Class Summary #7 for 9/16/11

Today in class, Prof. Rizzo showed us a power point that showed the major differences between earlier time periods and today. The overall message he was trying to send us today in class was that we are much better off in today's day and age than people we're in the past- even most people who are in "poverty" are better off than those who we're wealthy in earlier time periods. I will explain why later on in this post.

Prof. Rizzo began class by explaining that when he, or other economists, talk about us as a society getting richer, they have already taken into account predicted inflation rates. Also, getting richer does not necessarily have to mean getting rich in the traditional sense- getting rich doesn't necessarily mean getting rich monetarily.

It could mean getting rich in terms of one's ability to command goods and services. For example, if technology improves to the point where we have faster working computers, we are getting richer in terms of our materialistic gain.

We also learned how a benefit does not necessarily have to be monetary as well. Prof. Rizzo gave us an example about his relationship with his daughter. His daughter just had her ears pierced, and he bought her 12 different pairs of earrings. Most people probably would thing that 12 pairs of earrings is a bit extreme, and that one or two is more than sufficient.

But the benefit in the form of the happy feelings Prof. Rizzo receives when he comes home everyday and, with his daughter, decides which pair to put in her ears, far exceeds the monetary cost to buy all of the earrings. Therefore, a benefit can be anything if it means someone is getting something positive out of something, even if it is as simple as a happy feeling.

A key note from today's class was that prior to the industrial revolution, people simply did not improve their income as we do today. I read about this in the Economic Revolution article we had to read.

A perfect example of how most people (except for those of royal families and nobles) didn't not become wealthy in earlier times can be seen by considering the Egyptians and the pyramids they built in ancient times.

If one looked at Egypt back long ago, and saw their newly made pyramids, one would probably thing that the Egypts were wealthy, and had to be, to build such phenomenal structures.

But this is not the case at all. In fact, building those structures reflected how messed up their economy really was. All of the resources/money that was used to build those structures came from serfs who lived in the area- the serfs would be given land to tend and take care of, and then as part of the deal, the serfs would have to give up 30-40% of their income.

This practice really screwed up their economy because it prevented people lower down in society- the serfs- to grow economically since they were constantly giving up their income.

One final point that Prof. Rizzo made throughout class was extremely important- the fact that we as a society are SO much better off than ever the royalty was back long ago.

As Prof Rizzo puts it, the difference between the average joe in today's society and Bill Gates in terms of economic standing is much smaller than the average joe today and someone with a lot of money from long ago.

Consider the stories of how these renowned people from long ago suffered towards the end of their lives.

1. Isaac Newton- died of a kidney stone, a very painful death. There was no medication/treatment he could receive that could save him because during the era in which he lived, not medication/treatment existed for kidney stones.
2. Mozart- died of strep throat, a common infection today that is easily cured. The reason why he died from strep throat was because there was no Penicillin available, the drug that cures strep throat. Back then, no technology had been created to cure strep throat.
3. Queen Anne of England- gave birth to 13 still born babies, 4 other babies died by the age of 2, and 1 child died by the age of 11. All of those babies, in many instances, could have been saved in 2011 because of today's technology. Queen Anne also died in 1714 from Gout, which is a gas build-up in skin. Her body swelled up to twice her original size. Penicillin could have easily cured Gout nowadays.

So you see, even those in the upper class didn't have it so good in earlier times. A scratch, cut, or broken bone could've led to death since technology did not exist to cure those things. Even people in poverty today don't have to worry about dying from facing such terrible fates because of the medical security we have.

In short, we live much better lives nowadays than anyone in the past did, simply because we have so many more technologies that keep us alive longer and make our lives easier.

Our health has also improved over time. Consider the US life expectancy since 1750:

1750: 51

1900: 48

1950: 68

1990: 76

2010: 78.2

It was even lower before 1750, so this shows how much better, healthier, and easier lives we live in the current era.

One final point that Prof. Rizzo made that I found very interesting was his economic outlook on the impact of cars. Many people nowadays complain that cars are horrible for the environment and that it causes terrible pollution.

But, as Prof. Rizzo points out, the alternative to having cars from the past was much worse for the environment. Here's why:

Back in early days, people got around on horse. With all the horses, there was manor everywhere. On average, horses would drop 22 pounds of manor a day. Specifically, in Rochester, horses left on average 1 acre, and 175 ft high of poop a year. The problem with this is that this caused there to be a lot of flies everywhere. The flies landed on the poop, then fly around and land on peoples' food, we eat the food, and can get a number of diseases from the horse poop including dysentery.

