I, Pencil
A Simple Instrument Teaches a Profound Lesson
Leonard E. Read (1898-1983) founded FEE in 1946 and served as its president until his death. “I, Pencil,” his most famous essay, was first published in the December 1958 issue of The Freeman.
I am a lead pencil—the ordinary wooden pencil familiar to all boys and girls and adults who can read and write.*
* My official name is “Mongol 482.” My many ingredients are assembled, fabricated, and finished by Eberhard Faber Pencil Company.
Writing is both my vocation and my avocation; that’s all I do.
You may wonder why I should write a genealogy. Well, to begin with, my story is interesting. And, next, I am a mystery— more so than a tree or a sunset or even a flash of lightning. But, sadly, I am taken for granted by those who use me, as if I were a mere incident and without background. This supercilious attitude relegates me to the level of the commonplace. This is a species of the grievous error in which mankind cannot too long persist without peril. For, the wise G. K. Chesterton observed, “We are perishing for want of wonder, not for want of wonders.”
I, Pencil, simple though I appear to be, merit your wonder and awe, a claim I shall attempt to prove. In fact, if you can understand me—no, that’s too much to ask of anyone—if you can become aware of the miraculousness which I symbolize, you can help save the freedom mankind is so unhappily losing. I have a profound lesson to teach. And I can teach this lesson better than can an automobile or an airplane or a mechanical dishwasher because—well, because I am seemingly so simple.
Simple? Yet, not a single person on the face of this earth knows how to make me. This sounds fantastic, doesn’t it? Especially when it is realized that there are about one and one-half billion of my kind produced in the U.S.A. each year.
Pick me up and look me over. What do you see? Not much meets the eye—there’s some wood, lacquer, the printed labeling, graphite lead, a bit of metal, and an eraser.
Innumerable Antecedents
Just as you cannot trace your family tree back very far, so is it impossible for me to name and explain all my antecedents. But I would like to suggest enough of them to impress upon you the richness and complexity of my background.
My family tree begins with what in fact is a tree, a cedar of straight grain that grows in Northern California and Oregon. Now contemplate all the saws and trucks and rope and the countless other gear used in harvesting and carting the cedar logs to the railroad siding. Think of all the persons and the numberless skills that went into their fabrication: the mining of ore, the making of steel and its refinement into saws, axes, motors; the growing of hemp and bringing it through all the stages to heavy and strong rope; the logging camps with their beds and mess halls, the cookery and the raising of all the foods. Why, untold thousands of persons had a hand in every cup of coffee the loggers drink!
The logs are shipped to a mill in San Leandro, California. Can you imagine the individuals who make flat cars and rails and railroad engines and who construct and install the communication systems incidental thereto? These legions are among my antecedents.
Consider the millwork in San Leandro. The cedar logs are cut into small, pencil-length slats less than one-fourth of an inch in thickness. These are kiln dried and then tinted for the same reason women put rouge on their faces. People prefer that I look pretty, not a pallid white. The slats are waxed and kiln dried again. How many skills went into the making of the tint and the kilns, into supplying the heat, the light and power, the belts, motors, and all the other things a mill requires? Sweepers in the mill among my ancestors? Yes, and included are the men who poured the concrete for the dam of a Pacific Gas & Electric Company hydroplant which supplies the mill’s power!
Don’t overlook the ancestors present and distant who have a hand in transporting sixty carloads of slats across the nation.
Once in the pencil factory—$4,000,000 in machinery and building, all capital accumulated by thrifty and saving parents of mine—each slat is given eight grooves by a complex machine, after which another machine lays leads in every other slat, applies glue, and places another slat atop—a lead sandwich, so to speak. Seven brothers and I are mechanically carved from this “wood-clinched” sandwich.
My “lead” itself—it contains no lead at all—is complex. The graphite is mined in Ceylon. Consider these miners and those who make their many tools and the makers of the paper sacks in which the graphite is shipped and those who make the string that ties the sacks and those who put them aboard ships and those who make the ships. Even the lighthouse keepers along the way assisted in my birth—and the harbor pilots.
The graphite is mixed with clay from Mississippi in which ammonium hydroxide is used in the refining process. Then wetting agents are added such as sulfonated tallow—animal fats chemically reacted with sulfuric acid. After passing through numerous machines, the mixture finally appears as endless extrusions—as from a sausage grinder—cut to size, dried, and baked for several hours at 1,850 degrees Fahrenheit. To increase their strength and smoothness the leads are then treated with a hot mixture which includes candelilla wax from Mexico, paraffin wax, and hydrogenated natural fats.
My cedar receives six coats of lacquer. Do you know all the ingredients of lacquer? Who would think that the growers of castor beans and the refiners of castor oil are a part of it? They are. Why, even the processes by which the lacquer is made a beautiful yellow involves the skills of more persons than one can enumerate!
Observe the labeling. That’s a film formed by applying heat to carbon black mixed with resins. How do you make resins and what, pray, is carbon black?
