Transcript - Izzit.org

PENCIL: Exactly. That wealth earned by some must come at the expense of others.FFIEDMAN: It’s very easy to see that principle operating if you think of two people under anycircumstances making a voluntary deal.EMILY: Hey, if you go buy me a water I’ll give you my notes.EMERSON: Sure, seems like a “fair trade.”PENCIL: Fair because both Emily and Emerson get something. All voluntary trade is win-win. Not azero sum game.EMILY:• The free market can operate without any central direction because all parties enter into atransaction voluntarily.• Ergo, it’s not a zero sum game, because both parties think they’ll be better off, that they’ll benefitor they wouldn’t make the deal.• And finally, the key is what Adam Smith called an invisible hand.EMERSON: The still unsolved mystery.Emily taps out: screen goes to screen saver.EMERSON: Wait! Does that look to you like a hand?EMILY: You are so corny!The Price System, Part IIEMILY: Moving on?PENCIL: I, Pencil, am a combination of nature’s miracles: a tree, zinc, copper, graphite, and so on. ButI am a product of human minds. I would not exist without the configuration of creative human energies.EMERSON: Make a note of that, too.EMILY: I can do it without “central direction”, thank you.FRIEDMAN: What happens if you or the rest of us want to get some more pencils? Well, the peoplewho are manufacturing pencils suddenly discover that they are making some money and they say ‘We’dbetter make some more pencils.’ Nobody has told them about that, they’ve just discovered that down atthe corner drugstore and they, in turn, send out some orders to people who are producing the wood, to thepeople who are producing the rubber.EMILY: Like the pencil said, “Things automatically arrange themselves.”3