Therefore, cars today are a lot more healthier for us than the alternative form of transportation back in the older days. Cars today are even much better than earlier cars. A car in 2011 that travels 10,000 miles causes less pollution than a parked car in the year 1970 caused.

Reading Assignment #2, Economic Revolution

A.

I found several things to be interesting in this piece, but I'd have to say that I found the development that took place for our society to turn into a market system that emphasizes person gain the most interesting.

I had absolutely no idea that societies did not run under a capitalism in the past. In fact, it was frowned upon to try to improve/better oneself by making profit off an item. Everything was about doing what was necessary to keep society running properly, not necessarily bettering it.

And that is what is key. In the Middle Ages and earlier times of society, the way people deal/guarded against breakdown of society was:

1. Handing down responsibilities/jobs from generation to generation. In other words, people knew what they had to do to survive and keep everything running properly by what past generations had done, and continuing the tradition of living/working in that certain way.
• Ex. a son follows a dad, so the son knows what to do in the future. This process repeated over and over again.
2. Oppressive rule also was another way societies stayed in order. That is, by an overseer giving orders.
• Ex. Pyramids in Egypt were created by many people, but one person (a Pharaoh) was giving the orders. Thus, this authority preserved the economic survival of that society.

As mentioned in the article, it turns out that some Eastern countries actually run in the aforementioned ways even today.

But this is how many societies now preserve against chaos/breakdown:

1. Deregulation, or in other words, not having governmental/oppressive intervention and allowing individuals to do as he/she saw fit. This is pretty much how our current society is in many regards. It is a market system, which is where each person should do what is to his/her best monetary advantage.

I just found this to be extremely interesting because of the fact that I had no idea that in prior years, and even in today in the East, it is basically frowned upon to try to better oneself. In America, we live in a society where competition is everywhere and so much of life is about making as much money as possible.

Truthfully, it sounds like it might be kind of nice, in some ways, to live a life that is not all about bettering oneself, but rather, accomplishing the needs of everyone to keep everyone content.

One other thing I found interesting was that in early civilization, an item wasn't worth something specific. In today's day and age, there is a price tag for everything. But back then, there was no set price for anything- people would trade for different things, and there was not necessarily a "standard" that had to be met to complete a trade for a certain item.

B.

1. Which societal system mentioned in the essay worked the best? Was it when tradition/custom, command, or capitalism/the desire for individual gain kept our society in order?
2. In other countries on Earth (specifically as the essay states, the Eastern World), societies are based on command and/or tradition/custom. This leads me to wonder whether or not in today's day and age of America, could a system based on tradition/custom or command be successful? Could America be kept in order if everyone wasn't striving to better his/her own life as the majority of America does today?
3. Why is it that some countries in today's world function on command and/or tradition/custom while others function on the idea that people should work towards gain and improvement? What decides/causes countries to rely on one of the aforementioned principles to keep the country in order and make sure that everything necessary is getting done?

C.

Economic Revolution is an article that delves into the development of how our market, a free market and the market system, came into being in today's world.

The article starts off by talking about very primitive civilizations, including 1305 France and 1639 Boston, both of which did not yet incorporate the idea of personal gain into its economy. The point of showing these civilizations was to exemplify how the idea of personal gain and profit is a relatively modern one. Back then, everything was about doing things to make needs met, not going above and beyond so as to thrive and prosper.

Sure, there were indeed people back then who did thrive and prosper- like royal families and the nobility- but for the general public, it was almost looked down upon to try to attain improvement in one's life monetarily. Back then, gain for gain's sake was foreign to the world. And while it is no longer  totally foreign to the world, gain for gain's sake still remains foreign in some places in the worlds, specifically in Eastern civilizations.

As the article puts it: back then, kings wanted treasure, nobility wanted land, and everyone else simply wanted to be left alone and live as their fathers before them did.

The so-called "free-for-all" or deregulation of society that led to what we now call capitalism began in the 18th century. This article gets it name from the change in society that took place during this time period. According to the article, a revolution of sorts took place to change society to a deregulated, capitalistic society.

