请相信那放羊的少年——《红铅笔》读后感

我手中的这本《红铅笔》是由中国城市出版社出版，韩国作家申修贤编写、金成姬绘画，杨竹君翻译的一本温情之作！

书中讲的是一个叫珉浩的小男孩无心犯错时想尽量弥补却无果时，却意外得到了一支红铅笔。这支红铅笔赋予了他神奇的力量，理想中的生活情境通过红铅笔得到实现：他得到了老师的表扬和同学的赞赏，甚至还在学校的作文大赛中获得了金奖。虽然梦想实现了，但是烦恼随之而来，因为这些荣耀都是不可以让别人知道的秘密。这些都不是他通过自己的努力得来的，而是因为红铅笔，就像他不敢承认玻璃天使是他弄坏一样，他忧郁到了极点，处于深深的痛苦中矛盾着。

最后，珉浩终于战胜了红铅笔给他的诱惑，通过自己真实的本领被作家宋智雅老师邀请进了她的飞翔班，他拿着玻璃天使找到秀雅说明了一切。他感受到了家人对他最最深厚的爱，从此，真正的快乐了起来！

通过这个故事，我明白了，红铅笔的神奇其实就是珉浩通过内心的强大逐渐战胜懦弱自我的力量。书中第16小结“请相信那放羊的少年”让我感悟至深。妈妈买了烤箱，烤曲奇饼给孩子吃，钱两次都由于温度和火候掌控的不够，味道有些惨不忍睹，但是妈妈和珉浩都并不觉得意外，因为他们相信下一次一定会烤出美味的曲奇饼的。珉浩在秘密的日记本上写出了关于爸爸和放羊的少年的一段感悟：他们也许都有自己的难言之隐吧？他们这样做自己的心里也一定不好受！我自己碰坏玻璃天使不也是不敢勇敢地承认吗？由人及己而发出这样的心声：无论实情是什么，我都愿意去理解他。即使他什么也不说，我也从内心里真正体谅他，原谅他！

一个说谎的人，需要人再次相信他。很多说谎、做错事的人并不

是他本性邪恶，而是生活中的种种迷惘鬼使神差的误导他走入了歧途。如果我们能够主动向他迈出一步，也许他的明天会转现出不一样的彩虹。

故事中的珉浩以及他的爸爸妈妈，他们之间都是因为再一次相信了彼此，故事的结局出现了不一样的美好！让我们也都能够主动地向他迈出这一步，再相信他一次，这个世界会更多美好！

第二篇：我,铅笔

我，铅笔

我是一支石墨铅笔——一支所有男孩、女孩以至于成人都能读写使用的普通木制铅笔。

书写既是我的主业也是我的副业，这便是我所做的所有事情。

你或许会好奇，我为什么会为自己建立族谱？好吧，首先，我的故事十分有趣。其次，我的一切都是个谜——比起一棵树、一次日落乃至一道闪电来说尤其是如此。不过，悲惨的是，那些使用我的人想当然的猜测我的所有秘密，就好像我仅仅只是一个毫无背景的附属品。这样目中无人的态度将我降格为了庸碌之辈。这是一个背负着严重错误的物种，以至于人类无法在毫无危险的状况下坚持太久。因为，智者G. K. Chesterton注意到，“我们被包围在缺乏好奇的严寒之中，而不是缺乏奇迹的严寒之中。”（We are perishing for want of wonder, not for want of wonders）。

我，铅笔，不过是以我生而应有的样子，揭开你的兴趣和敬畏，我试图向你揭示的是一整条产业链。事实上，如果你能够理解我——不，这样要求所有人实在是有些过份——如果你能够注意到我所象征的奇迹，你会了解到保留自由的人性是如此不幸的损失。我是一门如此深奥的课程。并且比起一辆汽车或者是一台自动洗碟机来说，我更能胜任这一课程，因为——好吧，因为我看起来是如此的简单。

