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| | The opposite of the “invisible hand” is government control. In dictatorships like communist Russia under Josef Stalin, the government dictates what people will and will not do. There is no “invisible hand.” The result is often disastrous. Tens of millions of people starved to death under Stalin’s rule due to the improper government planning. Stalin may have even starved them intentionally. | | The opposite of the “invisible hand” is government control. In dictatorships like communist Russia under Josef Stalin, the government dictates what people will and will not do. There is no “invisible hand.” The result is often disastrous. Tens of millions of people starved to death under Stalin’s rule due to the improper government planning. Stalin may have even starved them intentionally. |
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| − | =="I, Pencil" by Leonard Read== | + | ==Example of the Invisible Hand: "I, Pencil"== |
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| | I am a lead pencil—the ordinary wooden pencil familiar to all boys and girls and adults who can read and write. ... I am a mystery— more so than a tree or a sunset or even a flash of lightning. But, sadly, I am taken for granted by those who use me, as if I were a mere incident and without background. ... | | I am a lead pencil—the ordinary wooden pencil familiar to all boys and girls and adults who can read and write. ... I am a mystery— more so than a tree or a sunset or even a flash of lightning. But, sadly, I am taken for granted by those who use me, as if I were a mere incident and without background. ... |
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| | 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 master-minding—then one will possess an absolutely essential ingredient for freedom: a faith in free people. Freedom is impossible without this faith. ... | | 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 master-minding—then one will possess an absolutely essential ingredient for freedom: a faith in free people. Freedom is impossible without this faith. ... |
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| − | The lesson I have to teach is this: Leave all creative energies uninhibited. Merely organize society to act in harmony with this lesson. Let society’s legal apparatus remove all obstacles the best it can. Permit these creative know-hows freely to flow. Have faith that free men and women will respond to the Invisible Hand. This faith will be confirmed. I, Pencil, seemingly simple though I am, offer the miracle of my creation as testimony that this is a practical faith, as practical as the sun, the rain, a cedar tree, the good earth. | + | The lesson I have to teach is this: Leave all creative energies uninhibited. Merely organize society to act in harmony with this lesson. Let society’s legal apparatus remove all obstacles the best it can. Permit these creative know-hows freely to flow. Have faith that free men and women will respond to the Invisible Hand. This faith will be confirmed. I, Pencil, seemingly simple though I am, offer the miracle of my creation as testimony that this is a practical faith, as practical as the sun, the rain, a cedar tree, the good earth.<ref>The full essay by Leonard E. Read is available from the Foundation of Economic Education ("FEE") at http://www.fee.org/publications/the-freeman/article.asp?aid=3308</ref> |
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| − | (the full essay by Leonard E. Read is available from FEE at http://www.fee.org/publications/the-freeman/article.asp?aid=3308
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| | ==Assignment== | | ==Assignment== |