in your own idea, are "doing good for others" and "doing well for oneself" conflicting ideas? Which would you choose and why?

The "Invisible Hand" orden a sus In his 1776 book The Wealth of Nations, Adam Smith first noted that the operation of a market system creates a curious unity between private interests and social interests. Firms and resource suppliers, seeking to further their own self-interest and operating within the framework of a highly competitive market system, will simultaneously, as though guided by an “invisible hand," promote the public or social interest. For ex- ample, we have seen that in a competitive environment, businesses seek to build new and improved products to increase profits. Those enhanced products increase society's well-being. Businesses also use the least costly combination of resources to produce a specific output because it is in their self-interest to do so. To act otherwi forgo profit or even to risk business failure. But, at the same time, to use scarce resources in the least costly way is clearly in the social interest as well. It "frees up" resources to produce something else that society desires. Self-interest, awakened and guided by the competitive market system, is what in- duces responses appropriate to the changes in society's wants. Businesses seeking to make higher profits and to avoid losses, and resource suppliers pursuing greater mon- etary rewards, negotiate changes in the allocation of resources and end up with the output that society wants. Competition controls or guides self-interest such that self- interest automatically and quite unintentionally furthers the best interest of society The invisible hand ensures that when firms maximize their profits, and resource SP ety's output and and pliers maximize their incomes, these groups also help maximize society income.