Summary: Where do pencils come from? Photo: Daniel German. Source: Wikipedia In 1958 economist Leonard Read wrote a charming essay entitled “I, Pencil” about the miracle that the humble pencil represents: wood, zinc, glue, and graphite combined in a form that makes writing possible. There’s no hive-mind directing the countless individual actions necessary to bring pencils into being. Rather, individual shippers and machinists and miners and foresters work in their own individual interests, and their know-how is organized […]