简单？然而这个世界上的任何人都无法从表面判断应该如何制造我。这听起来十分奇妙，不是吗？特别是在当你发现每年美国都要生产十五亿支我这样的产品时。

捡起我来再把我看一遍吧。你看到了什么？摄入眼帘的并不多——它包括一些木头、漆皮、银号的标记、石墨铅芯、一点金属片还有一只橡皮。

数不清的创造者

就像你不可能循回太过久远的族人一样，让我说出所有我的创造者的名字并介绍他们也是不可能的。但我仍会给出足够多的建议让你对我的背景留下丰富而富有综合性的印象。

我的族谱事实上是开始一棵树的，一棵成长于北加利福尼亚和俄勒冈地区的直纹香柏。现在注视一下所有所有锯子、卡车、绳子以及数不清的其他沿着铁路线用于采伐和运输香柏原木的各个用具。想一想参与制造的人们与难以计数的技术：矿产的采集、钢铁的冶炼再到锯子、轴承和马达的制造：麻的种植再到将它制造成称重而强壮的绳子；带着食堂伐木工棚里，从整个烹调过程到将食物送上餐桌，为什么不告诉成千上的人们伐木工人们所喝的每一杯咖啡也参与了其中？！

原木被装船送到加利福尼亚的圣安德鲁斯打磨。你可以想象一下那些操作平板车、钢轨和机车还有设计和构建交通运输系统的人们吗？这些军团们构建了我的前身。

考虑一下在圣安德鲁斯所做的打磨工作。香柏原木被切割成不到四分之一英寸村厚度的、小的、铅笔长度板条。并用这里的窑炉进行干燥，出于和妇女为自己擦胭脂同样的原因还要为其上色。人们希望我看起来漂亮，而不是浑身惨白。之后板条还要上蜡饼子阿次进炉干燥，

你可知道有多少技术包含于提供热量、光亮和电力、传送与机车、以及其他打磨工作所需的一切吗？是的，还要加上那些为建设太平洋煤气电力公司（Pacific Gas Elecric Company）大坝浇灌水泥的人们，其蓄电站为打磨提供了电力！

不要忘记那些或近或远的创造者们，他们每人至少要运送60车板条穿越整个国家。

在某一个铅笔加工厂——拥有价值4000000美元的机械和厂房，而所有的利润都由我的父母节俭并累及而来——所有的板条都由一个负载的机器打出八个凹槽，在这之后，另外一个机器在每个凹槽上放置一条铅芯，上胶，并将另外一个板条放置于其上——如同铅芯三明治一般。我和我的其他七个兄弟被机器自动雕琢制成“木制”三明治。而我得铅芯自己——它不包含任何铅——是合成的。石墨开采于锡兰。想象一下那些矿工们，还有给他们制造工具的人们以及制造大纸袋以便于石墨能够顺利装船的人们，还有制造系纸袋的细线的人们和将他们放进船舱和制造船舶的人们。甚至是守望着我出生的灯塔守护者——以及港口引导员。

石墨被混合以来自于密西西比的粘土，在这一过程中氢氧化铵也被运用于其中。像磺化的兽脂（动物脂肪往往与硫磺酸发生化学反应）这样润湿剂被加入到其中。在经过了无数个机器之后，混合物最终被源源不断地挤出来——就像被挤出香肠研磨机一样——被切成固定的规格、干燥并在华氏1850度的温度下烘烤几个小时。以增加他们的强度并通过来自墨西哥的小烛石、固体石蜡和氢化自然脂肪的混合物处理增加它们的柔滑度。

我的香柏木船了六层漆皮外衣，你知道所有这些漆皮的材料吗？又有谁知道蓖麻子和精炼的蓖麻油就是其中的一部分呢？它们确实是的。为什么，就算是涂上一层漂亮的黄色也包括超过一个人所能够列举的所有人的技能之和。

