Tuesday, September 9, 2014

Empiricism and the Invisible Hand

The Capitalist concept of an 'invisible hand of the market' violates Empiricist methodology in three ways.  First, Invisibility is precluded from a system in which the knowledge of any entity is rooted in sense experience.  Second, granting that the Smith's image mis-connotes the 'Law of Supply and Demand', it still abstracts from the Empiricist concept of a 'law' as no more than a past perceived regularity.  Finally, according to the methodology, perceived regularity is a product of an association of independent elements, a connection which, writ large, is actively effected, e. g. via a contract.  So, the intervention of Government in the determination of Market Value is more consistent with Empiricism than is passive submission to the vicissitudes of an impersonal 'law', even conceived as perceived regularity. 

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