By 1700, the world had changed, and some of the accepted changes included:

1. Every man is naturally covetous of those who live lucrative lives.

2. No laws to prevent people from achieving monetary/personal gain in life

3. Gain becomes the center of the circle of commerce

At this point, the market system was officially born. The problem of survival would no longer be solved by custom or command, but rather, by the actions of free people who were seeking one thing: profit.

Class Summary #6 for class on 9/14/11

As explained at the very beginning of class by Prof. Rizzo, today's class presented a "detailed history of how standards of living have changed over time, and what exactly that history teaches us as economists."

Prof. Rizzo showed us a detailed powerpoint presentation to teach us about this history. In the early 1,000 years of our documented history, the average individual income barely changed. In the past few years, however, individual income has really begun to increase.

Part of the reason for this increase is the influx in new technologies that have come about in our world today. But as Prof. Rizzo points out, having new technologies is not sufficient to guarantee economic growth.

A very interesting fact Prof. Rizzo shared with us was that back in the year 1500, America's gross domestic product (GDP) great at 1.2%. Our economy has really grown a lot since then, but consider this: If our GDP was still 1.2% today, the average american would have the same income as those people who live in the poorest countries in the world.

Then, Prof. Rizzo went on to answer the question of how exactly do we get rich in our society today? The answer to this is:

Here is a picture of Singapore, a country with one of the
highest GDPs of any other country in the entire world.

1. Mass production
• If someone produces more stuff, it won't impoverish other people. This shows that having more people in our population won't cause less people to get rich.
2. Trading things is imperative to get rich
• Trading things to get other things that you need/don't have is important because doing so allows one to create great things. This won't impoverish anybody either.

The only way to impoverish other people is by receiving things with out any type of benefit to the person who gives you something. For example, if one asks his/her parents for a lot of toys/items, the child is impoverishing the parents because the parents are receiving no type of benefit by giving their child a boatload of items.

Later on, Prof. Rizzo explained how there are two major events in our economic history that have affected what/how much we could produce in this world.

1. 5,000 years ago- The Agricultural Revolution. This event vastly improved our growth thanks to all we could produce.
2. Industrial Revolution of 1800

An issue that is widely considered by economists is that of our world population- 6.85 billion. In reality though, population pressure is a laughable worry and should not be a real concern despite what people might say.

Consider this: if every person in the world lived in Texas, there would be the same population density of Boston or Westchester County, which exemplifies that we have plenty of room for more people to live in the world.

Not to mention that our world GDP of 65 trillion is growing much more rapidly than the world population. In 1960, the world GDP was 13 trillion and in just 50 years, that number has increased significantly. The way things are going, that should continue to be the case.

It is also important to note that population growth is a measurement of how stable and good an economy is, because of the fact that if a population continues to thrive, then an economy must be working well to support all of those people.

Here is a picture of Ghana, a country in Africa. Clearly,
living conditions here are different than those in Singapore.

Some final important notes we discussed in class:

The difference between extensive and intensive growth is as follows:

1. Extensive growth: helping/supporting the world population and therefore, living conditions for the general/average person doesn't improve much.
2. Intensive growth- Individual/personal growth. This is the reason why we go to college, so that someday, we have a lot of intensive growth and can live affluent lifestyles.

The reason why from 1000-1800 there was not really a great income growth is because most of the new technologies developed during that time period ended up spurring extensive growth as opposed to intensive growth. The technologies, for example, went towards hosing/feeding the general public.

One final interesting fact we learned about in class was how early on in civilization, in the year 0 specifically, the financial differences between countries and its income were miniscule. By 1820, there was a bigger difference and finally, in today's day and age, the difference between the richest and poorest is a large one.

The richest countries-Australia and USA have an average-American income that is 554.7% more than the world average. Back in the year 0, one would probably not notice differences between countries in terms of how everything looks in each country. But not, if you traveled from a very wealthy country to a very poor one, you would see many differences.

And some final proof that we are getting wealthier as time goes on in America:

In 1970, 27% of people lived on a dollar or less per day. Now, that figure is at 6%. 

Also, the UA is currently 75 times richer than the poorest countries in the world. Back in 1960, that figure was 51 times and back in 1870, that figure was just 9 times.

Class Summary #5 for Class on 9/12/11

Professor Rizzo spent the majority of class reviewing last week's required reading, I, Pencil.

Prof. Rizzo explained how there we're four major points he wanted us to glean from the essay regarding the making of a pencil. The four major points, which are explained below, also correspond to any process for making something in the world:

1. Impersonality- There we're a lot of things that had to occur for the pencil in I, Pencil to be made, but I personally do not know who completed all of the steps that led to the pencil's creation. Therefore, the production of a pencil (and every other creation) is extremely impersonal because I do not know everyone/everything that played a part in making the writing utensil. 
• As Prof. Rizzo explains, there is 6.85 billion people in the world, and in result, almost everything in this world is impersonal. Because of the gargantuan amount of people alive, there is nothing we can do about this impersonality.
2. Self-Interest- More than likely, all of the people that completed the many steps necessary to make a pencil did so for their own reasons. The people almost definitely did the work they did necessary to get something they wanted, whether that be money to use on their family, to buy a house, etc.
3. Cognitive Issue- Is there any one person who knows exactly how to make a pencil on his/her own? Most likely no one knows how to do every single step necessary to make a pencil.
• Assuming one does not know how to do everything to make a pencil, is it at all pragmatic for a person to do it all by him/herself and then sell each pencil for the normal price of a pencil (let's just say a pencil costs $1.50). The answer to this is probably now because it would cost millions and millions of dollars to take care of every aspect of the production of a pencil between transportation costs, digging up necessary elements for the pencil, cutting down trees, etc. One could not make a serious profit if he/she did everything all on his/her own. This explains how people make money off a pencil- by specific people doing different steps and then selling their services to the next person in line who is prepared to take the next step in pencil making. 
4. Who gave the orders?- People from all over the world cooperate with one another to make one single pencil. People might hate each other if they worked together in person for various reasons, but nonetheless, all different people from different backgrounds cooperate with one another for a common cause. And in the end, a pencil is created from countless people putting in work, even though there is not one single overseer watching over the process. Instead of one single overseer, there are many different businesses/workers that contribute to the making of a pencil in their own individual way.

These four steps beg the question about what all of this illustrates? According to Prof. Rizzo, this all illustrates that:

1. Invisible Hand- it means that a load of people come together and cooperate to make a creation, despite the fact there are not bosses or leaders giving specific orders. Each workers' considerable small impact in the creation of a pencil leads to the compilation of all of the workers making something very important that fulfills a societal need.
2. Tacit Knowledge- litte bits of knowledge that cannot be known by anyone else except for the people who have first hand experience doing something. In short, tacit knowledge is party allowing people with specific knowledge to work without interruption from other people who may not know as well.
• Prof. Rizzo provided an example of this to me during his office hours. He told me that if the baseball field was hit by a lot of rain the night before, he might say we should practice indoors. But as a baseball player, I might say otherwise, that perhaps the field drains very well and we could indeed practice outside. Since I have experience playing baseball, I would know that. Prof. Rizzo would not, since he is a professor and not a baseball player. This idea can be translated into a market because as Prof. Rizzo explains, those with experience have an incentive to act on the knowledge they have from personal experience, knowledge that other people who are not as experienced in a certain field may not have.

Prof. Rizzo concluded class by discussing Modern Market Economies, which means:

1. producers make decisions on production depending on whether or not consumers need a certain product.

And finally, the web that keeps the process together (the four steps above) are:

• The Price System
• perfect signal of scarcity because prices, almost always, tell a person how scarce an item is
• Terms of Exchange- provide us incentive to do the right thing

Class Summary #4, 9/9/11

To begin class, Prof. Rizzo once again began with the differences between micro and macro economics. Micro is "the study of small things" and focuses on analyzing individual choices, while macro is the "study of big things" and is the study of consequences of individual choices. Macro also involves analyzing the unintended consequence of our behavior.

Prof. Rizzo's example of an unintended consequence/macro-economics/cost-benefit was one relating to obesity in America.

Prof. Rizzo talked about how the negative impact of eating unhealthy nowadays is much less than it was 50-60 years ago simply because of the fact that in today's day and age, medical technology is much improved.

If a person got a clogged artery many years ago, it would be much more difficult to fix than it is nowadays, which could explain why in the current era, there is more widespread obesity than in the past.

So basically, the cost of being unhealthy is less than it was in the past because there is less of a risk, and there is more of a benefit because there is better health-care to take care of unhealthy patients.

He used this example to explain that as an economist, it is important to consider how to make a problem better.

So, Prof. Rizzo suggested the idea that by putting a tax on soda, less people will buy soda, which in turn may help reduce obesity since soda is such a significant part of our obesity problem.