看看打标记的过程。那是一种通过加热将复写纸中混合入树脂的方法定型的胶片。你到底应该怎样混合树脂还有，什么？祈祷吧，那就是复写纸。

接着便是我无上的光荣了，一支铅笔若是没有“塞子”将会在交易终被认为是不优美的，部分人喜欢用橡皮擦去他用我写下的错误。有一种成分被称为“硫化油膏”正是制造橡皮的成分。那是一种有来自于荷属东印度群岛菜籽油与硫氯化物反应后制成的类似于橡胶的产品。而橡胶本身，与大众看法正相反，仅用于装订。之后，一样的，会有为数众多的硫化剂和促进剂。浮石来自于意大利而给“塞子”上色的颜料则是硫化镉。

无人知晓

现在有谁愿意挑战我之前的没有任何人可以只身从外表判断如何制造我的这一番言论？

事实上许许多多的人都参与到了我的制造之中，没有人会对他人知道很多，哪怕仅仅只是一点点。现在，你也许会说将巴西的咖啡豆采摘者和食品生产者和我的制造联系起来似乎是走得太远了；以至于这将成为一个极端说法。我将依旧坚持我的说法。成千上万的人当中没有一个人，包括铅笔公司的主席，他的贡献远远超过制造过程中的那个小小的、微乎其微的一分子，对如何制造我都知之甚少。从知道者的立场来看所谓的知道之间的不同不过是锡兰的矿工之于石墨和俄勒冈的伐木工人之间在某一类别的知道而已。伐木工人和矿工都不能省略，至多却不比工厂里的化学家和油田里的工人更重要——石蜡是石油的副产品。

这里有一个令人惊骇的事实：不是油田里的工人、不是化学家、不是石墨或者粘土的挖掘者、不是制造轮船、火车、卡车的人、不是运行机器为我身上铁片压花的人更不是铅笔公司的主席为得到我而执行单一的任务。每个人想要从我身上得到的，也许，要大大少于一名一年级的学生。的确，在广大的群众当中有人从未见过一支铅笔也不知道如何用。他们的动机不同于我的。也许是像这样的：成千上万个人互相交换他希望或者是想要的小小商品或服务技能交换。我或许在/不在这些条款之中。

没有策划

这里的事实依旧是相当惊骇的：这里缺少一个策划者，没有人命令或者是强行指挥将我带到这个世界上。没有线索可以找到这样的一个人。相反，我们找到正在工作的无形的手。这便是我之前提到的神秘之处。

曾有人说“只有上帝才能制造树”（God can make a tree）。你为什么要同意这一观点？难道不是因为我们自己意识到不能制造一棵吗？确实，我们甚至能够描绘一棵树吗？我们不能，除非从十分肤浅的角度。举例来说，我们可以说是某些特定的分子构成显示这是一棵树。但是如果真能记录下来的话，那么以个人的意志又是怎样的呢，仅仅只是跟随着它的指挥，分子学恒定不变的变化便泄露出了一棵树的生命源泉？这样的壮举是绝对难以想象的！

我，铅笔，是一系列奇迹的结合体：一棵树、一点锌、一点铜、一些石墨等等这些。而这些奇迹就本质上来说又显现出另一个更加特别的奇迹：创造性的人类力量的布局——成千上万的专业人士们自然而自发的响应人类的需求和欲望，而且是在没有任何人类的主导意志的情况之下！在只有上帝才能制造树之后，我便坚持只有上的才能制造我出来。人类不再像将分子们聚集起来制造树一样指挥这些成千上万的专业人员将我带入人世。

以上便是我在写下“如果你能够注意到我所象征的奇迹，你会了解到保留自由的人性是如此不幸的损失”时所要表达的。因为，如果有一个人意识到这些专业人士们自然的，或者是说，自动地将他们自己安排进具有创造性和生产价值的环节以响应人类的需要和需求——也就是说在没有任何政府和强制性主导意志的情况下，那么一个人将承担起对自由中的一项十分重要的因素——对自由人的信仰。自由是绝不可能失去这种信任的。