My bit of metal—the ferrule—is brass. Think of all the persons who mine zinc and copper and those who have the skills to make shiny sheet brass from these products of nature. Those black rings on my ferrule are black nickel. What is black nickel and how is it applied? The complete story of why the center of my ferrule has no black nickel on it would take pages to explain.
Then there’s my crowning glory, inelegantly referred to in the trade as “the plug,” the part man uses to erase the errors he makes with me. An ingredient called “factice” is what does the erasing. It is a rubber-like product made by reacting rape- seed oil from the Dutch East Indies with sulfur chloride. Rubber, contrary to the common notion, is only for binding purposes. Then, too, there are numerous vulcanizing and accelerating agents. The pumice comes from Italy; and the pigment which gives “the plug” its color is cadmium sulfide.
No One Knows
Does anyone wish to challenge my earlier assertion that no single person on the face of this earth knows how to make me?
Actually, millions of human beings have had a hand in my creation, no one of whom even knows more than a very few of the others. Now, you may say that I go too far in relating the picker of a coffee berry in far off Brazil and food growers elsewhere to my creation; that this is an extreme position. I shall stand by my claim. There isn’t a single person in all these millions, including the president of the pencil company, who contributes more than a tiny, infinitesimal bit of know-how. From the standpoint of know-how the only difference between the miner of graphite in Ceylon and the logger in Oregon is in the type of know-how. Neither the miner nor the logger can be dispensed with, any more than can the chemist at the factory or the worker in the oil field—paraffin being a by-product of petroleum.
Here is an astounding fact: Neither the worker in the oil field nor the chemist nor the digger of graphite or clay nor any who mans or makes the ships or trains or trucks nor the one who runs the machine that does the knurling on my bit of metal nor the president of the company performs his singular task because he wants me. Each one wants me less, perhaps, than does a child in the first grade. Indeed, there are some among this vast multitude who never saw a pencil nor would they know how to use one. Their motivation is other than me. Perhaps it is something like this: Each of these millions sees that he can thus exchange his tiny know-how for the goods and services he needs or wants. I may or may not be among these items.
No Master Mind
There is a fact still more astounding: The absence of a master mind, of anyone dictating or forcibly directing these countless actions which bring me into being. No trace of such a person can be found. Instead, we find the Invisible Hand at work. This is the mystery to which I earlier referred.
It has been said that “only God can make a tree.” Why do we agree with this? Isn’t it because we realize that we ourselves could not make one? Indeed, can we even describe a tree? We cannot, except in superficial terms. We can say, for instance, that a certain molecular configuration manifests itself as a tree. But what mind is there among men that could even record, let alone direct, the constant changes in molecules that transpire in the life span of a tree? Such a feat is utterly unthinkable!
I, Pencil, am a complex combination of miracles: a tree, zinc, copper, graphite, and so on. But to these miracles which manifest themselves in Nature an even more extraordinary miracle has been added: the configuration of creative human energies—millions of tiny know-hows configurating naturally and spontaneously in response to human necessity and desire and in the absence of any human master-minding! Since only God can make a tree, I insist that only God could make me. Man can no more direct these millions of know-hows to bring me into being than he can put molecules together to create a tree.
The above is what I meant when writing, “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.
Once government has had a monopoly of a creative activity such, for instance, as the delivery of the mails, most individuals will believe that the mails could not be efficiently delivered by men acting freely. And here is the reason: Each one acknowledges that he himself doesn’t know how to do all the things incident to mail delivery. He also recognizes that no other individual could do it. These assumptions are correct. No individual possesses enough know-how to perform a nation’s mail delivery any more than any individual possesses enough know-how to make a pencil. Now, in the absence of faith in free people—in the unawareness that millions of tiny know-hows would naturally and miraculously form and cooperate to satisfy this necessity—the individual cannot help but reach the erroneous conclusion that mail can be delivered only by governmental “master-minding.”
Testimony Galore
If I, Pencil, were the only item that could offer testimony on what men and women can accomplish when free to try, then those with little faith would have a fair case. However, there is testimony galore; it’s all about us and on every hand. Mail delivery is exceedingly simple when compared, for instance, to the making of an automobile or a calculating machine or a grain combine or a milling machine or to tens of thousands of other things. Delivery? Why, in this area where men have been left free to try, they deliver the human voice around the world in less than one second; they deliver an event visually and in motion to any person’s home when it is happening; they deliver 150 passengers from Seattle to Baltimore in less than four hours; they deliver gas from Texas to one’s range or furnace in New York at unbelievably low rates and without subsidy; they deliver each four pounds of oil from the Persian Gulf to our Eastern Seaboard—halfway around the world—for less money than the government charges for delivering a one-ounce letter across the street!
The lesson I have to teach is this: Leave all creative energies uninhibited. Merely organize society to act in harmony with this lesson. Let society’s legal apparatus remove all obstacles the best it can. Permit these creative know-hows freely to flow. Have faith that free men and women will respond to the Invisible Hand. This faith will be confirmed. I, Pencil, seemingly simple though I am, offer the miracle of my creation as testimony that this is a practical faith, as practical as the sun, the rain, a cedar tree, the good earth.
