The Record Weekly
Wednesday, April 8, 2009
A Student Publication of the Saint Louis Priory School
Volume 3, Issue 20
Inside This Issue P1. Cover • Pretense of Knowledge • A Little Help? P2. Page 2 of the Weekly • The Knowing • First Entry • Top 10 Movies • Top 10 GNR Songs P3. The Weekly Update •Calendar of Events •Rebel Rock •Record Online P4. Priory Sports Weekly •Frisbee •Cardinals’ season opens • Priory Baseball underway •MLB power rankings P5. The Forum •First entry Cont. •the Record goes online • Odd News P6. Puzzles Weekly •Crossword Puzzle •Stucco Announcement •Sudoku (hard) •Cryptogram
The Record Editors The Record Moderator: Mrs. Barbara Sams The Record Editors: Jim Havel Charlie Freidman Assistant Editors: Sean Lamb Patrick Mulvihill Layout Editor: Chad Huber
Pretense of Knowledge ~ Marlow Gazzoli, ’09 A worthwhile read is the speech F.A. Hayek gave when he received the Nobel Prize for Economics. Entitled “The Pretense of Knowledge,” it is a nice and tasty critique of central economic planning. The basis for government intervention into the economy is the assumption that those who run the government possess the knowledge to do so. I am a good deal more cynical than the common man, but even he will recognize that government is usually not run by the best and brightest. O u r friends on the Left believe that government cannot and should not meddle in our personal affairs. However, this same government which should be kept away from personal liberty issues at all costs is invited to manage and run the economy. This is the same sort of contradiction our friends on the Right have been spouting for the past eight years. The same federal government which is utterly incompetent in managing internal affairs is expected to wipe all tyranny away from foreign lands. The market works in a rather mysterious way. Adam Smith wrote of the “invisible hand.” Somehow everything works. Products are manufactured in the most efficient ways possible; commodities are distributed as needed
Little Help? When the school day is over for us it just begins for an often overlooked and underappreciated part of the Priory family, the janitors. Dictionary.com defines janitor as one employed as a janitor. Huh? They quickly and efficiently prepare the school for our arrival the next day with stealth precision. This is not easy considering how we leave the school building each day. If you are ever in the high school after everyone has left for the day, take a good look around, and you will notice that we take for granted the work that is done after we have left.
throughout the economy. Man prospers, and his quality of life rises. For example, consider the great advances brought about during the Industrial Revolution. Our economy is so complex, it boggles the mind. Just consider a simple No.2 pencil. Trees have to be cut down and turned into lumber; rubber plants have to be processed; ore has to be dug out of the ground and smelted. All these have to be gathered and assembled into pencils, and don’t forget the graphite either. But what is the best lumber, the best rubber, the best way of manufacturing a pencil? Through the interaction of many individuals in the market, all this information is relayed through the price system. Indeed, the market is some sort of conglomeration of man’s intelligences. Yet when the government arrogates to itself control of the market, what happens to this intelligence? In the absence of a free market, there can be no rational determination of prices through profit-loss calculation. What you have is some bureaucrat sitting in a high tower à la the film Brazil deciding what is the best way to make a pencil. This is the pretense of knowledge, that those governing us believe themselves to have the know-how to run and manage a complex economy. This is not the road to prosperity; it is the road to poverty. Just consider the utter destitution of Eastern Europe under the fist of Soviet Communism. If we want prosperity, we must prevent the government from destroying the natural order of the market.
~ Jacob Mohrman, ’12 To give you some idea what I am talking about, stop by the lost and found. As a semi-regular contributor, I am always amazed at how much we regularly leave lying around. By the way, who’s the one smart enough to survive the term in Physics without their textbook? You may think it’s the janitors’ job to clean up after us but it is a thankless job so let’s pitch in and pick up after ourselves and make their life a little easier. Let’s show some respect and appreciation for these important members of our community.