一旦政府垄断，比方说，诸如邮件的递送一类的创造性行为，那么大多数人都会相信邮件不能够像被自由行动的人那样有效递送。而原因便是：每个人都承认他们并不知道邮件递送过程中的任何环节，而他们也知道只有一个人可以这么做。这一假定并没有错，人们对国家邮件递送过程的了解并不比他们对铅笔制造过程的了解更多。现在，在没有解放民众的信任的情况下——在没有意识到成千上万的小小专业人士自发的并且是奇迹般的简历并合作以保证自己的利益——而单一的个人并不能理解这一过程，却得到了邮件只是通过政府的强制性意志的主导进行递送这一错误结论。

丰富的证据

如果我，铅笔，是唯一一个可以提供证据证明当男人和女人们具有足够的自由度去尝试可以

完成的物件，那么人们将不太会信任公平情况的发生。不过，这里的证据却十分丰富：那全部来自于我们生活的方方面面。比如说，比起汽车、计算机、联合收割机、铣床等等千千万万的事物的制造而言，邮件的递送就是一个相对而言十分简单的例子。物流系统，为什么？在这一领域人们被留出更多的自由空间时，他们在不到一秒钟的时间里将人的声音递送到世界的各个角落，他们递送着貌似大事的事件并在其发生时就将它递送至每个人的家中，他们在不到四个小时的时间之内将150名乘客从西雅图送至巴尔的摩，他们以极低的价格并且没有任何津贴的条件下将燃料从波斯湾运送至纽约的某个人手中或者是炉子上：他们从波斯湾每递送四英镑原油至我们的东海岸——环绕半个地球的旅行——所需的花费比政府递送一封一盎司的信件过街所需的花费还要少！

这一刻我想要告诉你的是：让创造性活力不受禁止。并按照这一刻所教的组织社会。让这个社会的法律体系移除任何让它达到最佳状态的障碍。让这些创造性的专业人士在流水线上自由行动。相信那些自由男人和自由女人们对无形的手的响应。这一信任将越积越高。我，铅笔，将以我的亲身经历将以我创造过程中的奇迹证明这一信任是多么的实际，就像是太阳、雨水、香柏树和那美好的大地那样实际。

关于作者:

本文原题I, Pencil，刊于经济教育基金会（the Foundation for Economic Education）出版之Freeman杂志19xx年12月号上。作者Leonard E. Read (1898-1983)于19xx年创立经济教育基金会，并担任主席至去世。"I, Pencil"是他最著名的文章。

关于本文:

米尔顿·弗里德曼为本文写的导语

伦纳德·里德引人入胜的《铅笔的故事》，已经成为一篇经典之作，它也确实是名副其实的经典。据我所知，再也没有其他的文献像这篇文章这样简明扼要，令人信服地、有力地阐明了亚当·斯密“看不见的手”——在没有强制情况下合作的可能性——的含义，也阐明了弗里德里希·哈耶克强调分立的知识和价格体系在传播某些信息方面的重要性的含义，而这些信息“将使个人毋须他人告诉他们做这做哪而自行决定做可欲的事情”。

我们曾经在我的电视专题节目《自由选择》中引用过伦纳德的故事，也曾经引用他的同名著作来阐明“市场的力量”（见电视专题节目的第一集和书的第一章，该章题目即《市场的市场》），我们概述了这个故事后接着说：

“成千上万的人卷入了生产铅笔的过程中，没有一个是因为自己想要一支铅笔而去干自己的活儿的，他们中有些人从来没有见过铅笔，也从来不管铅笔是干什么用的。每个人都把自己的工作仅仅看作是获取自己所需要的商品和服务的一种办法，而我们生产这些商品和服务，则是为了获得我们要用的铅笔。每次我们到商店购买一支铅笔，我们都是用我们的一丁点劳务，来换取投入到铅笔生产过程中的成千上万人中的每个人提供的极小量的一些劳务。

“更令人叹为观止的是，铅笔在源源不断地生产出来。没有一个人坐在一个中央办公机构对这成千上万的人发布命令。也没有军警来执行这些无人发布的命令。这些人生活在不同的地方，讲着不同的语言，信奉着不同的宗教，甚至可能彼此憎恶，——然而，所有这些差异，并没有妨碍他们合作生产一支铅笔。这是如何发生的？亚当·斯密在两百年前就给了我们答案。”

