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What’s In a Pencil?
We’ve commented before on Joseph Schumpeter’s thesis that capitalism contains the seeds of its own doom (here and here): the system is so productive that it can support great segments of the population who have no understanding of the functioning of productive markets. These folks will then vote to undo capitalism.
A useful corrective is the below video that takes as an example the production of pencils. It should be required viewing for anyone with even a vague sense that central planning has any value in an economy.
In my own medical products business, we once looked at how many suppliers we have for the factory that manufactures our goods: over two hundred. And most of these businesses have hundreds of suppliers of their own. All of them have to do their jobs perfectly for us to produce the things that we sell. Quite amazing, really, when you think about it.
Addendum: Given that several readers have asked, here is the URL for the above video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IYO3tOqDISE
Featured posts
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October 18, 2009
When Love Beckoned in 52nd Street
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October 9, 2009
D Afraid of a Little Competish
So our colleague and Dartblog writer Joe Asch informed me that the D has rejected our cunning advertising campaign. Uh-oh. The Dartmouth is widely known as a breeding ground for instant New York Times successes,… -
September 4, 2009
How Regents Should Reign
As Dartmouth alumni proceed through the legal hoops necessary to defuse a Board-packing plan—which put in unhappy desuetude an historic 1891 Agreement between alumni and the College guaranteeing a half-democratically-elected Board of Trustees—it strikes one… -
August 29, 2009
Election Reform Study Committee
If you are an alum of the College on the Hill, you may have received a number of e-mails of late beseeching your input for a new arm of the College’s Alumni Control Apparatus called… -
August 23, 2009
Fare Thee Well, Tom Crady
And now Dean Tom Crady has precipitously announced his departure from the College after only 20 months on the job. How to read this? By way of background, prior to coming to Dartmouth, Crady had… -
May 31, 2009
Kangaroo Court, Indeed
In an interview with The Dartmouth, alumni-elected trustee T.J. Rodgers ‘70 explained his reasons for declining to participate in future evaluations of trustees up for “re-election,” namely the “kangaroo court” nature of such discussion in…