WARREN: Milton Friedman, I think it was, used to talk about the time—probably apocryphal—he would talk about the huge construction project in some communist country and they had thousands and thousands and thousands of workers out there with shovels digging away on this major project. And then they had a few of these big earth moving machines behind which were idle and which could have done the work in one-twentieth of the time of the workers.
So the economists suggested to the local party worker—whoever it was—that why in the world didn't they use these machines to get the job done in one-tenth or one-twentieth of the time instead of having all these workers out there with shovels and the guy replied, "Well, yeah, but that would put the workers out of work," and Friedman said, "Well then why don’t you give them spoons to do it instead?"
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