Leonard Read’s delightful story, “I, Pencil,” has become a classic, and deservedly so. I know of no other piece of literature that so succinctly, persuasively, and effectively illustrates the meaning of both Adam Smith’s invisible hand—the possibility of cooperation without coercion—and Friedrich Hayek’s emphasis on the importance of dispersed knowledge and the role of the price system in communicating information that “will make the individuals do the desirable things without anyone having to tell them what to do.”
We used Leonard’s story in our television show, “Free to Choose,” and in the accompanying book of the same title to illustrate “the power of the market” (the title of both the first segment of the TV show and of chapter one of the book). We summarized the story and then went on to say:
“None of the thousands of persons involved in producing the pencil performed his task because he wanted a pencil. Some among them never saw a pencil and would not know what it is for. Each saw his work as a way to get the goods and services he wanted—goods and services we produced in order to get the pencil we wanted. Every time we go to the store and buy a pencil, we are exchanging a little bit of our services for the infinitesimal amount of services that each of the thousands contributed toward producing the pencil.
“It is even more astounding that the pencil was ever produced. No one sitting in a central office gave orders to these thousands of people. No military police enforced the orders that were not given. These people live in many lands, speak different languages, practice different religions, may even hate one another—yet none of these differences prevented them from cooperating to produce a pencil. How did it happen? Adam Smith gave us the answer two hundred years ago.”
“I, Pencil” is a typical Leonard Read product: imaginative, simple yet subtle, breathing the love of freedom that imbued everything Leonard wrote or did. As in the rest of his work, he was not trying to tell people what to do or how to conduct themselves. He was simply trying to enhance individuals’ understanding of themselves and of the system they live in.
That was his basic credo and one that he stuck to consistently during his long period of service to the public—not public service in the sense of government service. Whatever the pressure, he stuck to his guns, refusing to compromise his principles. That was why he was so effective in keeping alive, in the early days, and then spreading the basic idea that human freedom required private property, free competition, and severely limited government.
It is a tribute to his foresight, persistence, and sound understanding of the basis for a free society, that FEE, the institution he established and on which he lavished such loving care, is able to celebrate its fiftieth anniversary.
—Milton Friedman
Comment by Victor on 17 January 2009:
Hello! That\’s really an excellent article. One question: may I translate it to Ukrainian and publish on the WikiSources? Is there any copyright or else that I might break and make my efforts illegal?
Thank you?
Comment by Michael Nolan on 19 January 2009:
Victor,
I’m the managing editor here at FEE and I normally handle reprint permission requests. Could you email me at mnolan@fee.org to discuss the reprint?
Thanks for reading,
Michael
Comment by perlstar on 22 January 2009:
Wow. I have heard of this article, but never seen it, before now. It sends chills up my spine.
Jay Snelson used to give lectures about this, extending it to describe how if he went through all the steps to make a pencil himself, it would cost $50,000 for one. And that was in 1965 dollars.
Comment by Todd A. Geiger on 24 March 2009:
It is a shame that a majority of Americans are seemingly illiterate regarding basic economic theory. The government operated post office delivers a 1 oz. letter across the street for $0.42 (a centrally planned service) while Sunoco, Citgo, Valero, British Petroleum, Exxon and other independent entities can drill, recover, transport, refine, and transport to many numerous retail outlets, 1 oz. of crude oil transformed to gasoline for around a penny and a half.
Comment by Bob Van De Hey on 25 May 2009:
Hello, good day,
Hi again, my name is Robert Paul Velasquez VanDeHey. I have previously received permission from you kind folks to use the
\"I,Pencil\" essay and refer to your website in a book I was
writing based on internet blogs of mine. Recently, I\’ve hooked
up with the TownHall website and plan to use my newest blogs
there, plus recycle some of my best old ones. The essay would
appear very early in the book (honor of place!) and be treated as
follows below: do I have your permission to use it?
Thanks,
Bob
Here\’s the start of the book, up to the essay:
The Impert\’nence of Being Rajjpuut
(Live long, strong and ornery!)
By Rajjpuut
a.k.a. Robert Paul Velasquez Van De Hey
Foreword and acknowledgment:
This book contains re-edited versions of some of my first 150
\"Rajjpuut\’s Folly\" columns which can be found at:
http://rajjpuutsfolly.blogtownhall.com/
displayed on the internet by the kind folks at:
http://rajjpuutsfolly.blogtownhall.com/
When I was a boy, my two uncles (Tod and Eddie) from
Wisconsin (I was born in Green Bay) visited our family in
Colorado. Sometime early during that visit we saw an
adventure movie about India (\"The Far Pavilions\" had not yet
been written so I\’m not sure what movie it was) which
inspired them to start calling me \"Rajput\" after the Indian
\"prince\" in the film. They continued to use that moniker for
me during the entire two weeks they stayed with us, and I
have enjoyed being \"Rajjpuut\" all my life.
