"I, Pencil"

Paraphrasing

I, Pencil by Leonard E. Read is a story of what goes into making a given product such as a pencil. Read, uses the pencil as the narrator of the story to explain what goes into its own creation. The Pencil cites all of the manpower and the resources that come from different industries across the globe, which culminates to create this deceptively simple product. The main idea that the Pencil focuses on is that the countless hours and amount of work that goes into creating this final product is not seen by the consumer, and is often overlooked entirely. This idea is stated as an “invisible hand”, which plays the role of everything that goes into the pencil that we the consumer do not consider. The capitalist mentality of the pencil is shown by its feelings that government needs to stay out of these processes in order for this process to occur, which is succinct with a main pillar of the “free market”.


Quotes

"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."

"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."

"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."


Analysis

This story shows how, the people involved in the creation of a pencil each have a hand in this, but are not doing what they do to achieve the goal of a final product; a pencil. Leonard E. Read’s story is about how everyone’s “little bit of know how” contributes to making a finalized material (wood slats, shaped graphite, lacquer) which is used to finalize and create a number of other products. This is done through the outlook of a capitalist who believes strongly in the free market. The introduction of government and a governmental presence was shown in the story to be something that Read saw as highly detrimental to the way in which goods are fabricated. I think that he masked this resentment of governmental involvement with the “opinion” of how this involvement hinders creativity. When you think about it, manufacturing a pencil and every one of the different processes that Leonard E. Read referenced, involved no creativity because it does not warrant creativity.