The Flip Side of "I, Pencil"

...In December 1958, economist Leonard Read, the founder of the Foundation for Economic Education, published a short essay in FEE's periodical, The Freeman. In the 65 years since its introduction, this masterly work has become the most recognizable element of the Austrian School of economics.

"I, Pencil" was conceived as a fanciful anthropomorphism, the genealogy of that most common of household tools, the lead pencil. In those few pages, Leonard Read demonstrated the magic woven by the Invisible Hand of the free market. In the generations since, millions of us have learned to respect how countless different industries, countless people, all over the world, unknowingly come together to contribute the necessary components to make it possible for someone to manufacture a pencil (or in fact, any other product).

These farmers, chemical companies, lumber mills, miners, and metalworkers do their daily jobs, often unaware that somewhere, half a world away, someone will be using their paint, their graphite, their wood, their metal, their rubber to manufacture the millions of pencils we all depend on for school, work, crafts, and art. It's an amazing story, brilliantly told. It's likely that every reader of this publication could recite some lines from it by heart; it's that familiar to the modern conservative mind.

But there's a flip side, Gentle Reader, which your humble correspondent never really noticed until recently...

From the article:
“...But there is secondary lesson, buried just beneath the surface:
government must not meddle with all those contributing industries.
The magic of the Invisible Hand depends upon the government behaving itself.
It depends on the government leaving well enough alone.

What if the government were to ban the logging industry,
so those cedar shafts were no longer available to the pencil maker?
Or what if the government were to forbid the harvesting of the rubber
that we need as a binder to make the eraser?
Or what if the government decreed that the chemical industry
pollutes too much, or isn’t equitable or diverse enough,
so it bans the manufacture of the yellow paint on the outside,
or the “graphite lead” in the inside?

It turns out that government does have a role to play in the production of pencils,
albeit the simplest role of all:
as the Hippocratic Oath directs, “in the first place, do no harm.”

That’s all.
If government just leaves everything alone, there will be pencils.
Magically, almost miraculously, all these materials from all over the world
will come together to provide enough pencils to satisfy demand.

But if government starts meddling, then, indeed, there will be no pencils.
If government shuts down the logging industry, for example,
because of some environmental concern or philosophical overreaction,
perhaps without even thinking about pencils as one of their outputs,
everything dependent on wooden components will be lost.
Without lumber, there will be no pencils, no paper, no cardboard boxes,
no wooden furniture. No books or magazines, no wooden bookshelves,
no wooden decks, no 2x4s for housing construction.
It’s amazing how many different products, besides pencils,
are dependent on just this one raw material.
The same goes for countless others...”

We had a chat on FR earlier today about what I consider to be the epitome of modern free market capitalism. Electric rental scooters.

The scooter companies never groveled before their municipal overlords and asked “pretty please, can we put scooters on every corner for people to rent and have mobility?”

Nope, On Monday there were none, on Tuesday, a bunch of rental scooters showed up on streetcorners. The people began to download the app and use the scooters. Cities tried to say no and add regulations, but the users, their citizens said NO. We want them.

I, Pencil has another flip side. The necessity of global supply. The essay details products from all over the world, coming to the pencil factory doing a logistical dance so that the pencils may be manufactured.

As much as we might want All Made in USA, that is functionally impossible for many things because the raw materials simply don’t exist domestically.

This article is another prima facie example of why American Thinker is second to Gateway Pundit amongst awful “conservative” websites.

I really believe Mr Di Leo, in writing…

But there is secondary lesson, buried just beneath the surface: government must not meddle with all those contributing industries. The magic of the Invisible Hand depends upon the government behaving itself. It depends on the government leaving well enough alone.

...revealed that he didn’t read I, Pencil.

Now, I, Pencil is a magnificent piece. But toward the end of that great work, is the following:

“If you can become aware of the miraculousness which I symbolize, you can help save the freedom mankind is so unhappily losing.” For, if one is aware that these know-hows will naturally, yes, automatically, arrange themselves into creative and productive patterns in response to human necessity and demand— that is, in the absence of governmental or any other coercive master-minding—then one will possess an absolutely essential ingredient for freedom: a faith in free people. Freedom is impossible without this faith.

This lesson allegedly “buried just below the surface” is actually above ground and in the open. I, Pencil effectively closes with a cautionary note on government meddling.

That said, hopefully readers of the article who never read I, Pencil will become fans of this piece and skip over Mr Di Leo’s article-in-need-of-an-editor.

Good evening, DoodleBob.

As a conservative writer, I don’t take insults personally... you really can’t have thin skin on our side of the aisle! ... but I don’t think I should let your insult to the American Thinker go without a response.

The American Thinker has some terrific editors, and I did discuss my wording with them. I think what you’re forgetting are the very title and lead-in to my column.

Remember those old 45rpm records? The B-side wasn’t hidden, written in secret code or invisible ink. It was there all along, just overshadowed by the song on the A-side.