《铅笔的故事》是典型的伦纳德·里德式的作品：富有想象力，朴素而意味深长，洋溢着对自由的热爱，这一切，贯穿在伦纳德所写的一切著作或所做的一切活动中。跟他的其它著作一样，他并没有试图告诉人们应该做什么，或如何管理自己。他只是试图增进人们对他们自己及其生活于其中的制度的理解。

这就是他的基本信条，是他在长期服务于公众——不是政府公务员性质的公共服务——的岁月中一以贯之坚持的信条。不管遭遇何种压力，他都坚持自己的信念，而绝不在原则问题上妥协。正是这一点，使他在早年能够引人瞩目地坚守人的自由需要私有产权、自由竞争和严格限制政府这样的基本理念，而后则使这种理念广为传播。

米尔顿·弗里德曼，19xx年诺贝尔经济学奖获得者，胡佛研究所高级研究员

I, Pencil

My Family Tree as told to Leonard E. Read

I am a lead pencil—the ordinary wooden pencil familiar to all boys and girls and adults who can read and write.*

Writing is both my vocation and my avocation; that’s all I do.

You may wonder why I should write a genealogy. Well, to begin with, my story is interesting. And, next, I am a mystery—more so than a tree or a sunset or even a flash of lightning. But, sadly, I am taken for granted by those who use me, as if I were a mere incident and without background. This supercilious attitude relegates me to the level of the commonplace. This is a species of the grievous error in which mankind cannot too long persist without peril. For, the wise G. K. Chesterton observed, “We are perishing for want of wonder, not for want of wonders.” I, Pencil, simple though I appear to be, merit your wonder and awe, a claim I shall attempt to prove. In fact, if you can understand me—no, that’s too much to ask of anyone—if you can become aware of the miraculousness which I symbolize, you can help save the freedom mankind is so unhappily losing. I have a profound lesson to teach. And I can teach this lesson better than can an automobile or an airplane or a mechanical dishwasher because—well, because I am seemingly so simple.

Simple? Yet, not a single person on the face of this earth knows how to make me. This sounds fantastic, doesn’t it? Especially when it is realized that there are about one and one-half billion of my kind produced in the U.S.A. each year. Pick me up and look me over. What do you see? Not much meets the eye—there’s some wood, lacquer, the printed labeling, graphite lead, a bit of metal, and an eraser. Innumerable Antecedents

Just as you cannot trace your family tree back very far, so is it impossible for me to name and explain all my antecedents. But I would like to suggest enough of them to impress upon you the richness and complexity of my background.

My family tree begins with what in fact is a tree, a cedar of straight grain that grows in Northern California and Oregon. Now contemplate all the saws and trucks and rope and the countless other gear used in harvesting and carting the cedar logs to the railroad siding. Think of all the persons and the numberless skills that went into their fabrication: the mining of ore, the making of steel and its refinement into saws, axes, motors; the growing of hemp and bringing it through all the stages to heavy and strong rope; the logging camps with their beds and mess halls, the cookery and the raising of all the foods. Why, untold thousands of persons had a hand in every cup of coffee the loggers drink!

The logs are shipped to a mill in San Leandro, California. Can you imagine the individuals who make flat cars and rails and railroad engines and who construct and install the communication systems incidental thereto? These legions are among my antecedents.

Consider the millwork in San Leandro. The cedar logs are cut into small,

pencil-length slats less than one-fourth of an inch in thickness. These are kiln dried and then tinted for the same reason women put rouge on their faces. People prefer that I look pretty, not a pallid white. The slats are waxed and kiln dried again. How many skills went into the making of the tint and the kilns, into supplying the heat, the light and power, the belts, motors, and all the other things a mill requires? Sweepers in the mill among my ancestors? Yes, and included are the men who poured the concrete for the dam of a Pacific Gas & Electric Company hydroplant which supplies the mill’s power!

