From Wikipedia (because I'm feeling lazy and don't want to condense their words into my own) here is a summary of Leonard Read's immortal Free Market essay "I, Pencil", an essay which proves that no small group or individual can organize the production of something as simple as a pencil, much less control the U.S. healthcare system. Nobody can make a pencil. Pencils are too complicated. But anyone with 15 cents can get a pencil Go here to download a copy or an MP3.
"I, Pencil" is written in the first person from the point of view of a pencil. The pencil details the complexity of its own creation, listing its components (cedar, lacquer, graphite, ferrule, factice, pumice, wax, glue) and the numerous people involved, down to the sweeper in the factory and the lighthouse keeper guiding the shipment into port.
Nobody plans it, everybody plans it.
Nobody did it, everybody did it.
There is no "Rose Czar".
The Invisible Hand makes it happen. No one involved in the process cares that much about your Valentine's Day gift. They care for themselves, and therefore, they care for you.
Once again, from "I, Pencil".....
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.
And you'll never run out of roses.
"I, Pencil" is written in the first person from the point of view of a pencil. The pencil details the complexity of its own creation, listing its components (cedar, lacquer, graphite, ferrule, factice, pumice, wax, glue) and the numerous people involved, down to the sweeper in the factory and the lighthouse keeper guiding the shipment into port.
No Master MindI instantly thought of that when one of my freight carriers sent me this Infographic showing the growth, movement, preservation and storage of the roses that you (better) buy for Valentine's Day.
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.
... 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 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", 2008 edition
Nobody plans it, everybody plans it.
Nobody did it, everybody did it.
There is no "Rose Czar".
The Invisible Hand makes it happen. No one involved in the process cares that much about your Valentine's Day gift. They care for themselves, and therefore, they care for you.
Once again, from "I, Pencil".....
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.
And you'll never run out of roses.
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