Leonard Read’s classic “I, Pencil” is a staple of introductory economics classes the world over. I expect that the same will happen with the TED talk below, in which Thomas Thwaites details how he tried to make a toaster completely from scratch. He makes a valiant effort. At the end, he is able to get something he can plug in that ran for about five seconds before the heating element melted. I’m pretty sure he didn’t actually get any toast. Contrast that to the fact that today you can load bread into a toaster and be reasonably certain that you will get toast without killing yourself in the process.
It’s also important to note that even at the extremes to which he goes, the author is still not producing in total autarky as every stage in the production process involves tools he didn’t craft himself and knowledge he has to acquire from other sources. It’s a really interesting video, and it’s especially amazing to see Read’s lesson brought to life like this.
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Excellent. If ever anybody questions the efficacy of the division of labor under capitalism, I will show them this video. It’s one thing to explain it in abstract, and it’s another thing to see it in action.
Videos like this are a nice realilty check. While the individual giving this Ted Talk no doubt spent weeks on this project to make a toaster that ended up being a safety hazard, I can puchase an inexpensive one for less than the amount that I would make laboring at minimum wage for 2 hours (well, maybe 3 hours after the taxman takes his share). And think! The toaster had only been invented around 100 years ago! Humans have gone millenia without this basic convience! Life becomes so much more pleasureable when you can treasure basic conviences like the toaster!
The best part is, only the division of labor would allow for this kid to waste what was probably months of his life trying to build a totally useless ‘toaster’.
Hilarious.
Wouldn’t you think that a video like this would be enough to prove that free trade is a great thing because it increases the division of labor? But people still are hesitant. It’s crazy.
I agree…for those of us wearing our free market hats, it’s easy to see. But we are all hammers looking for our own specific nails, evdenced by the myriad conclusions/comments on the TED site below this toaster clip…
Fantastic video! It really shows how far we’ve come and how beneficial specialization really is. Sometimes, people overlook the amazing complexity in things we use everyday.
Something to remember the next time someone says it’s unfair to tax them because it’s “their” money that “they” earned . . . making toasters. Or cars. Or computer chips.
Wealth creation on a large scale is only possible in a complex society under the rule of law — which is why you so rarely see hunter-gather billionaires. Rather than seeing taxes as the theft of the rightful earnings of the sainted producer, think of it more like the rake in a casino — a necessary and reasonable rule; you pay to play.
Yes, of course. There’s no way to enforce contracts and protect property and life without a monopoly provider of those services that allocates the costs of those services to parties who did not request them, and gets its payments under threat of violence.
Walter Block uses this quip in just about every talk, so excuse the reuse of what may be considered cliche:
Do you know the difference between a bathroom and a living room? No? Then please don’t come to my house.
Do you know the difference between voluntary and coerced? No? Then stay out of political philosophy.
Robert, are you being serious? Do you not truly understand the difference between the mutually-beneficial exchanges that people VOLUNTARILY engage in to increase wealth and the COERCED surrender of “taxes” to an institution that no one ever contracted with?
AFAIC that’s the best awensr so far!
“Wealth creation on a large scale is only possible in a complex society under the rule of law — which is why you so rarely see hunter-gather billionaires.”
Hunter-gatherers do not engage in capital accumulation. That’s why they don’t become billionaires.
Scott don’t forget his definition of Billionaire, even we people do accumulate capital, it will take some time before a society gets billionaires, just like we don’t have centrillionaires or quadrillionaires(without a hyperinflation), and it will take us some time to reach to that point.
And I bet he spent a damn sight more than £3.94 running around all over Britain getting the materials together. Actually he might have spent more than that just on the potatoes – he didn’t say how many he used.
Wow. Obviously an academic.
Interesting discussion on wealth creation and the division of labor. But laborers don’t create wealth for themselves – they create wealth for the producer (the owners). Robert’s point about wealth creation only being possible under the rule of law may be correct, but it is it the legislated laws of society or the law of attraction which produces the wealth?
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