29 - giugno 2024 - Il diritto alla sostenibilità: strumenti giuridici della transizione ecologica

IANUS n. 29-2024 ISSN 1974-9805

between the corners of economics, morality, and religion, one may observe how
the text that Western culture considers at the foundation of the modern discipline
of economics, Adam Smith’s The wealth of nations (1776) , was actually written
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by a moral philosopher who lived (1723-1790) during the Scottish Enlightenment
and was passionate about Isaac Newton’s theories (1642-1727). Not by chance, a
certain similarity can be found in their argumentations about the ‘invisible hands’
providing order to nature (in Newton’s works) and economics (in Smith’s
opinion). «Newton had represented God as a cosmic watchmaker who had
created the physical machinery of the universe in such a way that it would operate
for the ultimate benefit of humans and then let it run on its own. Smith was trying
to make a similar, Newtonian argument. God – or Divine Providence, as he put
it – had arranged matters in such a way that our pursuit of self-interest would,
nonetheless, given an unfettered market, be guided “as if by an invisible hand” to
promote the general welfare. Smith’s famous invisible hand was, as he says in
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his Theory of Moral Sentiments [IV.I.10], the agent of Divine Providence. It was
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literally the hand of God» .
The four-corner ‘money kite’ can also be of help for the interpretation of the
recent growth of academic literature about moral economy (hence, economics +
14
morality), socially responsible investments, sustainable development goals, and

11 Shortened title of SMITH, An inquiry into the nature and causes of the wealth of nations, Petersfield,
2007 (first edition 1776).
12 Mentioned for the first time in his History of astronomy (written before 1758) as something to
which ignorant refer to explain what they do not understand about natural phenomena, Smith
speaks of an invisible hand (never of the invisible hand) with respect to income distribution in SMITH,
The theory of moral sentiments, London, 2010 (first edition 1759). The same concept is mentioned
regarding issues of production in The wealth of nations, op. cit. (1776). The first passage, dated 1759,
deals with an invisible hand leading a selfish landlord to distribute his harvest to the workers (Part
IV, Ch. 1); the second extract deals with the force by which man’s natural tendency towards self-
interest results, beyond his own personal intentions, in society prosperity (Book IV, Ch. 2, par. 9):
«[E]very individual necessarily labours to render the annual revenue of the society as great as he
can. He generally neither intends to promote the public interest, nor knows how much he is
promoting it... [H]e intends only his own gain, and he is in this, as in many other cases, led by an
invisible hand to promote an end which was no part of his intention. Nor is it always the worse for
society that it was no part of his intention. By pursuing his own interest he frequently promotes that
of the society more effectually than when he really intend to promote it». In fact, what future
generations would consider the most iconic quotation of Smith’s idea of the free market does not
employ the metaphor (The wealth of nations, Book I, Ch. 2, par. 2): «It is not from the benevolence
of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker, that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their
own interest. We address ourselves, not to their humanity but to their self-love, and never talk to
them of our own necessities but of their advantages».
13 GRAEBER, Debt: the first 5,000 years, Brooklyn, 2011, 44 and 396, note 3. Graeber’s
argumentation is based on some textual evidence of Smith’s Theory of moral sentiments, while there
is no explicit description of the invisible hand in The wealth of nations as a theological reference to
God’s capacity as divine planner.
14 See, in this regard, the famous resolution by the UNITED NATIONS, Transforming our world: the
2030 agenda for sustainable development, Resolution adopted by the General Assembly on 25
September 2015, A/RES/70/1.

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