An essay from 1964 that I just became aware of. This shows how inferior a command and control socialist/communist economy is to freedom and free markets. All illustrated by a simple pencil… which isn’t really as simple a product as you might think.
The above is what I meant when writing, “If you can become aware of the miraculousness that 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 masterminding — then one will possess an absolutely essential ingredient for freedom: a faith in free people. Freedom is impossible without this faith.
Source: I, Pencil
You hit upon something I learned long ago. Drs. Thomas Sowell and Walter
Williams would substitute for Rush Limbaugh. One of them asked a simple
question: “How many people does it take to bring bananas from South America
to the American marketplace?” The answer was millions!
It is not just the hired hands in the fields, it is the harvesting equipment, the
trucks that take the product to the ports, and the hundreds of people who
built the harvesting equipment, the trucks and the ships. Some company
had to build the marine radar, compasses, the liferafts, you name it.
When the product hits the ports, it starts all over again. There are trucks, trains,
warehouses, distributors, the workers at the local supermarket, the providers
of electricity, refrigeration, etc. It is impossible for a human being to fathom
the numbers involved in bringing Ticonderoga pencil from Venezuela.
I am sure the company now rues their decision to move their operations to
a socialist crap-hole! If you find yourself in a debate with a liberal and he
states “Don’t give me that invisible hand BS,” you know that no logic will
sway him. This is absolute proof of the Invisible Hand.