Since playwrights Oscar Wilde and Eugene O\’Neill both share
my birthday (October 16th), I took the title of Wilde\’s
most famous work, \"The Importance of Being Earnest,\" and
adapted it slightly to come up with the book title. It
seemed appropriate because so many readers have told me
how much they enjoy my \"sassy\" little column. At Townhall\’s
Rajjpuut\’s Folly blog site, my biography states:
\"Bob VanDeHey is a health educator who trusts:
thefreemanonline.org/featured/i-pencil/ as his \"Bible of
Economic understanding\" along with such classics as Harry
Browne\’s \"How I Found Freedom in an Unfree World\" and
Hazlitt\’s \"Economics in One Lesson.\" He also loves the U.S.
Constitution and says \"it\’s a crying shame so few have read
the document and almost no one understands it.\"
The two major thrusts of my writings concern health and
economics/politics. I am a former health educator and
quite shocked by the apparent disregard and ignorance
shown by the mass of Americans toward their most prized
and enduring corporeal asset no less than the typical
American\’s ignorance of this country\’s meaning, history
and its most precious legacy.
I wish to thank TownHall for providing me the expressive
outlet that the Rajjpuut\’s Folly blog offers and for their
kind permission to further the causes of freedom, truth,
understanding and human kindness with this book.
I heartily thank The Freemanonline.org who granted their
permission for the use of Leonard Read\’s \"I, Pencil\" essay.
And I am eternally grateful to all the wonderful people
who\’ve read my internet blogs for lo, these many years,
long before I discovered Townhall, and offering me in so
many cases encouragement, advice, and important corrections.
Thanks, may we all \"live long, strong and ornery!\"
Introduction: The Miracle No One Understands
It is because mankind and particularly the politicians who
make the laws do not understand the immense miracle that
is the \"free market\": that one billion of our most pressing
one billion and three problems exist. Every American
should know of, understand and live and breathe the lessons
from this marvelous little essay by Leonard Read. For
access at any time merely type out \"I, Pencil\" or use this
web address:
http://www.thefreemanonline.org/featured/i-pencil/
The essay explains every major truth men need know to keep
themselves free and maximize their chances for happiness,
success and good will toward and from their fellow men.
I, Pencil
etc., etc.
Comment by Walter Hudson on 7 August 2009:
I guess Mr. Geiger posting above proves the old adage: “those that can do, those that can’t teach.” What with his own inability to demonstrate economic literacy, is it any wonder this self-professed economics guru gets up his soapbox spewing forth a recklessly shameful, oversimplified, misleading and inaccurate comparison of the cost of oil to the cost of postage.
Funny how he goes to the effort to describe the wondrous distribution system of the oil refiners to “many retail outlets,” but fails to enlighten his pupils as to a) the incremental cost difference resulting from the hundred million or more additional distribution destinations there are in delivering mail to hundreds of millions of businesses and households, b) the incremental cost of doing so on a daily basis as opposed to retail refinery deliveries ending up at your local gas station twice a week. Impressively, Mr. Geiger is able to squeeze an additional artifice in his logic by further conjuring up the misleading image of postal deliveries being sent “across the street.”
I’m not taking a position as to which system is better, but the problem with kneejerk reactionaries like Mr. Geiger is they have a funny way of distorting the truth, misleading those looking for information and ultimately muddying the waters in what could be a spirited and intellectually honest debate. We’re never going to solve any of our most serious problems until dishonest fringe lunatics like Mr. Geiger can come to the table with honest, open dialog and logically constructed, factually supported arguments. Until then, this country’s in the toilet, demagogues from the left pitted versus angry, fear-mongerers from the right in a gruesome death spiral, with no hope for solving our problems and no progress for our children and our future.
I had two further intersting thoughts after reading I, Pencil.
First, the author concludes that nobody will endeavor to think of a way to do something the government is already doing, that we’re so limp and conditioned we can’t build a better mousetrap, yet this piece was published in 1958, Fred Smith graduated HBS in 1959 and went on to found Fed Ex shortly thereafter. Since that time UPS has also blossomed. I guess this author missed the mark with his predictions of doom and gloom at having a government run US postal system.
I loved the illustration of all the thousands of pieces and people that come together to get a pencil into the hands of a pupil, and it made me think again, how ignorant it is when folks like Mr. Geiger take to oversimplifying complex problems, and further, it begs the question, while capitalism is great, is gutting the middle class to reward crony capitalists and high level execs to the tune of the highest income gap in our nation’s history the cause of so much of our nation’s anger and divisiveness? When I read the I, Pencil piece, I have to ask why should a journeyman exec earn $50 million a year when his average employee makes less than 1 thousandth his salary, if like the pencil, bringing a successful product to bear is the result of myriad factors and efforts?
