After I read this story, I never thought there is such complex problem through the little tiny pencil we can find. Maybe we can call that, little stuff can see huge world.
The whole essay is written by a pencil's view. In my opinion, pencil is a very simple and normal thing in our life, but it say not much people know how it product. That's true. I search some video about the production of pencil, it's really makes me surprised. The whole process is start by a tree, we need to cut it down and transform it from the forest to the factory, and then we have to exploit copper mine and graphite. Also we need the entire infrastructure for the factory, like electricity, water power and so on. Not only those resource we need by making a pencil, but also very exactly measure for the course of manufacture.
There are some sentence very impress me: “Neither the worker in the oil field nor the chemist nor the digger of graphite or clay nor any who mans or makes the ships or trains or trucks nor the one who runs the machine that does the knurling on my bit of metal nor the president of the company performs his singular task because he wants me. Each one wants me less, perhaps, than does a child in the first grade. Indeed, there are some among this vast multitude who never saw a pencil nor would they know how to use one. Their motivation is other than me. Perhaps it is something like this: Each of these millions sees that he can thus exchange his tiny know-how for the goods and services he needs or wants. I may or may not be among these items.” Through this point, I know that the market is a best way that to organized the economic activity. Because in the market economy, no one cares about the welfare of the whole market, they only care about themselves. In the free market, there are on the relationship between the seller and the buyer, and they can take care of themselves about their welfare. Therefore, the economy will promote slowly.
The other sentence I was interested in: “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 masterminding—then one will possess an absolutely essential ingredient for freedom: a faith in free people. Freedom is impossible without this faith.” Through this paragraph the author tells us a simple principle that: if nobody leads the organization, people will spontaneously use their knowledge to satisfy all their needs. This is a hint that the author want to tell us the possibility with the free market. And he also believes we can satisfy all we need in the free market if there is no leading.
Above all, I realize we can through any simple things to figure out some complex problem, and those problems also have some regular pattern, if you know well about those regular patterns you will have a good chance to know about our society. That’s what I want to say.
