The Division of Labor and a Toaster

Competition, especially in labor, is a tremendously valuable thing. Do you know how to make a computer? Do you know how to make an oven? Do you even know how to make a pencil? None of us do, yet these things are essential parts of our lives. None of us individually knows how to make these things from scratch, yet our economy produces them all the time. This is possible because the division of labor.

In a famous paper entitled I, Pencil, Leonard Read describes how none of us knows how to make a pencil, yet it is still created. This is because someone knows how to make the rubber and someone knows how to make the metal and someone knows how to fashion the metal and someone knows how to make the paint etc. etc. etc. None of us individually could do these things, but because of the division of labor, these things are not just possible, but easy! And this is all done without a top-heavy apparatus telling everybody what to do. This is spontaneous order.

Thomas Thwaites used this essay and tried to craft a modern corollary about making a toaster. Watch the video, it's fascinating.



And please post your comments below. What do you think are the implications of this?