Comment by Bryan Scott Boyce on 16 September 2009:
Mr. Hudson is short sighted and he presents an argument that a fourth grader could easily dispel. The Federal Government has dictated a monopoly is establishment and regulation of the postal business. They can hardly compete even while they make the rules and try everything possible to stifle competition. Mr Read is trying to advocate freedom as the catalyst for the best possible conditions for the production of markets, goods and services and even divisions of labor which you claim are corrupted by capitalism. What hogwash. The cost of labor is decided by the price the market will bear unless it is dictated by government edict. (Like minimum wage, and other anti capitalistic laws.)
Comment by Kendra Hawkins on 1 October 2009:
I’m an 18 year old college student at SBU Missouri, and I thought that essay was ingenious. Very creative, original, and so very true. I wish more people put thought into this kind of stuff. Who knows what difference it could make?
Comment by Judith on 1 October 2009:
Mr. Rogers taught us how pencils are made. Mr. Read taught us.
Comment by Tommy on 15 October 2009:
Yes, this paper was written well. And yes, it has some good and legitimate points. However, to take this as the only reality is overly simplistic. Read asserts that every individual who acts in self-interest will make a positive contribution to the community as a whole. We know that this is not always the case. Sometimes those acting only on self-impulse can often be damaging to everyone else around him. Just look at the recent financial crisis as an example. Weren’t many of them just looking out for “No. 1″, and where did that get us? Who was hurt the most? There needs to be a balance. Without government, our water and food would be more unsafe, there would be no one to stop criminal activities, we wouldn’t have roads or bridges, or schools, etc. It would be total chaos.
What is freedom? Take driving for example. Are our freedoms are taken away when we aren’t “free” to go whatever speed we want? Don’t speed limits actually give us the freedom to drive on the roads in a safer environment, feeling more secure? Not all regulation is bad. Not all government action is bad. In much the same way, not all government action is good. North Korea demonstrates this all too well and in many other areas alike. There is no simple solution. No single right answer.
Really think about what people are saying. Don’t just follow blindly because someone said it well. Many aspects of this essay are true. But just remember it is not always so.
Comment by Cait on 15 October 2009:
Good. But I agree with Tommy, it’s not always true. Sometimes self-interest serves the party as a whole but not always. The wonderful way in which the pencil was made can also be a horrifying one. Here’s an excerpt with the same basic idea, but an entirely different outcome:
http://www.sightline.org/publications/books/stuff/stuff_excerpt
Pingback by The Conscience Of A Libertarian « prashonomics on 19 October 2009:
[...] I, Pencil: Oh, I could not sign off an introductory post on libertarianism and free-market capitalism without linking to this little gem of a masterpiece now, could I ?! A stunning narration of the magical effects of Adam Smith’s invisible hand told from the perspective of an ordinary pencil. [...]
Comment by Rudy Fritsch on 25 October 2009:
Hi;
We are interested in publishing ‘I Pencil’ on TGSI web site…could you advise if this is permissible, re copy rights etc…
Thanks
Rudy Fritsch
Editor in Chief
Pingback by I, Toaster on 28 October 2009:
[...] artist puts a passage from a Douglas Adams novel to the test, and ends up recreating my favorite economics parable. Thwaites may well end up making some approximation of a modern toaster, but he’ll come [...]
Pingback by As I See It » Presumptuous Congress thinks it can . . . on 12 November 2009:
[...] an essay you should read titled “I Pencil” on the numerous intricacies of the various market forces required to successfully design and bring [...]
Pingback by A world of a million skilled professions « Belligerati on 11 December 2009:
[...] another example of the immortal lesson of the essay I, Pencil By Leonard E. Read, that the world is filled with particular skills and no one man can master them all. We depend [...]
Comment by Buckminster on 3 January 2010:
You’ve got to be kidding. I know how to make a pencil. I bet everyone reading this knows how to make a pencil. We may not be ABLE to make a commercial-grade pencil, but that’s a different point. What I get from this article is NOTHING about any alleged benefit of less government intervention or free-market capitalism. What I get from this is how the closing of a single, small, US-based pencil factory would affect the livelihood of thousands of people.
But the selfish capitalists don’t care about thousands of people that contribute to the making of a pencil. They only care about the fraction of a cent per pencil of additional profit they could get out by ditching these people for some they can exploit at a lower cost.
I also can’t help but laugh out loud at how impressed you are at the interconnectedness of all the human, intellectual and geological resources that contribute to a pencil, but you wouldn’t be able to comprehend this same concept if the story concerns the impact on our environment.
Pingback by Units of Selection | Quiet Babylon on 18 January 2010:
[...] No one knows how to make a pencil, economists like to point out. We rely on a massive network of local expertise and an infrastructure of transportation to pull all the parts together. James Burke’s Connections makes the same point over and over again. The first episode especially so, beginning with a blackout in NYC and proceeding to a fantasy about the collapse of civilization and what you’d need, in order to survive. [...]
Pingback by It’s All The Same Street! on 18 January 2010:
[...] let alone much of Congress, have never read Leonard E. Read’s short but brilliant classic, “I, Pencil”. It’s never too [...]
