It takes a lot of people to manufacture even the simplest products, so making a household appliance on your own shouldn’t be expected to be easy. It may even be impossible. That’s what the artist Thomas Thwaites is finding as he tries to make a toaster from scratch, traveling around the world to collect raw materials and refining his own petroleum for plastic moldings. Aware that he still won’t be able to accomplish his task without the help of modern appliances, like a microwave, Thwaites claims his experiment points to the “helplessness” of the modern consumer. At Reason Online, meanwhile, Radley Balko argues that our inability to make a toaster doesn’t mean we’re helpless at all, but rather that we’ve been liberated by free markets. (This is hardly a new argument; consider the pencil, and similar tales.) [%comments]
It Takes a Free Market to Build a Toaster
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To make toast, all you need is fire and a means of holding the bread over the fire.
There is a whole passage about this topic in the book White Noise — how, as individuals, our basic knowledge has greatly dropped compared to our prehistoric ancestors. Drop one of us in the middle of the woods and we’d be dead in a week, while our ancestors lived that way their entire lives.
Our society has specialized knowledge so we each don’t have to have it. But in a situation where it might come in handy (i.e. how to start a fire), we’re pretty helpless.
I realize the point of Thwaites’ piece is to illustrate the relative helplessness of the modern person (not just consumer) – but I’m pretty certain that Mr. Thwaites would be quite capable of producing a piece of toast, even if he can’t make an actual “toaster.” It’s called fire, look into it.
It is pointless to dwell on how incompetent we would be if we were asked to step into the shoes of a pre-industrial person without advance preparation or training. For most of us, cheap fossil fuels make pre-industrial skills pointless to acquire . If we do face a continuing energy supply crisis, our society will adapt, although with a great deal of trouble and effort.
Personally, without sophisticated medical technology I wouldn’t need to worry about toast, as I’d simply be dead.
I’m not sure what this has to do with a free market. It’s mostly about specialization and exchange of goods, which could also be done i a non free market (albeit less efficiently).
I bet Thaites is fully capable of holding a slice of bread over a fire. But is he capable of making a slice of bread?
There are many things amiss here:
Ancient peoples specialized too. Materials and goods were traded by humans since prehistoric times. If Ogg were dropped into the middle of nowhere, he too would probably expire. Humans depend on humans; they are not solitary animals like groundhogs and badgers.
Native American individuals generally didn’t make their own arrowheads, pots, moccasins or arrows.
So as civilizations advance, they make their own contributions and add specialized skills. It is true that the skills become narrower and narrower. When I need something, I’d prefer to deal with a specialist. If exiled to a desert island, I’d prefer a generalist friend to come along.
Nothing wrong with that.