The main theme is that as a metaphor the invisible hand makes sense as a paradoxical phenomenon of limited validity. Death of a metaphor occurs when this understanding is lost. Instead, it comes to be believed that (what was once a living metaphor) is now a universal phenomenon of complete applicability. This revision was in response to referees of IJPEE, and has been resubmitted to IJPEE. Paper is attached below.

REVISED: Final IV2IJPEE4 is the pre-publication preprint, which should be essentially the same as the published version.

Published Version is: IJPEE040102.pdf, which is attached below.

REFERENCES for the published paper have been collected on a separate page:

INTENTIONS: A second paper based on original one can be written.

This has been done now. Final product is joint with Rafi Ameeruddin.

Failures of the Invisible Hand. It has been submitted to JPKE

Death of a Metaphor:The “Invisible Hand”

By

Dr. Asad Zaman[1]

To appear in International Journal of Pluralism and Economic Education, 2013 -- Final Version is Final IV2IJPEE4 attached below.

ABSTRACT: Models are representations of reality. They simplify and ignore many complexities in order to focus on certain aspects. With constant and repeated use, theorists sometimes confuse the model with reality. This leads to many types of errors. In this article, we argue that the metaphor of the invisible hand has become deeply entrenched in the ways of thinking about and framing of economic problems. This has led to overuse and abuse of the metaphor. Why this happened, what harm has resulted from it, and how it can be remedied is the subject of this paper.

JEL CODES: A13, B41

Acknowledgements

I deeply appreciate comments from Jack Reardon, Dr. Mohammad Omar Farooq, and from two anonymous referees which substantially improved the contents.

Islamic Version: IV3 Attached Below

Secular Version:IV2 Attached Below.

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DROPBOX\Current\Econ Methodology\InvHand

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