That simple truth is often cited by Milton Friedman to defend private enterprise. But Friedman learned that lesson from the late Leonard E. Read.
Pencil making needs the knowledge and cooperation of countless people from around the world.
We have pencils not because a wise bureaucrat designed the pencil-manufacturing process. Read was born 100 years ago this week on a Michigan farm. Though not as celebrated today as Friedman or F.A. Hayek, his role in the postwar revival of free-market thinking was vast. His greatest legacy is the Foundation for Economic Education, the free-market think tank that he founded in '46 with the help of Henry Hazlitt, author or the classic Economics in One Lesson . The'40s were among the worst time in history for the ideals of freedom and free markets.