[sopchi]

Yes I do, all the time. Your post and the comments it elicited reminded me of the excerpt from Adam Smith's Weath Of Nations about the Woolen Coat. It is given as an example of what can be achieved thanks to the division of labor. I took pleasure in re-reading it so I copy it here:

"The woolen coat, for example, which covers the day-labourer, as coarse and rough as it may appear, is the produce of the joint labour of a great multitude of workmen. The shepherd, the sorter of the wool-comber or carder, the dryer, the scribbler, the spinner, the weaver, the fuller, the dresser, with many others, must all join their different arts in order to complete even this homely production. How many merchants and carriers, besides, must have been employed in transporting the materials from some of those workmen to others who often live in a very distant part of the country! how much commerce and navigation in particular, how many ship-builders, sailors, sail-makers, rope-makers, must have been employed in order to bring together the different drugs made use of by the dyer, which often come from the remotest corners of the world!... Were we to examine, in the same manner, all the different parts of his dress and household furniture, the coarse linen shirt which he wears next to his skin, the shoes which cover his feet, the bed which he lies on... the kitchen grate at which he prepares his victuals, the coals which he makes use of for that purpose, dug from the bowels of the earth, and brought to him perhaps by a long sea and a long land carriage...; if we examine, I say, all these things, and consider what a variety of labour is employed about each of them, we shall be sensible that without the assistance and co-operation of many thousands, the very meanest person in a civilized country could not be provided... the easy and simple manner in which he is commonly accommodated. Compared, indeed, with the more extravagant luxury of the great, his accommodation must no doubt appear extremely simple and easy; and yet it may be tue, perhaps, that the accommodation of an European prince does not always so much exceed that of an industrious and frugal peasant, as the accommodation of the latter exceeds that of many of African king, the absolute master of the lives and liberties of ten thousand naked savages."

[monero-xmr]

Only the market could possibly create the magic of modern society. Countless independent firms operating with knowledge only of their inputs and outputs, adjusting prices and wages based upon their unique window of the larger economy.

[robocat]

The market creates a minimum saleable product.

Somehow every time I go to buy something there are hidden qualities I lack the information or skills to judge.

Clothesline Pegs: I've made some effort here because I like functionally good design. Currently own "pink pegs" but half of those have broken (fragile plastic over time - not sure if brand changed or I didn't get original brand). Bought some stainless steel pegs - threw first lot away because they get tangled. Bought second lot but they appear to be getting rust spots. My parents have some 45 year old plastic pegs that still work great!

Appliances: broken Miele about 5 years old. Luckily discovered one model of Microwave with a good UI (so good I got my parents the same model). Struggled to find an induction hob/stovetop with actual knobs: current fashion is touch-sensitive buttons and they all have UI faults that fail for my elderly mum. Touch-UI fails for me too - I fucking hate my stovetop UI and just yesterday my friend struggled to use it).

iPhone: I discover a new bug in the UI all the time. Some are subtle and you would only notice if you really care and are knowledgeable about UI. Some you find workarounds for (Getting to the "Select All" menu). Helping mum with her iPad discovers a whole new set of serious UI flaws. Frustration for mum then too much time out of my day because a number field gets screwed up by her typing in a comma. If you have a phone call and go to the Home Screen, then tap the phone icon why are we not returned to the current phone call screen?

The market for disabled equipment is completely screwed. Spent days trying to find a usable wheelchair. Rollators with brakes that don't work. Hard rubber tyres that get stuck on small surface variations. It's a nightmare: the only thing that helps is that I have the time and skills to find something that almost works (usually with glaring usability faults). Often unobvious dangerous faults remain like the rollator that scratched my mum's ankle badly and required doctors and months of recovery and heartache for my dear mum.

Products and services are fractally complex and there seems to be no solution to the problems for an average person.

[mikojan]

Obligatory critique of the division of labour from that same book:

> In the progress of the division of labour, the employment of the far greater part of those who live by labour, that is, of the great body of people, comes to be confined to a few very simple operations, frequently one or two. But the understandings of the greater part of men are necessarily formed by their ordinary employments. The man whose whole life is spent in performing a few simple operations, of which the effects too are, perhaps, always the same, or very nearly the same, has no occasion to exert his understanding,or to exercise his invention in finding out expedients for removing difficulties which never occur. He naturally loses, therefore, the habit of such exertion, and generally becomes as stupid and ignorant as it is possible for a human creature to become.

[card_zero]

Huh, in those closing remarks Adam Smith appears to care about wealth inequality per se, that's slightly surprising.

[maCDzP]

I think you are up for a surprise if you read the Wealth of nations. Adam Smith was a moral philosopher and was pretty preoccupied by the negative consequences of the division of labor.

[card_zero]

Yeah, I've found other surprising passages in it before (I don't think I ever read it right through though). This was published before the French revolution, and a year before the United States happened, so it's cutting edge stuff.

[bombcar]

I would say it's "surprisingly modern" and quite prescient - definitely worth reading.

[xwiz]

I have noticed that Smith's writing is often mischaracterized by those with a mythology they want to promote.

[quartesixte]

If I remember correctly, Smith was concerned that the mercantile, feudalistic economies of his time was the source of poverty and inequality, and that free market economics would bring more prosperity to society.

Hence the title, “Wealth of Nations”.

[quartesixte]

This complexity for even the most mundane of objects is why, in my opinion, Centrally Planned Economies are doomed to failure.

You can’t optimize this! As far as I’ve learned and studied this, supply chains are NP hard.

[BizarroLand]

Having so much success with "The Things That Worked" that we used some of the excess bounty to allow testing "The Things That Might Not Work" until we found more of "The Things That Worked" was one of the best parts of the enlightenment age to the industrial age.