Don’t overlook the ancestors present and distant who have a hand in transporting sixty carloads of slats across the nation.

Once in the pencil factory—$4,000,000 in machinery and building, all capital accumulated by thrifty and saving parents of mine—each slat is given eight grooves by a complex machine, after which another machine lays leads in every other slat, applies glue, and places another slat atop—a lead sandwich, so to speak. Seven brothers and I are mechanically carved from this “wood-clinched” sandwich. My “lead” itself—it contains no lead at all—is complex. The graphite is mined in Ceylon. Consider these miners and those who make their many tools and the makers of the paper sacks in which the graphite is shipped and those who make the string that ties the sacks and those who put them aboard ships and those who make the ships. Even the lighthouse keepers along the way assisted in my birth—and the harbor pilots.

The graphite is mixed with clay from Mississippi in which ammonium hydroxide is used in the refining process. Then wetting agents are added such as sulfonated

tallow—animal fats chemically reacted with sulfuric acid. After passing through numerous machines, the mixture finally appears as endless extrusions—as from a sausage grinder-cut to size, dried, and baked for several hours at 1,850 degrees Fahrenheit. To increase their strength and smoothness the leads are then treated with a hot mixture which includes candelilla wax from Mexico, paraffin wax, and hydrogenated natural fats.

My cedar receives six coats of lacquer. Do you know all the ingredients of lacquer? Who would think that the growers of castor beans and the refiners of castor oil are a part of it? They are. Why, even the processes by which the lacquer is made a beautiful yellow involve the skills of more persons than one can enumerate!

Observe the labeling. That’s a film formed by applying heat to carbon black mixed with resins. How do you make resins and what, pray, is carbon black?

My bit of metal—the ferrule—is brass. Think of all the persons who mine zinc and copper and those who have the skills to make shiny sheet brass from these products of nature. Those black rings on my ferrule are black nickel. What is black nickel and how is it applied? The complete story of why the center of my ferrule has no black nickel on it would take pages to explain.

Then there’s my crowning glory, inelegantly referred to in the trade as “the plug,” the part man uses to erase the errors he makes with me. An ingredient called “factice” is what does the erasing. It is a rubber-like product made by reacting rape-seed oil from the Dutch East Indies with sulfur chloride. Rubber, contrary to the common notion, is only for binding purposes. Then, too, there are numerous vulcanizing and accelerating agents. The pumice comes from Italy; and the pigment which gives “the plug” its color is cadmium sulfide.

No One Knows

Does anyone wish to challenge my earlier assertion that no single person on the face of this earth knows how to make me?

Actually, millions of human beings have had a hand in my creation, no one of whom even knows more than a very few of the others. Now, you may say that I go too far in relating the picker of a coffee berry in far off Brazil and food growers elsewhere to my creation; that this is an extreme position. I shall stand by my claim. There isn’t a single person in all these millions, including the president of the pencil company, who contributes more than a tiny, infinitesimal bit of know-how. From the standpoint of know-how the only difference between the miner of graphite in Ceylon and the logger in Oregon is in the type of know-how. Neither the miner nor the logger can be dispensed with, any more than can the chemist at the factory or the worker in the oil field—paraffin being a by-product of petroleum.

Here is an astounding fact: 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.

No Master Mind

There is a fact still more astounding: the absence of a master mind, of anyone dictating or forcibly directing these countless actions which bring me into being. No trace of such a person can be found. Instead, we find the Invisible Hand at work. This is the mystery to which I earlier referred.

It has been said that “only God can make a tree.” Why do we agree with this? Isn’t it because we realize that we ourselves could not make one? Indeed, can we even describe a tree? We cannot, except in superficial terms. We can say, for instance, that a certain molecular configuration manifests itself as a tree. But what mind is there among men that could even record, let alone direct, the constant changes in molecules that transpire in the life span of a tree? Such a feat is utterly unthinkable!

