More than 50 years ago, Leonard Reed wrote his classic essay, I, Pencil, which illustrates the amazing complexity of producing even the simplest artifacts of daily life. So complex is the process that no one person knows how to go from raw materials to a pencil. But by thousands of people specializing in various tasks and then engaging in trade with each other, items that would take incalculable hours for us to make individually are inexpensively available to us.
Thomas Thwaites updates this analogy with his now famous attempt to build a toaster from raw materials to finished product. Here is his presentation at TED. As you watch, think about your toaster and all the items around where you are now sitting. Think about trying to make them on your own. You soon begin to see what an incredible thing the market economy is.
Here is a shorter version of the story.
Leave a Reply to MatthewSCancel reply