“We are about to starve to death” is a recurringly popular idea. And it is recurringly wrong.
Rich Karlgaard surveys the Malthusians of several ages before giving two reasons such folks always miss the boat in his article Bad News Bear at Forbes.
Mr. Karlgaard mentions four people in the we’re-gonna’-starve-this-afternoon camp. I’ll add a fifth.
(cross-post from my other blog, Nonprofit Update.)
Remember the rapping economists we saw here and here? They’re back!
Just in time for Christmas, EconStories imagines their fantasy Christmas album featuring the classic hits from Keynes, Hayek, and other renown singers you know and love.
Enjoy the greatest collection of economic hits ever aggregated.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_profilepage&v=7uKnd6IEiO0#t=41s]
Here’s the arrangement the Pilgrims used when they first landed:
“Although they planted household gardens almost from the start, they collectivized initial field and livestock operations. The settlers had some agricultural successes, but they were unable to grow corn in their common field. Within six months of reaching Plymouth, almost one-half of the population had perished from disease.
That’s a quote from Professor Robert Ellickson in Prof. Don Boudreaux’s article The Pilgrims’ economic progress.
A collectivized farming system didn’t work too well. Starvation was the result.
So, they changed their plans:
(more…)
Likewise for everything you ever use – millions of people working together created it not knowing what they were actually working on. Why?
“Voluntary spontaneous cooperation”
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IYO3tOqDISE&feature=player_embedded]
From the waitress serving lunch for the lumberjacks cutting down a cedar tree, to the miners pulling ore out of the ground, to the engine room crew on a freighter bringing the ore to the U.S. to the engineer driving the train bringing the pencil to the regional distribution center to the forklift operator loading the truck that carries stuff to restock your neighborhood store, millions of people worked together to create the pencil you will hold in your hand during tomorrow’s staff meeting.
The recent gas shortage in California is a superb illustration of the idea that if you don’t meddle with prices and just leave them alone, they will communicate to everyone how scarce a resource is. The natural and expected result is that people who want the resource can get it.
Prices worked
The recent gas crunch shows what happens when you let the market work. Prices spiked because of a supply crunch. People who didn’t really, really need gasoline held off on topping their tank. People who really, really did need gas could get it.
Two things prove this to me.
Millions of people work together to build that smartphone you are using. No one person has the know-how to build it. Thousands of inventions were needed before making the first one.
“I, Smartphone”, from the Institute for Faith, Work & Economics, is a superb visual explaining the long supply chain and incredible range of skills needed to get that phone into your hands.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V1Ze_wpS_o0&feature=player_embedded#t=17s]
The link if needed: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V1Ze_wpS_o0&feature=player_embedded#t=17s
This is an update of the classic “I, Pencil”, which I mentioned here.
No one person has the skills
No one person on the planet has all the knowledge or skills necessary to make one pencil. It takes multiple millions of people contributing their specialized skills just to make one.
That story is told in “I, Pencil: My Family Tree as told to Leonard E. Read”, which you can find here.
I’ve long been aware of that article, but am embarrassed to admit I’ve never read it before today.
It is brilliant.
Here’s the core idea:
