In fourteen short weeks I have learned a lot being a full time daddy. A clunky sing-songy nursery rhyme, for example, can be whipped up for most any sentence if one needs to preclude a fuss or a cry. The tune to "Wheels On The Bus" works best. Please-Oh-Please-Don't-Scream-And-Cry, Scream-And-Cry, Scream-And-Cry / Please-Oh-Please-Don't-Scream-And-Cry / Oh! Thank-You!... (Copyright pending.)
And I can change a dirty diaper so fast enough to impressed NASCAR pit crew member.
I have also had a real life lesson on how scarce time, our most precious resource, truly is. Time's scarcity is not news, of course; being a full time daddy has simply revealed just how scarce it is. Multiple diaper changes, feedings, play time, book time, walks, and daily errands consume portions of the time. All this time with our beautiful baby girl greatly assists me in appreciating the importance of economizing time.
Similarly, all the products and services we use and pursue are scarce; some are more scarce than others. Most people probably understand there is a limit to, say, the amount of coffee beans available that were grown in west Africa. The mechanism that reveals scarcity and allows free people to economize most efficiently to deal with such scarcity, however, is more often taken for granted or, worse, blamed for scarcity.
Free market capitalism reveals scarcity; it does not create scarcity. When markets are not artificially manipulated or influenced through force, fraud, or government regulations, the minute-by-minute communication of the price system communicates how limited or ample resources are. Countless millions of people, acting respectively out of self-interest, both compete and cooperate voluntarily to deliver goods and services as efficiently as they know how. Consumers demand, producers produce, and I can have fresh shrimp on my dinner plate, at an affordable price, in landlocked Pennsylvania.
This fluid mass of organic movement is "the market."
What all this frenetic, unplanned activity does create is division of labor, efficiency, broadened economic activity, and wealth. What's more, productivity increases to provide once scarce items more abundantly in order to keep up with demand. Consider keeping the supply of those coffee beans up with the world's voracious demand for that yummy wake-up-in-a-cup.
And I've arrived at an entirely new strata of appreciation for coffee these last three months. In fact, it is time for another cup of free market capitalistic efficiency before my little Sweet Pea wakes up. I have to be fresh for what she has to teach me today.
