There is a fact still more astounding: the absence of a master mind, of anyone dictating or forcibly directing these countless actions which bring me into being. No trace of such a person can be found.

I, Pencil, am a complex combination of miracles: a tree, zinc, copper, graphite, and so on. But to these miracles which manifest themselves in Nature an even more extraordinary miracle has been added: the configuration of creative human energies—millions of tiny know-hows configurating naturally and spontaneously in response to human necessity and desire and in the absence of any human master-minding!

For, if one is aware that these know-hows will naturally, yes, automatically, arrange themselves into creative and productive patterns in response to human necessity and demand—that is, in the absence of governmental or any other coercive masterminding—then one will possess an absolutely essential ingredient for freedom: a faith in free people.

Beautiful.
How many centuries, I wonder, until this is again seen and felt as an immediate necessity...as it was 200, 300 years ago,.....a vision of life so important it is worth fighting and dying for. Ultimately, it seems it must come back to that again someday, while for now, our "pencil" has become so taken for granted and is on the verge of takedown. What they mistakenly see as an ultimate perfection, a utopian equality is what they favor over what America once was.

What a good site: econlib.org
Much brainfood there.

What a good site: econlib.org
Much brainfood there.

Yep, I've only come across it maybe a month or two ago...barely scratched the surface myself.