Teaching · Learning · Community

I, Toaster

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Originally posted on January 17, 2011.

Leonard Read famously explained that no one knows how to build a pencil. Well no one knows how to build a toaster either as demonstrated in this entertaining TED video. Compare how much Thomas Thwaites spent buying a toaster, about 4 pounds ($6), with how much labor time he spent trying to build a toaster and reflect on the power of trade, the division of knowledge and the division of labor.

Video Link : 1552

About the Author

Alex Tabarrok is Bartley J. Madden Chair in Economics at the Mercatus Center at George Mason University and director of research for The Independent Institute. Tabarrok is co-author with Tyler Cowen of the popular economics blog, Marginal Revolution. His recent research looks at bounty hunters, judicial incentives and elections, crime control, patent reform, methods to increase the supply of human organs for transplant, and the regulation of pharmaceuticals. He is the editor of the books, Entrepreneurial Economics: Bright Ideas from the Dismal Science; The Voluntary City: Choice, Community, and Civil Society; and Changing the Guard: Private Prisons and The Control of Crime. His papers have appeared in the Journal of Law and Economics, Public Choice, Economic Inquiry, Journal of Health Economics, Journal of Theoretical Politics, The American Law and Economics Review, Kyklos and many other journals. His popular articles have appeared in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and many other magazines and newspapers.