But as Prof. Rizzo points out, putting a tax on soda probably won't do anything because people will then turn to a boatload of other sugar drinks as a replacement.

As an economist, we apply these types of theories to all things. Prof. Rizzo then explained that the reason for the study of economics is:

1. To know how processes work to fix problems when they work well and to have an idea of the processes/ideas that do not work and cause more problems

Prof. Rizzo concluded class by discussing how intentions don't equal results. For example, just because we as a society care about endangered species doesn't mean that an animal will be preserved. 

This is clearly the case because animals have gone extinct over time, or continue to barely avoid extinction, despite our desire to keep certain animals alive.

EWOT Goggles Post #1

For my first "EWOT Goggles" post, I'd like to connect something we learned in class with something in my own life.

In the first week of class, Professor Rizzo spent a significant amount of time teaching us about different costs/benefits and the decisions one has to make in life.

Just about an hour ago, I had to make a significant cost/benefit decisions to best make use of my time, specifically when it came to deciding which campus dining hall I should eat at.

The only places to eat on campus for a full meal are Danforth, Douglas, and The Pit.

With this year's influx of new students, the student body has grown in number and it has shown in most of the dining halls.

Here is a picture of the always-over-crowded Danforth Dining Center.
Having to write this blog post left me with a serious economic decision
regarding whether or not it was the best decision to eat lunch there.

Danforth and Douglas are almost always so crowded that to eat a well-balanced and satisfying meal, I'd have to stay there for at least an hour while waiting in long lines to get the food I desire.

At The Pit, however, the waits are not nearly as long because eating at The Pit is not part of the meal plan and it costs extra money to eat there. The Pit also offers filling meals, but one has to pay extra money to eat there since it is not part of the meal plan.

Danforth/Douglas does have overall better food though, while The Pit is more cafeteria-like and is not as high-quality.

But as I write this, it is 12:30pm and I have to get this blog post written before 2pm because I have baseball practice and I don't want to be writing this post later tonight after practice because I will probably be very tired.

So at 11:30am, I had to get something to eat so that I had sufficient energy to perform well in practice. I had a decision to make- should I go to Danforth/Douglas or go to The Pit?

Here was the cost/benefit breakdown that I had to consider:


Douglas/Danforth- 

1. Cost: Having to wait a long time to eat a satisfying meal, thus giving up valuable time that could've been spent writing this blog post.
2. Benefit: Being able to enjoy my meal by eating the highest-quality food on campus, which could also allow me  to perform better at baseball practice because of having more energy.

The Pit:

1. Cost: Having to eat lesser quality food that I might not enjoy as much as Danforth/Douglas and, not to mention, the lower quality food might leave me with less energy for practice which might cause me to perform poorer.
2. Benefit: By going to The Pit, I'd be done my meal a lot faster and have more time to write a good blog post.

The winning dining hall was The Pit, where I was forced to eat less-quality
food, but was left with more time to work on this EWOT Goggles blog post.

After considering both options, I decided to go to The Pit because my baseball coach always tells us that school comes before baseball. On that note, I figured that I would be better off taking a risk and eating less quality food at The Pit so I could write the best blog post possible for class.

Thus, in my mind, the benefit of eating at The Pit exceeded the cost more than the Danforth/Douglas benefit exceed the Danforth/Douglas cost.

And now I am finished this blog post just in the nick of time- right before I need to head off to the field for practice. I hope I made the right decision.

Reading Assignment #1- I, Pencil

A. I found a number of parts of I, Pencil to be extremely interesting and eye-opening. For one, I never actually considered how much work goes into making what seem to be the littlest things, such as a pencil. As the essay shows, literally thousands upon thousands of people took part in creating a pencil, which is a tool that almost every single working person in today's world uses at least once a day. The article really has given me a new perspective on the value of items that seem as unimportant as a pencil.

A pencil provides a very good example of how we as human beings are
more than capable of creating very good solutions to societal problems.

But by far, the most interesting idea that I took away from the essay was whether or not we as a society may indeed be better off with as little governmental intervention as possible. The author's writing is extremely convincing in this regard.

I mean, just consider how much we as human beings have created to simplify our lives when the government has not regulated what we are and are not allowed to do. I think the best example shared in the essay was that of the email.

