"I, Pencil" Revisited

Leonard Read’s classic essay, "I, Pencil," which is now 50 years old, is justly celebrated as the best short introduction to the division of labor and undesigned order ever written. Read saw an "extraordinary miracle … [in the] 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!" His subject and its relation to freedom and prosperity were certainly worth capturing in such a clever, pleasing, and illuminating essay, which is why it is one of the best-known works in the popular free-market literature. But there’s another lesson in "I, Pencil" that has been largely overlooked, perhaps by Read himself. "I, Pencil" is also an excellent primer in the Austrian approach to capital theory. It’s worth looking at Read’s essay in that light.

The rest of this week's TGIF, "I, Pencil" Revisited," is at the Foundation for Economic Education website.