Comment by Doug Barbieri on 24 January 2010:
Tommy: You have to look at the bigger picture. It was the Federal Reserve, acting in concert with onerous central management, that brought on the economic crisis. In other words, if Wall Street was engaged in a drunken orgy, then the Fed was pouring the drinks. The last meltdown was caused by the same things that caused the previous bubble (the tech stock meltdown). Don’t you see a pattern here? And don’t blame it on greed, because the people in government can be just as greedy–particularly politicians.
Speed limits are largely artificial, enforced not to make the roads a safer place to drive but to extort money out of peaceful people who have harmed no one through their actions. I recommend you read this article to understand just how much damage the totalitarian state of roadways cause and what happens when you remove those artificial restrictions:
http://www.spiegel.de/international/spiegel/0,1518,448747,00.html
And to Buckminster–how about if we just close down all the pencil factories by government edict–how will school children be able to learn to write and do mathematics without pencils? Is education important to you or should we all take a massive step backwards into the stone age?
Do you enjoy being able to post your arguments (however much I may disagree with them) to a free website brought to you by individuals who freely cooperated, using a computer that was freely created by cooperating individuals and using an Internet backbone that was created in a similar manner? Or should we shut down thefreemanonline.org, and heck the entire Internet, because it was not brought about by state edict?
All you can do is scream bloody murder about the environment but you wouldn’t have a problem destroying our civilization, thus bringing about starvation, disease, illiteracy and misery.
Pingback by Week 1 Recap and Week 2 Reading Assignment « Econ 1A Macro on 28 January 2010:
[...] Assignment for Tuesday Feb 2: Leonard Reed, “I, Pencil” in easy to print [...]
Comment by Thomas Greco on 5 February 2010:
The End of Money and The Future of Civilization (2009)
“Money is clouded in mystery and there are few who really understand it. It is not that it is so difficult to understand, but because it is made to seem that way by financial journalists, bankers and money monopolists who speak an obscure language, indulge in superficial speculations about markets and policy changes, and behave as if the wizards of Wall Street were possessed of some superior form of intelligence. This discourages most people from even trying to understand money.” (p.87)
“While we may not be able to do much in the short-run to change the legal privilige of political currencies or bank-created credit money, we can reduce our dependence upon them. The way to do that is by taking control of our own credit and organizing independent means for allocating it directly to those individuals and businesses that we trust and wish to support.” (p.111)
“Just as the adoption of checks allowed traders to circumvent the legal limitations imposed on the issuance of banknotes, so does the adoption of mutual credit clearing circles allow traders to free themselves from the limitations imposed by monopolized bank-credit and government money. With the proper implementation strategies and the application of sound financial principles, direct mutual credit clearing is an unstoppable technological advance that has the power to ameliorate myriad economic, political and social problems, and establish a solid foundation needed to enable civilization to make a major leap toward a harmonious, sustainable way of living.” (p.107)
Pingback by The Democracy Debate: Darling or Devil? « Tusharprakash’s Blog on 15 February 2010:
[...] of the supply chain with any need of a central planner as brilliantly illustrated in the essay I, Pencil: My Family Tree by the educator and the thinker Leonard Read. Ultimately, it’s based of trust & freedom. [...]
Pingback by Chapter 15, How the Price System Works « AFP-Nebraska Book Discussion on 25 February 2010:
[...] Here is a link to a clever and profound essay on the wonder of the price system, I think it complements what we have just read: I, pencil. [...]
Comment by old toade on 4 March 2010:
To hikeandski- well said!
I also think I,Pencil is a great piece written by a clever man.
I was uniquely intrigued in that I have toured that old pencil factory in San Leandro about 20 yrs ago (2 shifts of 45 people were needed just to cut the cedar 4X4′s into the slats using the original belt driven saws).
Regarding your thoughts on the Great Recession – it seems Clinton in ’99 also asked Greenspan if he could do something to lower interest rates…and Greenspan came back with a stratgey involving modifying how CPI was calculated enabling them to control the outcome.I’m not sure when they began the modified unemployment formula, but it has a similar outcome. Both parties are at fault.
The story of how the american public has been led and participated in this horrific failure of governance and generational losses of wealth goes back a bit farther. We were the world’s richest and most powerful country for a decade, or three after WWII. We the people need to take the blame for not “minding the store” in DC, and getting a little too caught up in our good lives. We need to accept that corruption is part of the human condition, and we have let internal corruption gain the upper hand. Laws against corrupt behaviors have worked reasonably well when government personnel are reasonably free of it to begin with, and remain that way as long as we are watching and willing to speak out in numbers as we once were.
Our values today have evolved considerably(with the help of media programming)and its and unpleasant reality that once public values are set, they become very difficult to change.
Keynesian economics serves the banksters, and politicans, at your expense. Don’t be confused- we will crash, thats as certain as it was when bailouts started. Printing our way out is a form of default as the money will have little value – no one wants our money now- no one will take our money at some point. We are losing and the clock is running.