That’s exactly the comparison I was going for.

My column is saying that “I, Pencil” is primarily a positive exposition of the free market, a declaration that there’s no need for the “5 year plans” and other government mandated manufactures that communists advocate... but it is more than that. It’s a warning as well, and since the warning part is only a few lines compared to full pages of positive cheer, it’s easy for us to miss that part.

I’m not saying he didn’t warn us at all, or that he put his warning in code; I’m saying the warning was just as important as the rest, maybe even more important, but we have all been so thrilled by his major point that we didn’t notice that second one... in much the same way as a music lover might have played the A-side of a record until it wore out, and then eventually finally got around to playing the B-side and realizing to his surprise that the other song was in fact just as good.

You might have used different wording to make that point than I did; maybe I could indeed have done it more artfully. I certainly don’t pretend to be perfect, and I know I was exhibiting a bit of hubris by attempting to add to the mythos of Leonard Read’s great article.

But I’ll defend my analogy at least. I think on that at least, I nailed it. :-)

And I am certainly proud to occasionally appear on the American Thinker’s page.

Cheers,
JFD

Good morning:

First, thank you for the thoughtful reply. My mildly smarmy post didn’t deserve such a reply as yours. Apologies on that front.

Second, regarding the thrust of my post, while the vast majority of I, Pencil (hereafter IP to save bandwidth) is about the majesty of human ingenuity when applied to unshackled commerce, it HAS a few very above-ground cautionary paragraphs on state meddling. To be fair, the majority of those paragraphs is about faith and God and His role in all of This. That said, gubmint is in IP. If I was the Editor (more in that later) we could have modified ever so slightly a sentence or two vs breaking out the Big Red Pen, and not skipped a beat.

Third, with full acknowledgement that you’re a well-published writer and I’m a relative hack on FR, by not acknowledging that IP does indeed address - albeit tangentially - government interference, it suggests that the writer hasn’t read IP. That feeling, while reading the piece, undermines credibility (at least with me). It’s sort of like reading a theater critic’s review, that the latest production of Waiting for Godot missed the scene when Godot finally arrives.

Fourth, and maybe this is nit picky, but I sensed there may have been an opportunity lost. Many of us fans of IP will get what you wrote. But there is a generation of Deplorables-in-training who NEED to get exposure to the classics. IP is something every human under 35 should read, several times frankly. They sure ain’t gonna get that in school. American Thinker (AT henceforth) seems to be a hit with people (many of AT’s articles get posted here) and while it’s not a charity, your piece may be that red-pilling moment for some folks. If a noob read your piece, then read IP, and came away thinking like I did, they may have focused on the omission vs the majesty.

Fifth, AT. Now, this is above both of our pay grades. And what follows may be perceived as a rant…and it probably is on some level. However, the editing is terrible, many authors repeatedly fail to do the most basic fact-checking or think things through before publishing them (more on that later), and for a while when AT stopped letting people post comments to articles, the editor gave no reason AND smugly demeaned your customers:

Second, it’s lovely that many of you came here for the conversation in the comments. To have the comments abruptly turned off was the equivalent of our breaking up your party, the great party at which all the guests were interesting and delightful. We appreciate what an unpleasant shock and disappointment that was, and we hate to be the mean parent who broke up the party but, again, sometimes you have to do what you have to do. (emphasis added)

Indeed, in this here article, which basically posits that the left is trying to change the perception of the word "groomer" it was written...

It's important to understand that the word “groomer,” a pejorative,

"Groomer" is NOT "a word or phrase that “has negative connotations or that is intended to disparage or belittle". It is an accurate description of an act of deliberately establishing an emotional connection with a child to prepare them for sexual abuse. It's cut and dry, and in this context it's easy to see why statists are enraged - it's a descriptive and accurate word with tremendous emotional attachment, that exposes them.

To be fair, some people use that word with a perjorative INTENT. But "groomer" is not pejorative.

The thing is, it doesn’t have to be this way. I recognize that competition for readers and revenue is fierce, and your industry has a publish or perish dimension to it. I suspect AT doesn’t have buckets of cash or the time to employ editors to clean up the grammar police stuff about which some crank on FR whines. It’s a war, Doodle - we need to stop the assault on our rights and that requires daily combat and you have to break eggs to make an omelet. I get it.

But there are many competitors of AT which seem to be governed by the same laws of economics underpinning a perfect competition, that get it right. Intellectual Takeout is probably best in class. Our side has enough of an uphill battle, and I’m a fan of self-policing vs regulation. AT need to get a grip on some QC.

In closing, your pieces are good and I’ll happily read your material. We can agree to disagree on the nit pickier stuff on IP since, frankly, I haven’t seen anyone write about IP in ages; hopefully the youngsters dive in because of your piece, and I am wrong.

Have a blessed day, FRiend.

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.