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I published An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations on 9 March 1776 — four months before the Declaration of Independence. Both documents were concerned with the same problem: the relationship between individual freedom and collective well-being.

The invisible hand appears in the Wealth of Nations exactly once, in a passage about the domestic trade preference. It has become the most over-cited sentence in the history of economics. What I argued was simple: individuals pursuing their private interest in a competitive market will, as a result of price signals and competition, tend to allocate resources more efficiently than a central planner could.

I did not argue that markets were always right, that corporations should be unregulated, or that greed was a virtue. I wrote extensively about the tendency of merchants to conspire against the public. I argued for public education, progressive taxation, and the limitation of monopolies. The men who quote the invisible hand against every form of regulation have not, I think, read the whole book.