Sunday, March 31, 2013

How to Make a Computer Mouse and the Beauty of Adam Smith

John Batchelor posted a short video starring Matt Ridley.  Free trade and capitalism are the object, not the mouse.
Listen here:  ten-thousand-years-now

I'll let John explain:

"Fundamental Adam Smith.  
Am spending time on the PERC site in order to explore the energy boom of the Bakken and its profound transformation of the American West, and came across this recommendation on the PERC twitter site, from the Zeitgeist confabs, a presentation by polymath and columnist Matt Ridley in the UK, posted mid December 2012.  It is brief and to the point that self-sufficiency is poverty (subsistence) and that cooperation and trade are wealth-creating.  The additional wry observation is that the Macbookpro I am writing on, with the help of a wireless keyboard and trackpad, are the products of a myriad trade network of natural resources and manufacturing and rule-making that produce a tool that no one person, or even several persons, could actually explain.  This is fundamental Adam Smith: trade is good, the invisible hand is always busy, and wealth produces specialization that produces more wealth.  It occurs to me that this is all a YouTube demonstration of Matt Ridley's signature summary that rational optimism about our children's children's future is well advised."

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