“We need not be surprised … that the Cartesian philosophy …, though it does perhaps contain a word of truth, should nevertheless have been so universally received by all Learned in Europe at time. [They] greedily receive[d] work which we justly esteem one most entertaining Romances has ever wrote.” LRBL ii.134

In his lectures of 1978–79, published posthumously as The Birth Biopolitics, Michel Foucault addressed versions liberalism in which an invisible market appears immune to government intervention. Among the thinkers discussed were Adam Smith and Ferguson. This essay offers critical reflections on Foucault’s description emphasizing invisibility economy, well interpretation “invisible hand” ascript...