Posted on 09/11/2017 11:03:09 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
Perhaps the clearest and most vivid illustration of the value of the division of labor is found not in Adam Smith’s description in the economic classic “The Wealth of Nations” of the efficiency of a specialized pin factory, but in an episode of Rod Serling’s 1950s television classic “Twilight Zone.” The episode, entitled “Time Enough at Last,” demonstrates – perhaps unintentionally – that even under the most fortuitous of circumstances, self-sufficiency is no match for interdependence.
The episode, chosen in a reader poll conducted by Twilight Zone Magazine as by far the most memorable in the series’ history, has a straightforward enough plot line. Henry Bemis, played by Burgess Meredith, is a nearsighted bank teller whose love of reading the great classics is forever hampered by the time demands of his boss and his wife. One day, lunching as he always did in the bank vault in order to be able to read undisturbed, Bemis suddenly feels and hears an enormous explosion, presumably caused by an H-bomb. As the one person spared by by the nuclear holocaust, Bemis is at last free to spend all the time he wishes reading the great books from a nearby library, his need for nutrition met by a supply of canned foods that will easily last him a lifetime. All of his cultural and material wants are satisfied, without the need for anyone else who could eat into his time.
Bemis seemed to have in effect achieved autarky, the goal of economic self-sufficiency with no need for barter or trade with others. But the fact that none of us is an island, economically as well as emotionally, became apparent by the end of the episode. Bending down to pick up a book from the pile he had assembled, Bemis stumbled, his glasses falling off and shattering. Bemis had all the books he wanted to read and all of the time he needed to read them, without, he thought, any need for interaction with anyone else. But as he picks up the broken remains of the glasses he desperately needs to read even word one, he realizes that his dreams are as shattered as the lenses he cannot repair, leaving him nothing to do but scream in frustration: “That’s not fair. There was time now. That’s not fair at all.”
Serling may have intended this plot to illustrate simply the need to be careful what you wish for. Or he may have intended it as an illustration of the difference between solitude and loneliness, and the need for human interaction as a basis of fulfillment. But it also illustrates the need for economic interaction as the basis for creating economic fulfillment.
Bemis had all of the books he wanted, all of the time he needed, and all of the canned food his body required. What he lacked was simply a skilled optician. He lacked anyone with the professional competence to design and fit reading glasses. He also lacked an optometrist to prescribe corrective lenses. He lacked the people required to weave the glass, the people to dig out the needed sand and lime, and the people to heat these ingredients together into sheets. For that matter he also lacked the skilled people needed to make eyeglass frames, and the people who shape the metal or plastic they are made from. What’s more, he lacked the people to transport all of these materials, and to train everyone in the entire process of making reading glasses. He had neither the financial, physical nor human capital to make any of these things possible. In fact, while Bemis thought “there was time now,” in fact he had not gained time but lost it – by losing the productivity of everyone else in the global economy.
Like the pencil in Leonard E. Reed’s “I, Pencil”, no one person is able to make eyeglasses. We are able to produce them, as everything else, only through Smith’s invisible hand that metaphorically represents the division of labor, or specialization. We are able to obtain them only through barter, facilitated by the use of money. Production is a chain, and every person involved is a necessary link – tied together by enlightened self-interest, at least to some degree. We are able to produce every form of wealth we have – including Bemis’ glasses, books, and canned goods – not through a futile bid for self-sufficiency, but through the proven efficiency of marketplace interdependence.
-- Allan Golombek is a Senior Director at the White House Writers Group.
Did you see the coke bottle lenses Bemis wore?
The kind of reading glasses sold at Walgreens only go up to a Plus 3, maybe plus 3.5. I've never seen a plus 4 over-the-counter pair reading glasses. Your mileage may vary.
Bemis probably needed a plus 10 or more to be able to read. To get that, he'd have to stack three Plus 3s and a plus 1 to get the equivalent of plus 10 reading glasses. That's certainly not comfortable and would likely provide a very narrow field of view, but they would still work, one eye at a time. Angle of view would be severely limited. I doubt Bemis could stack that many and read with both eyes at once.
He’d have to fight the zombies on the way there.
“People need people...”
Did you have to bring up Barbra Steisand?
“his best friend was a volleyball”
The volleyball turned out to be pretty decent company.
There is NOTHING in the Constitution that compels tariffs.
Sure he had time enough at last to read books, but his broken glasses prevented that.
BTW, this episode bothered me because I could never understand why his wife was such a biatch to him.
All he wanted to do was read, and she wouldn't allow him to do so.
Why would she care?
He could have been out being a terrible husband, but his *reading* really bothered her that much?
That’s the one.
Oh, blow it out your ear, Golum. I always hoped Bemis was farsighted and could find, among the rubble, an optometry shop with glasses waiting to be picked up, that might fit him. A magnifying glass, which he could find in the bank building or library would work, as well. As an avid reader, I was never satisfied with the ending in that episode.
That was going to be in the sequel but the series was cancelled.
Well, we are speaking of leftists: grownups acting like children. (And not in a good way.)
To regulate Commerce with foreign Nations, and among the several States, and with the Indian Tribes;
Regulate commerce means the power to collect duties on imports.
The Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises, to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defence and general Welfare of the United States; but all Duties, Imposts and Excises shall be uniform throughout the United States;
Again, no Constitutional MANDATE for tariffs.
He had a Fed-Ex plane full of supplies and nearly went insane.
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