As our society progressed through time, simple letter sending through government mail became too slow of a process, especially when an urgent message needed to be sent to someone. People- "free people" as the essay calls them- developed an new way to send letters through E-mail, which costs a lot less in terms of how much time is being wasted sending one's message to a final address. 

The cost of sending an important letter in the past by mail was the lengthy amount of time it took for the letter to arrive at the desired destination (and not to mention, the monetary cost of buying an envelope, the paper used to write the letter and a stamp). Now, with email, communication is as seamless as people can receive emails within seconds. That takes away the cost of having to wait a lengthy amount of time to contact a person through a letter (as well as the cost of a stamp/paper/envelope). The government had absolutely nothing to do with the development of email. Email was all created by "free people".

This leads me to side with the author's point of view completely. While I do believe that some governmental regulation is important to maintain peace in our country, I truly feel that the less restrictions the government puts on us, the better. As we have seen throughout history, we as people are more than capable of responding to human need by developing our own creations- without the guidance of governing bodies.

B. 

1. The author is trying to argue that in many (if not all) instances, society is better off when government does not place restrictions on what we can and cannot do. We as human beings are more than capable of developing solutions to our own human needs- as seen by such creations as email, airplanes, etc. Is it at all possible that the author believes that we would be better off with no government at all? On that note, could we as a society live safe and productive lives without a government guiding us?
2. At one point in the essay, the author comments that oil/gas is shipped for less money than it costs to send a letter across the street with a stamp. How would not having such governmental intervention be reflected in our economy? For example, would monetary prices for items that our government plays a large part in obtaining (such as gasoline for cars) be as high as they currently are today if our government did not regulate society as much as it currently does?
3. The author mentions that we as people don't believe we can accomplish certain things that the government runs- such as delivering mail. The government takes care of our national defense as well. In today's day and age, is it in anyway viable to believe that someday, we actually could take over mail delivery, national defense, and other responsibilities from the government? If so, how would we go about doing that?

C. I, Pencil is an extremely interesting essay that explains a number of ideas relating to economics.

According to the author of I, Pencil, we as a society are more than capable
of taking care of ourselves without the over regulation of a government.

The majority of the piece explains how a pencil is not made by one single person. When you stop to think about it, there are thousands upon thousands of people who take part in the creation of a pencil. This idea can of course be related to the production of pretty much every single thing in the world no matter how big or small the item is.

Just to give an idea of exactly what I'm talking about, here are a couple of the tasks that go into the making of a pencil, as described in the essay:

-Trees taken down to use for the wood of a pencil. The tools being used to take down the trees are made by many people.

-People who cut down the trees and covert them into logs have to live in a camp on-site where the trees are being taken down, as it is a more than one day job. The camps of course have living arrangements for the workers, so consider how many people took part in building shelter for the workers. Also consider how many people we're involved with making all of the food and the electricity/water pipes in the house.

-Then there is also a countless amount of scientific elements that must be mined from the Earth's surface for the pencil to be made- such as zinc. Consider how many people had to work to find the zinc in the Earth.

-The eraser is made by something called factice, which is a product from the Dutch East Indies. Think about how many people are involved with finding factice and then shipping over the factice from the East Indies to wherever the pencil factory is. Think about how many people we're involved in making the form of transportation that is used to send over the factice.

Following the author's explanation about the creation of a pencil, he goes on to explain how man is capable of doing so many great things in the world when he is left to try on his own. 

For example, take a pencil. When a pencil was first created, there was no direction being given out by the government or some overseeing body as to how a pencil should be made. On their own, people simply figured out the best way to make some sort of writing utensil, which ended up with the development of the pencil. Email, airplanes, and many, many more tools we're created in the same way.

The author's point is that when we as a society are left to fix our own problems, we almost always figure out the best - or at least a very successful- way deal with them. We don't always need governmental intervention to fix our problems.

The author uses the example of regular mail. The government takes care of all of our mail, but is it really necessary for the government to do this?

Over time, we as humans could have adapted to the problem of not being able to communicate over long distances, and would have most likely figured out a process of how to best send letters to one another.

The end lesson the author is trying to make is that the government should remove certain societal obstacles/problems the best it can, but it should, for the most part, allow people to figure out how to make things/deal with issues on their own. The government should let human beings be free to invent and produce as they wish, because as history has proven, when the government has given humans the freedom to create new technologies, some pretty amazing tools have been produced.