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by Joe Pulcinella
Lew Rockwell delivered this eloquent speech to The Mises Institute for their seminar series, "The Economics of Fascism."
One trucker picked up ice in Greenville, Pennsylvania, and was told to drive it to Carthage, Missouri. But when he arrived in Carthage, he was told by a FEMA official to go to Montgomery, Alabama. After a day and a half sitting in Montgomery, he was told to go to Camp Shelby, Mississippi, after which he was sent to Selma, Alabama, after which he was sent to Emporia, Virginia, where he stayed for a week burning fuel, until he was sent to North Carolina, and finally to Fremont, Nebraska, where he dropped the ice in a government storage unit. That’s 4,000 miles over a period of two weeks.
And the ice never did fulfill its intended purpose. And that's just one story. To listen to or read this speech is to get a primer on the true failure of any Soviet-style distribution scheme. This same model can be applied to any government screwup from disaster relief (or lack thereof) to shortages of flack jackets and armor for troops fighting for the Empire around the world.
Meanwhile, compare this exercise in futility to The Banana Journey: a story of the free market and how fragile, easily-spoiled bananas seem to appear spontaneously on store shelves in every corner of the globe for a ridiculously low price and yet benefit everyone from the richest to the poorest.