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I, Pencil
My Family Tree as told to
Leonard E. Read
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I, Pencil
My Family Tree as Told to
Leonard E. Read
Introduction by Richard M. Ebeling
Afterword by Milton Friedman
Foundation for Economic Education
Irvington-on-Hudson, New York 10533
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Leonard E. Read (1898–1983) established the Foundation for
Economic Education in 1946. For the next 37 years he served as FEE’s
president and labored tirelessly to promote and advance liberty. He
was a natural leader who, at a crucial moment in American history,
roused the forces defending individual freedom and private property.
His life is a testament to the power of ideas. As President Ronald
Reagan wrote: “Our nation and her people have been vastly enriched
by his devotion to the cause of freedom, and generations to come will
look to Leonard Read for inspiration.”
Read was the author of 29 books and hundreds of essays. “I,
Pencil,” his most famous essay, was first published in 1958. Although
a few of the manufacturing details and place names have changed, the
principles endure.
This new edition of “I, Pencil” was made possible by the generosity of
John A. Kasch, M.D.
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Introduction
B
Y
RICHARD M. EBELING
It is a rare gift to be able to take the complex and abstract
and reduce it to commonsensical terms without losing any of
the essentials of the argument. Leonard E. Read had that rare
talent. In “I, Pencil” he conveys the true miracle of the market
by telling the family history of an ordinary object of everyday
life—an old-fashioned writing instrument.
How often do we hear that modern life is so complex that
government must impose its guiding hand to assure order in
society? Yet in the following pages Leonard Read demonstrates
how futile it is for any one mind or even a group of great minds
to try to undertake the task of bringing into existence every-
day goods and services that we take for granted.
We go to the shopping mall, and the retail stores are brim-
ming with items we may wish to buy. We enter the supermar-
ket or grocery store, and the aisles are filled with shelf after
shelf of foods and related commodities to meet our wants and
needs. We drive our car on a vacation, and in every town or city
along the way store after store offers us all the amenities for
enjoying our journey.
Where did all these goods and services come from? Who
produced and supplied them? How did all the millions of peo-
ple involved in their manufacture and provision know where
and how to apply their particular talents and abilities to make
their respective contributions to the final result?
As Read says, even the wisest of the wise would not know
how to direct and coordinate all the activities that encompass
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the actions of individuals dispersed across countries and conti-
nents. Only freedom supplies the means of fulfilling these
seemingly infinite and interrelated tasks. And all of it is done
through an “invisible hand,” a phrase made famous by Adam
Smith in
The Wealth of Nations
(1776).
All of us can be left at liberty to choose and act as we think
individually to be best, and our decisions will be spontaneous-
ly brought into harmony through the prices of the market.
Prices inform others what it is that we may want to purchase.
Those same prices also tell those others at what remuneration
we would be willing to do various things for them. We are each
left free to apply our creativity in ways we hope will better our
circumstances. But to do so we must apply ourselves in ways
that others value. Otherwise we cannot earn the income that
enables us to buy what others offer in exchange.
How much more effective is freedom than a system of gov-
ernment command and control! Why constrain our individual
creative and productive actions to what the limited minds of
any group of planners and regulators can attempt to compre-
hend and appreciate?
By tracing the “family tree” of an ordinary pencil, Leonard
Read demonstrates the importance of humility. Let us stop and
think before we pass power into the hands of those in political
authority, no matter how well intentioned they may be, under
the illusion that they have the knowledge to successfully
design and direct our lives.
If we learn this simple but profound lesson, we may yet
stop and reverse the continuing tendency to delegate power to
social engineers who want to mastermind our existence and
well-being.
Instead, the eloquently expressed insight of Leonard E.
Read’s “I, Pencil” may help us sketch a new path to liberty.
Dr. Richard M. Ebeling is the president of the Foundation for
Economic Education.
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