I, Pencil: My Family Tree as Told to Leonard E. Read

Read is writing for professional economists, or at least for people educated in economics, and primarily for fellow conservatives. The essay was published in The Freeman, a specialized magazine established to popularize libertarian ideas. He assumes the reader already knows of “the Invisible Hand,” and he implies rather than explicitly spells out several crucial aspects of his argument. Most importantly, from the claim that markets spontaneously coordinate the dispersed knowledge required to produce a commodity, Read concludes that all government planning efforts are not only unnecessary but also inherently inefficient. The latter conclusion implies that government institutions are equally incapable of coordinating dispersed knowledge as are individual persons, and that “the Invisible Hand” never produces undesirable societal outcomes—both highly questionable claims that Read fails to explicitly articulate or defend.

Read’s goal is to persuade the reader that laissez-faire capitalism is preferable to government planning. He states his thesis, in the fourth paragraph, using emotional language: “[I]f you can become aware of the miraculousness which I symbolize, you can help save the freedom mankind is so unhappily losing” (4). Throughout the essay, Read uses similarly emotional language—“astounding,” “miracle,” “unbelievably”—as well as an abundance of exclamation points, to stimulate a sense of “wonder and awe” in the reader.