Quotation of the Day…

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… is from page 17 of Milton Friedman‘s 1976 paper “Adam Smith’s Relevance for 1976,” which is Chapter 1 of Adam Smith and the Wealth of Nations: Bicentennial Essays 1776-1976, edited by Fred R. Glahe (link added):

The market, with each individual going his own way, with no central authority setting social priorities, avoiding duplication, and coordinating activities, looks like chaos to untutored eyes. But through Smith’s eyes we see that it is a finely ordered and effectively tuned system, one which arises out of men’s individually motivated actions, yet is not deliberately created by men. It is a system which enables the dispersed knowledge and skill of millions of people to be coordinated for a common purpose. Men in Malaya who produce rubber, in Mexico who produce graphite, in the state of Washington who produce timber, and countless others, cooperate in the production of an ordinary rubber-tipped lead pencil – to use Leonard Read’s vivid image – though there is no world government to which they all submit, no common language in which they could converse, and no knowledge of or interest in the purpose for which they cooperate.