Thank you Julian Wells.  I have refrained from 
commenting on the search for a visual 
representation (film clips, videos, etc.,) of the 
invisible hand, a task I would have thought somewhat problematical.

The ensuing suggestions, typical of the helpful 
attitude of HES members to fellow scholars , 
grows quite grotesque – I mentioned them without commenting on my Blog.

The suggestions, however, have moved a long way 
from Adam Smith’s single use (Book IV of Wealth 
Of Nations) of the popular 18th-century metaphor 
in respect of the behaviour of some, but not all 
British merchants (foreign trade of consumption 
and the carrying trade were major sectors in the 
British economy at the time) responding to their 
individual perceptions of the security of their 
capital when sent abroad and when sufficiently 
risk-averse, preferring to invest locally, 
subject to a profit constraint, which 
unintentionally benefited domestic capital formation and employment.

The invisible hand had nothing to do with how 
markets operate, divisions of labour, natural and 
market prices and such like, analysed by Smith in 
Books I and II of Wealth Of Nations, without 
mentioning ‘an invisible hand’.   That it is 
widely believed in academe – and among historians 
of the history of economic thought! – that Smith 
used the metaphor in these contexts is a modern 
invention (at present I am researching exactly 
from when the myth began – any suggestions 
welcome) and it is now ubiquitous, unfortunately.

So visually presenting to non-economists on the 
invisible hand (apart from physically difficult), 
by using themes that it had nothing to do with, 
is to say the least of questionable merit.  Why 
not represent markets as markets without mystical 
‘invisible hands’, which distort Adam Smith’s intentions (to coin an idea)?

Gavin Kennedy