Wednesday, February 24, 2010

I, Pencil

Summary:







Here is Leonard E. Read's brilliant essay on how a pencil is made by parties acting in their own self interests. The essay is from Russ Roberts book, The Price of Everything.

After reading this essay, can you explain market forces? How does self interest produce a pencil? Say millions of new Chinese move from the country to the city to attend schools. How does the market produce enough pencils so that everyone who wants a pencil can have one?

Russ Roberts has a podcast about this at EconTalk.org.

About the Author: Mike Fladlien is an AP Economics teacher from Muscatine High School in Muscatine, IA. He is an EconEdLink.org author, and also publishes the Mikeroeconomics and iMacroeconomics VB blogs.

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