I, Pencil, am a complex combination of miracles: a tree, zinc, copper, graphite, and so on. But to these miracles which manifest themselves in Nature an even more extraordinary miracle has been added: the configuration of creative human

energies—millions of tiny know-hows configurating naturally and spontaneously in response to human necessity and desire and in the absence of any human master-minding! Since only God can make a tree, I insist that only God could make me. Man can no more direct these millions of know-hows to bring me into being than he can put molecules together to create a tree.

The above is what I meant when writing, “If you can become aware of the

miraculousness which I symbolize, you can help save the freedom mankind is so unhappily losing.” 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. Once government has had a monopoly of a creative activity such, for instance, as the delivery of the mails, most individuals will believe that the mails could not be efficiently delivered by men acting freely. And here is the reason: Each one acknowledges that he himself doesn’t know how to do all the things incident to mail delivery. He also recognizes that no other individual could do it. These assumptions are correct. No individual possesses enough know-how to perform a nation’s mail delivery any more than any individual possesses enough know-how to make a pencil. Now, in the absence of faith in free people—in the unawareness that millions of tiny know-hows would naturally and miraculously form and cooperate to satisfy this necessity—the individual cannot help but reach the erroneous conclusion that mail can be delivered only by governmental “master-minding.”

Testimony Galore

If I, Pencil, were the only item that could offer testimony on what men and women can accomplish when free to try, then those with little faith would have a fair case. However, there is testimony galore; it’s all about us and on every hand. Mail delivery is exceedingly simple when compared, for instance, to the making of an automobile or a calculating machine or a grain combine or a milling machine or to tens of thousands of other things. Delivery? Why, in this area where men have been left free to try, they deliver the human voice around the world in less than one second; they deliver an event visually and in motion to any person’s home when it is happening; they deliver 150 passengers from Seattle to Baltimore in less than four hours; they deliver gas from Texas to one’s range or furnace in New York at unbelievably low rates and without subsidy; they deliver each four pounds of oil from the Persian Gulf to our Eastern Seaboard—halfway around the world—for less money than the government charges for delivering a one-ounce letter across the street!

The lesson I have to teach is this: Leave all creative energies uninhibited. Merely organize society to act in harmony with this lesson. Let society’s legal apparatus remove all obstacles the best it can. Permit these creative know-hows freely to flow. Have faith that free men and women will respond to the Invisible Hand. This faith will be confirmed. I, Pencil, seemingly simple though I am, offer the miracle of my creation as testimony that this is a practical faith, as practical as the sun, the rain, a cedar tree, the good earth.

* My official name is “Mongol 482.” My many ingredients are assembled, fabricated, and finished by Eberhard Faber Pencil Company.

Leonard E. Read (1898-1983) founded FEE in 1946 and served as its president until his death.

“I, Pencil,” his most famous essay, was first published in the December 1958 issue of The Freeman. Although a few of the manufacturing details and place names have changed over the past forty years, the principles are unchanged.

Introduction,by Milton Friedman

Leonard Read’s delightful story, “I, Pencil,” has become a classic, and deservedly so. I know of no other piece of literature that so succinctly, persuasively, and effectively illustrates the meaning of both Adam Smith’s invisible hand—the possibility of cooperation without coercion—and Friedrich Hayek’s emphasis on the importance of dispersed knowledge and the role of the price system in communicating information that “will make the individuals do the desirable things without anyone having to tell them what to do.”

We used Leonard’s story in our television show, “Free to Choose,” and in the accompanying book of the same title to illustrate “the power of the market” (the

title of both the first segment of the TV show and of chapter one of the book). We summarized the story and then went on to say:

“None of the thousands of persons involved in producing the pencil performed his task because he wanted a pencil. Some among them never saw a pencil and would not know what it is for. Each saw his work as a way to get the goods and services he wanted—goods and services we produced in order to get the pencil we wanted. Every time we go to the store and buy a pencil, we are exchanging a little bit of our services for the infinitesimal amount of services that each of the thousands contributed toward producing the pencil.

