Hollywood, California--Nobel Prize-winning economist and New York Times columnist Paul Krugman, a prominent defender of government control of the economy, lost to a Yellow No. 2 on the television show "Who Has More Collected Knowledge Than a Pencil?"Krugman -- a harsh critic of free enterprise -- spouted a wealth of aggregate statistics, but was ultimately outmatched by the vast collection of knowledge and skills that go into the common pencil such as the one next to him, the result of the remarkably complex and free interaction of literally thousands of people around the world -- from the Oregon tree growers to the Connecticut saw makers, to the Midwestern ore miners, the graphite producers from Ceylon, and the Mexican parrafin plant, to name just a few.
As host Jeff Foxworthy walked the contestants through the questioning, it became clear that not only did Krugman not have the smallest fraction of the knowledge necessary to produce his ordinary pencil opponent, but that no one did.
"It wasn't fair," Krugman complained after the show. "The pencil represents a vast collection of information that could never result from the orders of government bureaucrats working with economics experts like me. That blasted pencil's the product of a staggeringly sophisticated but spontaneous free enterprise network guided by millions of individual interactions based on voluntary and mutually beneficial exchanges. And the government needs to put an end to that unfairness!"
Associated video: Milton Friedman; associated articles: Economic Liberty; Wall Street Journal; National Review
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