Our ability to recover will be be determined by when the tax paying public has had enough. Waiting another year may tack on 10-20, as our ability to unwind this is lost. It seems like we are just going to watch this drama until it ends – wake up.
Comment by Fred Voetsch on 4 March 2010:
Very thought provoking. I wish all people would take the time to think about such things and read articles such as this.
Pingback by The Joe Donatelli Column » Blog Archive » An argument against health care reform: I, Pencil on 24 March 2010:
[...] can read “I, Pencil,” here. Share This Post Hide Bookmarks Effect.BlindUp('obsocialbookmark_bar510'); Posted by Joe [...]
Comment by Eric D. Erickson on 29 March 2010:
Please, no name dropping. Lets face the facts, that there was just way to much de-regulation in the “Banking Industry” in the past two decades! And mostly done by the “Lobbyists.”
“Clinton made banks issue mortgages in areas populated by people who did not make enough to qualify. Regulators did not regulate the sub-prime derivatives.”
Comment by Paul on 31 March 2010:
I am stunned at the simplified, no, ignorant oversimplification being applied, the huge jumping to conclusions, and the overall anger from the lefties trying to prove just how wrong everything is.
Laziness is a human trait that affects outcome.
Not all or even many I would argue who are business owners or in positions of management are evil, nor do the always look for the cheapest off-shore solutions, to state otherwise is to unmask your bigotry.
Pingback by Below The Beltway » Blog Archive » Milton Friedman: The Lesson Of The Pencil on 13 April 2010:
[...] talk is based upon an an essay called I, Pencil written by Leonard Reed back in [...]
Pingback by The Enormous Complexity of Things ™ « SALVATION! on 20 April 2010:
[...] I came across an article entitled “I, Pencil“ [...]
Pingback by Andrew J Nelson » Microeconomics Summer Class on 24 May 2010:
[...] Here are most of the lecture notes for the course. For the first half of the course markets structures and for the second half of the course consumer choice. In the meantime, here is an article from the newspaper about a recent Supreme Court concerning the application of antitrust laws to professional sports. Finally, one more application of basic economics ideas. The article is titled “I, Pencil” [...]
Pingback by Leonard Read: I pencil – Weekend Reading « Newcuriousthoughts Blog on 29 May 2010:
[...] May 29, 2010 by newcuriousthoughts Leave a Comment Don’t think a pencil is a miracle of the modern age? [...]
Pingback by Regulation Red Herring | The Freeman | Ideas On Liberty on 2 August 2010:
[...] This is the same lesson taught by FEE’s founder, Leonard Read, in I, Pencil. [...]
Pingback by Environmental Audit » “I, Pencil” 2.0 on 18 August 2010:
[...] products generated as a result) reminded him of an essay he read some time ago. The essay is called “I, Pencil”, by Leonard E. Read. I thoroughly recommend it. It’s a great [...]
Comment by . . on 28 November 2010:
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Comment by Mark Hubbel on 28 November 2010:
Great piece. I read a watered down version of this some years ago. Thought I’d search for it – and found this wonderful Website (and the piece as well)!
A few comments & thoughts about the comments (Pingbacks): 1st of all, Morality, by God’s own design, plays into each of our daily lives. Unless we’re completely in denial, or ignorant, all of mankind knows – instinctively – the Natural Law. The Golden Rule: “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you” has far – reaching (good) implications. If we go about “the higher calling of our daily work” thoughout our lives, God knows (even if we fail to see it) that we have indeed made a difference in making the world a better place in which to live. “I, Pencil” demonstrates this perfectly.
Everytime I see a new invention, I say out loud: “6 billion heads are better than 5 billion”! (forget 2 – heads are better than one!). I say – go for 7 billion. After all, as with ALL living things, if we are not growing – we’re dying! I choose (more) life!
Back to the Morality quotient: in the High calling of our Daily Work – we are all called to do our best – always. And yes, FREE we must be! Why? It has been written: “If you don’t control yourself from within (the Ten Commandments), you’ll be controlled from without (ie., the Government – with ENDLESS laws & restrictions). In the United States of America, we are not free to “DO ANYTHING WE WANT”. Never were. Not in a moral society, if that’s truely what we want to be! We are, however, FREE TO DO WHAT WE OUGHT TO (BE) DO(ING).
And yes, it has also been written that “Capitalism has built within it the seeds of desctruction”. Does that make Capitalism in and of itself bad? Of course not! You, yourself have the capability of doing great harm to yourself (suicide) – what choices do you (freely) choose in life? Kitchen kives can be used for good or bad. Automobiles can be used for good or bad. Same with guns, Television, and lets not forget: the Internet. How will you choose to use what God has given to you this day? Think before you act. Just doing something “because you can” – if it produces nothing good & useful in the end, is not always the best choice!
Again, thank you for such a wonderful Website!
