Some time ago I was asked by my friend Larry Kudlow to appear as a guest on his show to debate libertarian economist Don Luskin on the subject of Ayn Rand’s atheism. Luskin made the mistake of opening the debate by quoting Adam Smith’s famous statement about “the invisible hand.”
The problem there is that although Smith was indeed an advocate of the idea (which Rand also embraced) that self-interest can promote public good, Smith believed that this unexpected relationship is the result of divine design, not of random occurrence. Smith also rejected the idea that selfishness is a virtue and strongly endorsed the idea of altruistic empathy, in fact writing an entire book, The Theory of Moral Sentiments, to defend virtues such as altruism.
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