Adam Smith and an invisible hand in education

Two weeks ago I went to the Humboldt School in Caracas where I met with 32 students, between 11 and 17 years of age, who are training under the guidance of teacher Johana Colmenares to participate in competitions of the United Nations model. They are interested in human rights and in the now widespread practice of confronting other teams in dialectic simulations for their defense.

I asked them to form a large circle of desks for an hour and a half of Socratic talk. I went to listen to them, not to talk to them. My interest was to know what they thought if we were to use the other hand, the invisible hand, to satisfy those rights.

They read aloud this passage from Adam Smith:

"It is not for the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, and the baker that we can count on our dinner, but for their own interest. We do not invoke their humanitarian sentiments, but their selfishness; nor do we speak to them of our necessities, but of their advantages." (The Wealth of Nations).

They thought, they talked, they debated, they understood, they soon reached agreements, shared conclusions:

It is natural for each to seek his own interest, for each has his own needs. It is reasonable that each one seeks to achieve his own ends, that he achieves them through his own ingenuity and effort. It is understandable that no one wants to be a burden to another, and that we all seek to attain for ourselves the goods necessary to live. It is a virtue and a source of pride to achieve independence, even to work hard, in order to live autonomously and prosper. There is nothing wrong in honestly pursuing self-interest.

No one even suggested that the butcher's, baker's or brewer's pursuit of self-interest was questionable, an unhealthy display of selfishness or individualism. Rather, they argued that the opposite, i.e., to expect free dinner every night from them would be abusive and unfair. "A coolness." What would the butcher, the baker and the brewer live on? How long would they be able to support the others without compensation? Why invest, work, produce in such circumstances?

A system in which everyone pursues self-interest is not only natural. It is also fair. Moreover, several stressed, it is optimal. On the one hand, it keeps people working, busy offering others goods and services they voluntarily want to purchase. On the other, it is beneficial for everyone, because, even if they don't know it, if they don't have time or are engaged in other activities, they can be confident that when they arrive at the butcher, the bakery or the brewery, they will find someone attentive to provide them with dinner, in exchange for payment. It's a win-win relationship.

Then they read this other excerpt from Smith, from The Theory of Moral Sentiments:

"However selfish man may be supposed to be, there are evidently some elements in his nature which make him interested in the lot of others, so that their happiness is necessary to him, though he derives nothing from it, except the pleasure of witnessing it."

All the students, absolutely all of them, felt identified. They expressed that they knew well that feeling of caring for others and that, at the same time, they were happy to know that others, their friends or strangers, were well and happy. They agreed that helping others was a source of satisfaction. They confirmed that when they know about the problems, pain or suffering of others, they sympathize and worry. No one in the room even suggested that the happiness of others made them unhappy. One of the elders referred to it in these terms: the happiness of men is not a zero-sum game, in which if one wins there are others who lose.

It was not difficult, there was a broad consensus.

At that moment, almost at the end of the session, I was able to intervene: Adam Smith coined a term that has become popular to explain the virtuous effects of a system based on these rules of voluntary cooperation between people. These beneficial effects are guided by a kind of invisible hand. A synergy obtained without planning and without any of the cooperating people intending it.

They had heard that metaphor before. They assured me that it was not difficult to understand.

I told them that I have been studying, together with a group of teachers and students, the emergence of a spontaneous educational order for children between 6 and 16 years of age, particularly in very poor areas of Venezuela. Teachers seeking their own interest, and exercising their vocation to teach, offer individualized tutoring to the children in their communities, which their parents pay for because they see that their children learn more, that they acquire useful knowledge, that they are enthusiastic about the classes, that they show interest in learning, that they gain in self-esteem and security. Everyone wins.

I then suggested the alternative of enforcing social human rights in this way: through private and free agreements, instead of insisting, as we have done so far, on achieving these objectives through the visible hand of the State, that is, through the decisions and actions of the rulers.

The scheduled hour and a half had already passed. It was time to go. They left thinking. I will know their ideas on this proposal in the next session.

Antonio Canova González

(Published in Papel Literario, El Nacional, June 24, 2023)