Bylund begins the chapter by alluding to his previous examples of all the interworking parts that make up the exchanging of goods and says production is much the same. I like his example of the entrepreneur being the one who takes on the "uncertainty" (Bylund, 2016, pg. 29) which is a big enough deterrent for most people to seek a steady income which makes me think of all of my entrepreneurial years because I have never had an actual job. I started umpiring when I was 15 and did that up until I started going to OSU in 2016 when I discovered a huge gap in the marijuana market and on my best week made $30,000, but ran into trouble with the law hence the "uncertainty" of the endeavor, but I learned so much about business and people because I saw so many different types and would spend a decent amount of time around a lot of them too. After my run in with the law I was suspended from Ok state for a year and started my landscaping business which is what I have been running till today which has had it's fair share of uncertainty with struggling winters and trying to figure out how to deal with and manage people. The reason why I share this is because I feel like that is the number one quality of the entrepreneur and that is the openness and accepting the fact that there will be tougher times then having a normal job, but there are opportunities to have so much more fulfillment and rewards for the one willing to bear the risk, and I've never had a problem with doing that.
"We've looked specifically at production, which is core to any economy, because production simply refers to how society's scarce resources are used." (Bylund, 2016, pg. 44)
After that opening, he goes more into the details of production referencing the apple farm and using examples of how there had to be forethought to plant the seeds and fertilize the plants. I know apple trees take years before they even produce an apple that's edible and fruit trees must be treated every year and take much more water than a normal tree. The land she grows the trees goes into the price, but a lot of it still just depends on the demand from the consumer and what they are willing to pay. Although, that is truly the conundrum of the entrepreneur is finding the right opportunity at the right time to use their time and resources on which is a hard decision which involves a little luck and a lot of consistency and persistence.
"It is a dispute as to whether planning is to be done centrally, by one authority for the whole economic system, or is to be divided among individuals." (Hayek, 1945, pg. 520-521)
Which I think is something you can't just generalize the planning for the whole economy to one person because like we've discussed in the previous readings the economy is a moving, ever-changing thing that has so many compartments and different aspects so that is how you must handle it, by compartmentalization. How Ok State runs it's different facilities for example, each department for OSU has it's separate manager and they don't run together. They might work together, but each group performs specific tasks on campus or teaches specific material. You could never have one person delegating every single thing that goes on at Ok State. You can have a President that makes tough decisions and takes the blame when things go bad, but OSU has to be ran compartmentalized or it wouldn't work because there are too many moving parts.
"The unavoidable imperfection of man's knowledge and the consequent need for a process by which knowledge is constantly communicated and acquired." (Hayek, 1945, pg. 530)
Hayek was talking about the internet 50 years before it happened. This is what the internet and cellphones brought into the world which have spoiled us, but also made us revolutionize every way we live. I disagree with him when he said it doesn't deal with the social process because as time has unfolded it seemed that they are directly related because our innovation started with our incessant need to communicate which lead to cell phones then computers came and then the rest is history as they would say, but I do think that our incessant need to have information readily available derives from us always having the option to contact one another. It's funny but I do relate to Hayek's reading than Bylund because I feel like Bylund is trying to wrap a lasso around the moon and Hayek is trying to understand the human condition which I feel like every human at some point has to ponder, but the economy is a complex machine with many moving parts just like human, and about as predictable. I am cynical when it comes to systems though because I feel like even if it works for a certain period of time with the right leaders there will always be more bad leaders because I feel like the bad leaders care about leading more because good leaders lead by example and don't necessarily care about being a leader for everyone.
Sources:
Bylund, P. L. (2016). Chapter 3: What Prices Communicate. In Seen, the unseen, and the unrealized: How regulations affect our everyday lives (pp. 27–45). essay, Lexington Books.
Hayek, F. A. (1945). The Use of Knowledge in Society. American Economic Review, 35(4), 519-30.
