"I, Pencil: My Family Tree as Told to Leonard E. Read", commonly known as "I, Pencil", is an

essay An essay ( ) is, generally, a piece of writing that gives the author's own argument, but the definition is vague, overlapping with those of a Letter (message), letter, a term paper, paper, an article (publishing), article, a pamphlet, and a s ...

Leonard Read Leonard Edward Read (September 26, 1898 – May 14, 1983) was the founder of the Foundation for Economic Education (FEE), one of the first free market think tanks in the United States. He wrote 29 books and numerous essays, including "I, Pencil ...

and it was first published in the December 1958 issue of ''

The Freeman ''The Freeman'' (formerly published as ''The Freeman: Ideas on Liberty'' or ''Ideas on Liberty'') was an American libertarian magazine, formerly published by the Foundation for Economic Education (FEE). It was founded in 1950 by John Chambe ...

''.

Essay

"I, Pencil" is written in the first person from the point of view of a pencil. The pencil details the complexity of its own creation, listing its components (

cedar Cedar may refer to: Trees and plants *''Cedrus'', common English name cedar, an Old-World genus of coniferous trees in the plant family Pinaceae * Cedar (plant), a list of trees and plants known as cedar Places United States * Cedar, Arizona ...

lacquer Lacquer is a type of hard and usually shiny coating or finish applied to materials such as wood or metal. It is most often made from resin extracted from trees and waxes and has been in use since antiquity. Asian lacquerware, which may be c ...

graphite Graphite () is a Crystallinity, crystalline allotrope (form) of the element carbon. It consists of many stacked Layered materials, layers of graphene, typically in excess of hundreds of layers. Graphite occurs naturally and is the most stable ...

ferrule A ferrule (a corruption of Latin ' "small bracelet", under the influence of ' "iron") is any of a number of types of objects, generally used for fastening, joining, sealing, or reinforcement. They are often narrow circular rings made from m ...

factice Factice is vulcanized unsaturated vegetable or animal oil, used as a processing aid and property modifier in rubber. Longer chain fatty-acid containing oils such as rapeseed or meadowfoam produce a harder, more desirable factice. Soybean oil prod ...

pumice Pumice (), called pumicite in its powdered or dust form, is a volcanic rock that consists of extremely vesicular rough-textured volcanic glass, which may or may not contain crystals. It is typically light-colored. Scoria is another vesicula ...

wax Waxes are a diverse class of organic compounds that are lipophilic, malleable solids near ambient temperatures. They include higher alkanes and lipids, typically with melting points above about 40 °C (104 °F), melting to give lo ...

glue Adhesive, also known as glue, cement, mucilage, or paste, is any non-metallic substance applied to one or both surfaces of two separate items that binds them together and resists their separation. The use of adhesives offers certain advantage ...

) and the numerous people involved, down to the sweeper in the factory and the lighthouse keeper guiding the shipment into port. It was reprinted in ''The Freeman'' in May 1996 and as a pamphlet entitled "I... Pencil" in May 1998. In the reprint,

Milton Friedman Milton Friedman (; July 31, 1912 – November 16, 2006) was an American economist and statistician who received the 1976 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences for his research on consumption analysis, monetary history and theory and ...

wrote the introduction and Donald J. Boudreaux wrote the afterword. Friedman used the essay in his 1980 PBS television show ''

Free to Choose ''Free to Choose: A Personal Statement'' is a 1980 book by economists Milton and Rose D. Friedman, accompanied by a 10-part series broadcast on public television, that advocates free market principles. It was primarily a response to an earlie ...

'' and the accompanying book of the same name. In the 2008 50th Anniversary Edition, the introduction is written by

Lawrence W. Reed Lawrence "Larry" W. Reed (born September 29, 1953), also known as Larry Reed, is president emeritus of the Foundation for Economic Education (FEE), where he has served as the Humphreys Family Senior Fellow since May 2019. Before joining FEE, Re ...

and Friedman wrote the afterword.

References

External links

''I, Penci''l
first edition version (1964), provided by

Mises Institute The Ludwig von Mises Institute for Austrian Economics, or Mises Institute, is a nonprofit think tank headquartered in Auburn, Alabama, that is a center for Austrian economics, right-wing libertarian thought and the paleolibertarian and ana ...

''Free to Choose: Power of the Market – The Pencil''

PBS The Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) is an American public broadcaster and non-commercial, free-to-air television network based in Arlington, Virginia. PBS is a publicly funded nonprofit organization and the most prominent provider of educat ...

television show episode with Milton Friedman {{DEFAULTSORT:Pencil, I Economics articles 1958 essays Pencils Works originally published in The Freeman Libertarian publications

Essay

References

Further reading

External links