I, Pencil

Yeah this is old, but still just as relevant today as when it was written.

This wonderful little monologue explains, in a simply way, why centralized control of any activity will not work; even the seemingly simple pencil is unbelievably complex.

Any economy is vast, but simply stating that dosen’t do it justice; it’s like saying ‘universe’, the word can’t match the scale of the thing. The economy is so vast, that no person has ever gotten a clear look at it; nobody can ever see it for what it truly is, even if a person manages to absorbed the information of a particular moment, change is rapid. Understanding this scale and a person begins to realize the utter arrogance and foolishness that underlie most statist policies.

Needless to say, this is explained much more eloquently in Leonard E. Reads Paper:

So read the entire thing here.