INVISIBLE HAND: The notion that buyers and sellers, consumers and producers, households and businesses, pursuing their own self-interests, do what's best for the economy--automatically, without any government intervention, as if guided by an invisible hand. This invisible hand was essential to the economic analysis of markets in Adam Smith's The Wealth of Nations. It has continued to be cornerstone in conservative economic policies that call for limits on government intervention in the economy.

     See also | market | free market | laissez faire | free enterprise | Smith, Adam | efficiency | competition | allocation | The Wealth of Nations | conservative | liberal |

INVISIBLE HAND, AmosWEB GLOSS*arama, http://www.AmosWEB.com, AmosWEB LLC, 2000-2025. [Accessed: July 5, 2025].

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Household consumption expenditures that do not depend on income or production (especially disposable income, national income, or even gross domestic product). That is, changes in income do not generate changes in consumption. Autonomous consumption is best thought of as a baseline or minimum level of consumption that the household sector undertakes in the unlikely event that income falls to zero. It is measured by the intercept term of the consumption function or the consumption line. The alternative to autonomous consumption is induced consumption, which does depend on income.

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