From Dr Hugh Goodacre.

Sir, Michael Rossman (Letters, November 6) is full of praise for “competitive market economies where Adam Smith’s invisible hand is the arbiter of success and failure”, and holds that these are superior to economies subject to the principle of “too-big-to-fail”. This argument fails to take into account the fact that “competitive market economies” of this description do not exist and never have – certainly not in the works of Adam Smith, who makes it clear that for an economy to be guided by his “invisible hand” is not a reality, but an ideal.