The fruits of public education.
Back during the Eisenhower Administration a Civics teacher gave a homework assignment intended to teach - as the teacher proudly said the next day - that “society” meant nothing other than “government.” This conceit is beloved of socialists, who need a euphemism for government.At the time, I did not accept the teacher’s notion, but I did not then know that the very start of Thomas Paine’s Common Sense puts paid to that idea:
SOME writers have so confounded society with government, as to leave little or no distinction between them; whereas they are not only different, but have different origins. Society is produced by our wants, and government by our wickedness; the former promotes our happiness POSITIVELY by uniting our affections, the latter NEGATIVELY by restraining our vices. The one encourages intercourse, the other creates distinctions. The first is a patron, the last a punisher.Society in every state is a blessing, but Government, even in its best state, is but a necessary evil; in its worst state an intolerable one . . .
I, Pencil is an article written in 1958 by Leonard E. Read. The burden of the article is how diffuse are the inputs to make a simple item like a pencil. You have to have the obvious materials - wood, graphite, rubber, and the ferrule material and the enamel - but like the actual production using those ingredients to make the final product, the production of each of those those ingredients requires workers and machinery, and the machinery has its own manufacturers and supply and production chains. And in all cases the workers need food, shelter, and normal amenities.The correct word for all the support which surrounds the total production of the pencil - or anything else - is society. Not government, note well, society.