I thought this clip complemented the recent great depression clip posted. [youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=/embed/czcUmnsprQI[/youtube]
Maybe this will work Edit: Clawhammer originally posted this in a comment, here: http://forums.silverstackers.com/message-410338.html#p410338
In another of Tom Wood's essay's, he makes the point about how efficient capitalism is, by using the case of the $7 toaster. An aquaintance of his decided to try and build a toaster from scratch himself. It took him a year and the equivalent of $2000 in parts and labour to produce...and it only worked for 5 mins. It is capitalism and the price mechanism allowed us to make toasters for $7. It takes incredible coordination between individuals (that may not even like each other), miners for the metals, transport, electronics manufacturers, the expertise to design the thing, the factory and labour etc to build the thing...all of it without the Govt. getting involved and regulating whom did what. All the parts and processes come together at the right time, in the right amounts without wastage without some central control overseeeing everything. He also plays down Govt regulation as a way of looking after 'The Poor'. It is often sighted that Govt regulation stopped child labour in the factories of the Industrial revolution. However Woods makes the point that it was only the prosperity of the Industrial Revolution as a result of free capitalism that allowed society enough wealth to stop putting children to work. "What did we think the kids were doing before the industrial revolution?" he asks? Running around in fields having a good time?, No, of course they were performing backbreaking labour on farms.... children had always had to work before the industrial revolution...in worse conditions than the factories...but it was the wealth created by the factories that enabled families to send their kids to school to improve their lot in life. [youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K3X9_uylxso[/youtube]