“It is even more astounding that the pencil was ever produced. No one sitting in a central office gave orders to these thousands of people. No military police enforced the orders that were not given. These people live in many lands, speak different languages, practice different religions, may even hate one another—yet none of these differences prevented them from cooperating to produce a pencil. How did it happen? Adam Smith gave us the answer two hundred years ago.”

“I, Pencil” is a typical Leonard Read product: imaginative, simple yet subtle, breathing the love of freedom that imbued everything Leonard wrote or did. As in the rest of his work, he was not trying to tell people what to do or how to conduct themselves. He was simply trying to enhance individuals’ understanding of themselves and of the system they live in.

That was his basic credo and one that he stuck to consistently during his long period of service to the public—not public service in the sense of government service. Whatever the pressure, he stuck to his guns, refusing to compromise his principles. That was why he was so effective in keeping alive, in the early days, and then spreading the basic idea that human freedom required private property, free competition, and severely limited government.

Professor Friedman, the 1976 Nobelist in Economic Science, is Senior Research Fellow at the Hoover Institution, Stanford, California.

Afterword,by Donald J. Boudreaux

There are two kinds of thinking: simplistic and subtle. Simplistic thinkers cannot understand how complex and useful social orders arise from any source other than conscious planning by a purposeful mind. Subtle thinkers, in contrast, understand that individual actions often occur within settings that encourage individuals to coordinate their actions with one another independent of any overarching plan. F.

A. Hayek called such unplanned but harmonious coordination “spontaneous order.”

The mark of the subtle mind is not only its ability to grasp the idea of spontaneous orders but also to understand that conscious attempts to improve or to mimic these orders are doomed to fail. “Why so?” asks the simplistic thinker. “How can happenstance generate complex order superior to what a conscious mind can conceive and implement?” In responding to this question, a subtle thinker points out that spontaneous orders do not arise from happenstance: the continual adjustments by each individual within spontaneous orders follow a very strict logic—the logic of mutual accommodation. Because no central planner can possibly know all of the details of each individual’s unique situation, no central planner can know how best to arrange each and every action of each and every individual with that of the multitudes of other individuals.

In the eighteenth century, a handful of scholars—most notably David Hume and Adam Smith—developed a subtle understanding of how private property rights encourage self-regarding producers and consumers to act in mutually beneficial ways.

Spontaneous ordering forces were thus discovered, and with this discovery modern economics began to take shape.

Over the next two centuries economics achieved enormous success in furthering our understanding not only of industry and commerce, but of society itself. Modern economics—that is to say, economics that explores the emergence of spontaneous orders—is a sure-fire inoculant against the simplistic notion that conscious direction by the state can improve upon the pattern of mutual adjustments that people make within a system of secure private property rights.

But learning modern economics requires some effort—in the same way that breaking free of any simplistic mindset requires effort. It isn’t surprising, then, that those economists who’ve contributed most to a widespread understanding of the subject have been clear and vivid writers, skillful in using analogies and everyday observations to lubricate the mind’s transition away from superficial thinking and toward a grasp of subtle insights. The best economic writers cause oncesimplistic thinkers to say “Aha! Now I get it!” Skillfully tutored, a simplistic mind becomes a subtle mind.

For its sheer power to display in just a few pages the astounding fact that free markets successfully coordinate the actions of literally millions of people from around the world into a productive whole, nothing else written in economics compares to Leonard Read’s celebrated essay, “I, Pencil.” This essay’s power derives from Read’s drawing from such a prosaic item an undeniable, profound, and spectacular conclusion: it takes the knowledge of countless people to produce a single pencil. No newcomer to economics who reads “I, Pencil” can fail to have a simplistic belief in the superiority of central planning or regulation deeply shaken. If I could choose one essay or book that everyone in the world would read, I would unhesitatingly choose “I, Pencil.” Among these readers, simplistic notions about the economy would be

permanently transformed into a new and vastly more subtle—and correct—understanding.

—DONALD J. BOUDREAUX

President,The Foundation for Economic Education

April 1998