We live in the global age. We have been living in it for quite some time now. It is some 20 years, give or take, since the word "global" began to establish itself in the economic lexicon. A friend one has known for that length of time ought to be someone we know a lot about. Yet globalization still continues to baffle us. Really, we do not even seem to know whether it is friend or foe. Making sense of the global economy is not an exercise in which we have excelled thus far. So what should we do?
When in doubt, resort to the classics. This is the advice that comes to mind. Accordingly, I looked into that mother of all classics in economic writing: Adam Smith's "An Enquiry into The Nature and Causes of The Wealth of Nations." Running to 2,000-odd pages, this is some inquiry indeed. Inquiring within the inquiry, I found the following enlightening passage. Here the founding father of economics is talking about the relationship between private individual decision-making and the public interest:
"He generally, indeed, neither intends to promote the public interest, nor knows how much he is promoting it. By preferring the support of domestic to that of foreign industry, he intends only his own security; and by directing that industry in such a manner as its produce may be of the greatest value, he intends only his own gain, and he is in this, as in many other cases, led by an invisible hand to promote an end which was no part of his intention."