5 ms·

Reminds me of I, Pencil, although that should be the other way around given that Smith was writing in 1776 and Read was writing in 1958. https://fee.org/resour

Reminds me of I, Pencil, although that should be the other way around given that Smith was writing in 1776 and Read was writing in 1958. https://fee.org/resources/i-pencil/ https://fee.org/resources/i-pencil/ Smith is describing the division of labour in an elegantly and interesting way. Read uses the same kind framing around a familiar object to say: If you can become aware of the miraculousness which I symbolize, you can help save the freedom mankind is so unhappily losing. I'll take Smith.

eddieh 7y ago
It should remind you of I, Pencil since it is essentially the modern telling of Smith's pin factory. Milton Friedman described the pencil in his Free to Choose series: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=67tHtpac5ws https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=67tHtpac5ws And in 2012 CEI made a movie version: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IYO3tOqDISE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IYO3tOqDISE I know the rules here are such that we don't talk about voting up/down, but I have no idea why you were voted down. Your post is on-topic and informative. I didn't know their was a book version or the CEI movie version, I had only watched the Free to Choose series. Thanks for sharing.
dredmorbius 7y ago
Read's fable is another fabrication specifically created as free-market propaganda. http://crookedtimber.org/2011/04/16/i-pencil-a-product-of-the-mixed-economy/ http://crookedtimber.org/2011/04/16/i-pencil-a-product-of-th...
- deogeo 7y ago
  I, Pencil isn't even an argument that needs rebuttal. It lulls the mind to sleep with a pleasant story of cooperation, hoping the reader will forget that government intervention didn't happen because supply chains are too complex for the market to handle, but because of various market failures and collusion that happened in practice. Food safety regulation, worker and environmental protections, antitrust laws - they did not come from theory.
  - droitbutch 7y ago
    > but because of various market failures and collusion that happened in practice. No. The pencil is built because of the incentives (read: potential for profits) for each of the people involved. The lighthouse keeper maintains the lighthouse to earn a salary. The truck driver earns his/her paycheck based on milage&tonage hauled. The entrepreneur bought the rights to log the land because he/she believed he could make a buck. Etc. I, Pencil is not a story of cooperating for social/feel-goody sake - but rather for individual incentives all along the way. The million people involved in making that pencil - none of which knows any of the others. I, Pencil is a story that shows government intervention is not needed to build the pencil.
    - deogeo 7y ago
      > No. The pencil is built because of the incentives (read: potential for profits) for each of the people involved. I never claimed otherwise, so that 'no' is unnecessary. > I, Pencil is a story that shows government intervention is not needed to build the pencil. No-one claims government intervention is needed to build pencils or more complex goods. But it is needed to, for example, prevent corporations from polluting rivers with mercury: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minamata_disease https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minamata_disease The whole story is nothing more than an attack on an implied strawman.
      - davidw 7y ago
        > The whole story is nothing more than an attack on an implied strawman. I think when it came out, the world was a very different place. A large chunk of the world lived in command economies (USSR, China, etc...), and even in the west, where WWII and the massive government involvement in the economy was a very recent memory, the notion that someone could just calculate all the pieces better than the market probably wasn't quite so foreign as it seems today.
        Gibbon1 7y ago
        I probably can't find it now but 15 years ago read an essay that made a case that 'the pencil' was complete bullshit when it was published. And is even more so today. AKA Pencil manufacturing from farming and harvesting cedar to making the steel for the metal band that holds the eraser is vertically integrated.
droitbutch 7y ago
I too was reminded of "I, Pencil" but I prefer Read over Smith simply because, in today's world, a pencil is much more relatable than a pin. I still come into contact with a pencil almost daily, but a pin maybe once a year.

eddieh 7y ago

It should remind you of I, Pencil since it is essentially the modern telling of Smith's pin factory. Milton Friedman described the pencil in his Free to Choose series: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=67tHtpac5ws https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=67tHtpac5ws And in 2012 CEI made a movie version: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IYO3tOqDISE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IYO3tOqDISE I know the rules here are such that we don't talk about voting up/down, but I have no idea why you were voted down. Your post is on-topic and informative. I didn't know their was a book version or the CEI movie version, I had only watched the Free to Choose series. Thanks for sharing.

dredmorbius 7y ago

Read's fable is another fabrication specifically created as free-market propaganda. http://crookedtimber.org/2011/04/16/i-pencil-a-product-of-the-mixed-economy/ http://crookedtimber.org/2011/04/16/i-pencil-a-product-of-th...

deogeo 7y ago
I, Pencil isn't even an argument that needs rebuttal. It lulls the mind to sleep with a pleasant story of cooperation, hoping the reader will forget that government intervention didn't happen because supply chains are too complex for the market to handle, but because of various market failures and collusion that happened in practice. Food safety regulation, worker and environmental protections, antitrust laws - they did not come from theory.
- droitbutch 7y ago
  > but because of various market failures and collusion that happened in practice. No. The pencil is built because of the incentives (read: potential for profits) for each of the people involved. The lighthouse keeper maintains the lighthouse to earn a salary. The truck driver earns his/her paycheck based on milage&tonage hauled. The entrepreneur bought the rights to log the land because he/she believed he could make a buck. Etc. I, Pencil is not a story of cooperating for social/feel-goody sake - but rather for individual incentives all along the way. The million people involved in making that pencil - none of which knows any of the others. I, Pencil is a story that shows government intervention is not needed to build the pencil.
  - deogeo 7y ago
    > No. The pencil is built because of the incentives (read: potential for profits) for each of the people involved. I never claimed otherwise, so that 'no' is unnecessary. > I, Pencil is a story that shows government intervention is not needed to build the pencil. No-one claims government intervention is needed to build pencils or more complex goods. But it is needed to, for example, prevent corporations from polluting rivers with mercury: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minamata_disease https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minamata_disease The whole story is nothing more than an attack on an implied strawman.
    - davidw 7y ago
      > The whole story is nothing more than an attack on an implied strawman. I think when it came out, the world was a very different place. A large chunk of the world lived in command economies (USSR, China, etc...), and even in the west, where WWII and the massive government involvement in the economy was a very recent memory, the notion that someone could just calculate all the pieces better than the market probably wasn't quite so foreign as it seems today.
      - Gibbon1 7y ago
        I probably can't find it now but 15 years ago read an essay that made a case that 'the pencil' was complete bullshit when it was published. And is even more so today. AKA Pencil manufacturing from farming and harvesting cedar to making the steel for the metal band that holds the eraser is vertically integrated.

droitbutch 7y ago

I too was reminded of "I, Pencil" but I prefer Read over Smith simply because, in today's world, a pencil is much more relatable than a pin. I still come into contact with a pencil almost daily, but a pin maybe once a year.