Adam Smith considered the possibility that merchants and manufacturers in England might decide to do their business abroad—invest abroad and import from abroad. He said they would profit, but England would be harmed. However, he went on to say that the merchants and manufacturers would prefer to operate in their own country—what’s sometimes called a “home bias.” So, as if by “an invisible hand,” England would be saved from the ravages of what is now called neoliberal globalization. That’s a pretty hard passage to miss. In his classic Wealth of Nations, that’s the only occurrence of the phrase,
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