The invisible hand

The central thesis of Smith's The Wealth of Nations is that people's individual need to fulfil self-interest results in societal benefit. This free-market force became known as the "invisible hand".

However, the market that emerged from an increasing division of labour created inter-dependencies and promoted social welfare through individual profit motives. For example, the baker only produced bread and relied on one person for clothes, another for meat, and yet another for beer. The people specialising in clothes depended on the baker for their bread, and so on.