The Invisible Hand, described 65 years before Adam Smith in the pages of The Spectator (19 May 1711)

Tweet by Fraser Nelson. He is editor of The Spectator and a columnist for the Daily Telegraph.

"The Invisible Hand, described 65 years before Adam Smith in the pages of The Spectator (19 May 1711). How city brokers “knit mankind together” 

“There are no more useful members in a commonwealth than Merchants. They knit Mankind together in a mutual Intercourse of good Offices, distribute the Gifts of Nature, find Work for the Poor, add Wealth to the Rich, and Magnificence to the Great. Our English Merchant converts the tin of his own Country into Gold, and exchanges his Wool for Rubies. The Mahometans are clothed in our British Manufacture and the Inhabitants of the frozen Zone warmed with the Fleeces of our sheep.”"