That we should have sufficiency is true. That we must be self-sufficient is not. That is, of course
we want to make sure that we have enough but it's not necessary that we have to make
everything. As this newspaper points out, it's enough that we make sure we have sufficient.
Take rice -- given our diets -- as an important part of the process. No one says that every
person must grow enough rice to feed themselves. We all know that's ridiculous. Well, OK, the
last person who did say that was Pol Pot and that didn't turn out well.
So, some specialize in growing rice -- farmers.
They get enough land to afford the machines that make rice growing more efficient and so on.
They also learn how to do it better than we would -- Adam Smith's division and specialization of
labour in the pin factory all over again.
But the part that people find so hard to understand is that there's no dividing line here. There's
no point between the individual -- through the family, village, city, and county -- and country at
which this logic stops.
We always want the people who are good -- better than us -- at this stuff to be doing it.
Then we swap around what we're producing and we're all better off. Because everything is
being done by people who are better at doing that thing, are more productive, so there's more of
everything to be consumed.
We are richer.
As I say there's no end to this logic in a particular line drawn on a map, it doesn't stop with
geography.
Of course, we want to think about how long it will take to get something we desire from there to
here.
If something's essential -- rice -- we might want to have more of it in store right here than we
would if it's something that's just a nice to have -- linen shorts, just as an example.
We do indeed want to make sure we have sufficient but that's not, at all, the same as having to
make it all ourselves which is what is meant by self-sufficiency.
The correct name for thinking about all of this is “logistics.”
How much of what do we need where? What can we gain access to quickly out there in the
markets? What do we need to hold in stock ourselves? And how do we need to store it, where,
and how do we transport it around. Logistics.
So, in order to ensure our sufficiency we need to have experts in those logistics. Which is lucky
as a useful name for a supermarket is a logistics expert.That might sound a little simplistic but it is in fact true. The beating heart of Walmart is that they
are better at logistics -- how much do we need, what, where, how do we get it there? -- than
anyone else.
That's also how they grew from just one store -- by being better at logistics.
What we see, the supermarket itself, is just the display area of that long logistics chain.
The whole process of calling in goods from right around the world to be on show, ready for sale,
in the amounts right at the time people want to buy them. It's an astonishing feat when you think
about it.
A big UK or US supermarket will have 25,000 different items. They're all there, available, all the
time. The company itself uses central planning, of course it does. But society doesn't -- there is
no government plan to make sure apples, or rice, or beef, are on the shelves at Walmart. But
they are always there.
So, yes, we can indeed worry about sufficiency. But then we can console ourselves with the
thought that this is a problem already solved. Every town in every rich country has several of
these solutions -- supermarkets.
So, we know how to do this and the answer is simply to stand back and allow it to be done. This
is one of those things that capitalist greed -- or if you prefer, markets -- has already solved for
us.
Tim Worstall is a senior fellow at the Adam Smith Institute in London.
