[6502nerdface]

Your comment reminds me of Leonard Read's classic essay, "I, pencil" [1] about the many thousands of hands that make a simple pencil, all guided by local decisions and price signals, without a single mastermind.

[1] https://fee.org/resources/i-pencil/

[nonethewiser]

That’s exactly what I was thinking, except I thought Milton Friedman was the source. Did not realize it pre-existed him.

[PhasmaFelis]

Thanks for linking this! I read the introduction and skimmed the text. The details of manufacturing such a simple object are fascinating, of course. I certainly agree that they demonstrate one of the reasons why centralized planning doesn't work.

Going from "central planning doesn't work" to "therefore we have proven that unregulated capitalism leads to utopia" is...odd.

[ethbr0]

The irony is that central planning would be more possible now than ever.

Previously, there was a data collection, storage, and processing limitation. Manual collection, entry, and early computers simply couldn't process quickly enough to continually model the economy at the requisite fidelity.

But now, we still have the human data reporting problem, where the storage, network, and computational resources are possible, but the first mile "getting true numbers, reliably" still prevents the implementation of an effective centralized system.