What is interesting is that having the lawyer do everything, and then support the secretary, makes the sum of their incomes (“the economy”) larger still. Of course, left to his own devices, the lawyer wouldn’t do that, because he would be personally worse off than if he just fended for himself and fired the secretary. What is interesting is that you never hear socialists making that point–the point that collective wealth could theoretically maximized, according to comparative advantage, if you have the least productive people enslave the most productive people.

Instead socialists routinely criticize comparative advantage on faulty grounds. I guess it is because most socialists just aren’t intelligent enough to understand the concept.

Your example works only if the captain is capable of monetizing almost every hour in their day. If not, it then depends upon their ability to monetize almost every hour in the gofers day. The captain may be worth $200 an hour — and the gofer only $25. If the gofer requires eight hours a day — or the equivalent of an hour of the captains time — then it only makes sense if the gofer is utilized over an hour a day AND the captain can monetize every hour. This is one of the reasons that almost all captains run about a half-of-a-man short. They may be worth a lot — but they can’t sell every hour — they’re not worth a lot all of the time.

In a large enterprise, all of these assumptions change.

Something like, “A lawyer might type twice as fast as his secretary, but do legal work five times better than the secretary. Both are better off if the lawyer does the legal work and the secretary does the typing.”