Re: Invisible foot

[Jim Devine <jdevine@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

At 10:40 AM 7/27/00 -0500, you wrote:
> Does anyone remember where and when the reference to the
> "invisible foot" or "invisible elbow" (in reference to market failure due
> to externalities) appeared?
>
> Paul Phillips,
> Economics,
> University of Manitoba

E.K. Hunt describes the "Invisible Foot" in his 1980 "A Radical Critique of
Welfare Economics" in Ed Nell, ed. _Growth, Profits, and Property_
(Cambridge: U.P.) He wrote the article in the early 1970s, though, since
that book took a long time to come out. His "invisible foot" refers to the
way that profit-seeking individuals seek to externalize costs (at others'
expense), which leads to the maximization of the public illth, just as
Smith's "invisible hand" is seen as maximizing the public welfare.

Jim Devine jdevine@xxxxxxx &  http://bellarmine.lmu.edu/~jdevine