Pingback by PoliSciPundit » Blog Archiv » Lawrence W. Reid Talk on 1 December 2010:
[...] for those of you curious from the Q & A, here is the I, Pencil speech by Leonard [...]
Pingback by Milton Friedman on the Power of Freedom: “There Is Not a Single Person in the World Who Could Make This Pencil” — Florida Pundit on 3 December 2010:
[...] talk about a pencil is based on Leonard Read’s classic essay “I, Pencil” first published in 1958 by The Freeman. Here is an excerpt: I, Pencil, am a complex [...]
Pingback by Things I’m afraid of, things I’m not afraid of « Libérale et libertaire on 20 January 2011:
[...] not afraid of civilization, of I, Pencil, or I, [...]
Pingback by Moi, le crayon | Contrepoints on 22 January 2011:
[...] masse. Il est l’auteur de vingt-sept ouvrages. Son texte le plus célèbre est Moi, le crayon (I, pencil), publié en décembre 1958 dans The Freeman. Il s’agit de la plus belle illustration de la [...]
Comment by Lee on 10 February 2011:
To Walter Hudson. Fedex and UPS do not directly compete with the USPS. Fedex and UPS ship packages, and not letters. And if it weren’t for government intervention, USPS would have folded as a business, but taxpayers keep that sinking ship afloat.
Comment by Skudwoofer on 14 February 2011:
Not to mention that UPS would have also failed if it didn’t get a government bailout, airlines, GM, many others, had that happened, it would have forced all of those people to go find work or start new companies, so much for a “stable job”. If there is someone out there that thinks they have the math to support how we are going to survive this overspending problem we have, please email me at skudwoofer@aol.com, i would love to see your figures be it in a spreadsheet, algebraic formula or substitution, I dare you!!! We have to crash and restart.
Comment by English Learning Center on 17 February 2011:
That was so interesting and innovative Article ,that through out the Article we act like a Pencil ,so called ‘I Pencil’
Comment by D.C. Farris on 15 March 2011:
To Walter Hudson. You said that: “Mr. Geiger posting above proves the old adage: “those that can do, those that can’t teach.” ” I suppose you prove the corollary that “those who can’t teach, join a union”
Why is it that when some one presents a simple lesson in economics some one in the crowd has to cry about “those greedy profiteers”. I would rather take my chances with them and work my way up than live under oppression from Hitler, Gaddafi or Mao.
Pingback by I Pencil and the Japanese Supply Chain on 17 March 2011:
[...] } One of the first things I read in law school was I Pencil, an essay that describes how a pencil, such a simple item, can only be assembled based on inputs [...]
Pingback by ‘I, Pencil’ in audio argues for economic freedom, not government control on 13 April 2011:
[...] Listen to the recording by clicking on I, Pencil. Or, read it by clicking on I, Pencil. [...]
Pingback by Money: Dopamine of the Hive Mind | Sailboat Diaries on 7 May 2011:
[...] of indivduals exhanging currency. Just as a single neuron couldn’t form a word by itself,no single human could make even a humble pencil on their own. We are nodes in a worldwide network. We use a variety of mediums to transfer information between [...]
Pingback by The Conscience Of A Libertarian | libertree on 3 June 2011:
[...] I, Pencil: Oh, I could not sign off an introductory post on libertarianism and free-market capitalism without linking to this little gem of a masterpiece now, could I?! A stunning narration of the magical effects of Adam Smith’s invisible hand told from the perspective of an ordinary pencil. [...]
Comment by gil on 20 June 2011:
hi,thank you very much for the inspiring article
i recommend you all to see:
http://www.ted.com/talks/matt_ridley_when_ideas_have_sex.html
to my humble opinion, it is relevant to the “I,pencil” ongoing discussion.
Gil.
Pingback by The Market: This Time It’s Personal | The Freeman | Ideas On Liberty on 12 July 2011:
[...] explanation of the how vast, impersonal cooperation works than Leonard Read’s classic essay, “I, Pencil,” in which he elegantly shows that no single person can know all that goes into the making of [...]
Pingback by Government is Criminal: Part 3 – Subjective Individualism « Economics.org.au on 1 August 2011:
[...] not even aware of how a seemingly simple thing like a pencil is produced. Read Leonard Read’s I, Pencil. [...]
Pingback by “Hey, Mr Anarchocapitalist, show me a society without government” « Economics.org.au on 8 August 2011:
[...] point out the manufacture of pencils and explain how the market operates in ways government [...]
Pingback by Sardines at Midnight | The Freeman | Ideas On Liberty on 24 August 2011:
[...] in providing me with sardines. Nobody can do that better than Leonard Read did in his classic “I, Pencil.” If for some reason you haven’t read it, stop now and do [...]
Comment by Anonymous on 6 October 2011:
i was wondering. where exactly are these pencils distributed and how??
Pingback by No One Knows How To Make A Pencil | Emerging Consensus on 8 October 2011:
[...] of free markets empowered by people making voluntary self interested transactions. “I, Pencil” the 1958 essay by Leonard E. Read is hard to [...]
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