Russ Roberts and the Wonderful Loaf is a great site.
- Read the poem here. Some highlights are:
"Because there’s order all around us—things look as if they’re planned
Like the supply of bread in a city—enough to match up with demand
And though flour is used for more than just bread, we never have to fight
Over where it goes and who gets what. So why do we sleep so well at night
"Knowing nobody’s in charge , it looks like all is left to chance
Yet in New York, or London as well as Paris, France
No one’s worried the shelves will be empty, we take supply for granted
But it’s a marvel, it’s a miracle, the world’s somehow enchanted
"Could a minister of bread do even half as well?
Would there be enough of every kind of bread upon the shelves?
How could he know how much to make of each kind every day?
There’d be shortages and surpluses and waste and much dismay
"Every morning the bakers rise early to make sure your bread is fresh
And the world gets more complicated but the plans just continue to mesh
Every morning the bakers rise early, though not under anyone’s command
Where in the anatomy textbooks can I view an invisible hand?
"The key to the process is prices and the freedom to shop where you want
Competition among all the bakers, makes sure that they rise before dawn
To make sure the bread’s near perfection, to make sure that the buyer’s content
You don’t have to know economics to know when your money’s well-spent
"With each other. Order’s everywhere. Yet we humans too create it
It emerges. No one intends it. No one has to orchestrate it.
It’s the product of our actions but no single mind’s designed it
There’s magic without wizards if you just know how to find it."
- The reading list is great. Two highlights are:
- Hayak, "The Use of Knowledge in Society"
"t is a problem of the utilization of knowledge which is not given to anyone in its totality" - Roberts, "Profits v. Love"
" was induced by the invisible hand to be altruistic. How sad it is that people think economics is the study of money or that economists believe in elevating mercenary motives above compassion. The great insight of economics is that people make tradeoffs. The basis for that insight is a recognition that behavior is complex and that no one has a single-minded motivation or a single goal. "
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