Freakonomics did a nice podcast on this topic:
http://freakonomics.com/podcast/i-pencil/
The idea is that no one alive has all the skills to make something as simple as a pencil from scratch. This is a result of our industuralized socity.
The idea is that no one alive has all the skills to make something as simple as a pencil from scratch. This is a result of our industuralized socity.
Is that the idea? Isn't the point rather that the existence of a pencil is only possible as a result of industrialization and trade. It's not as if before industrialization, there was an artisanal pencil maker who traveled the world gathering the materials needed to make a batch of pencils, and crafted them together using pencil-making secrets passed down from father to son over generations.
No person has EVER been able to make a pencil; it's something that has only ever been possible for a network of interdependent industrial concerns.