Reason: Complexity Without Conspiracy: Politics Harder to Produce Than a Pencil (In the News)

By Luke Wachob

By the time Read goes through the shipping and millwork of the wood, the metal end of the pencil, the graphite core, and the eraser, millions of people all around the globe are involved in the creation of just one pencil. This is incredible, and not just because it’s astounding that an object as simple as a pencil requires labor and resources from millions of people all over the planet. Even more impressive is that all of this activity is coordinated to useful ends without anyone being in charge. We don’t have to fret over shortages or surpluses even though no one is responsible for ensuring the right quantity is produced.

The point Read illustrates – that production is a complicated, decentralized, and global process – is one many activists and reporters apparently haven’t learned, judging from this year’s trend of articles “exposing” groups working together towards common policy goals. See, for example, “Inside the Vast Liberal Conspiracy” at Politico, “A National Strategy Funds State Political Monopolies” in the New York Times, or “Koch-backed political network, built to shield donors, raised $400 million in 2012 elections” in the Washington Post, all of which present cooperation between groups and their contributors as evidence of elaborate conspiracies masterminded by shadowy megadonors like the Koch brothers (David Koch sits on the Board of the Reason Foundation) on the Right and George Soros on the Left.

If only these reporters read “I, Pencil,” they would understand that high levels of coordination are possible without a conspiracy. Instead, they fall in the trap of “following the money,” without considering the context. A list of contributors is easy to find, but if all you do to understand an organization is identify the richest donor in the room, you won’t understand much at all. Advocacy groups and the relationships between them develop through countless, repeated interactions of people with varying interests, abilities, resources, and priorities. The grey reality of political relationships can’t be mapped onto the black-and-white, paper-thin (or thick, as it may be) world of campaign finance disclosure.

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