Tuesday, July 13, 2010

The Free Market Evolution of 'Chinese Food'

The amazing video below is an account by Jennifer 8 Lee of how popular Chinese Food evolved. (hat tip: Jeffrey Tucker Mises Blog)




Jennifer 8 Lee concludes with...

``So, the thing is, our historical lore because of the way we like narratives are full of vast characters, such as, you know of Howard Schultz of Starbucks, and Ray Kroc with McDonalds and ASA Chandler with Coca-Cola. But you know, it’s very easy to overlook the smaller character-oops- for example like Lem Sen, who introduced chop suey, Chef Peng, who introduced General Tso Chicken, and all the Japanese Bakers, who introduced fortune cookies. So the point of my presentation is to make you think twice, that those whose names are forgotten in history can often have had as much, if not more impact on what we eat today."

Here is Friedrich von Hayek on spontaneous order...

``Many of the greatest things man has achieved are not the result of consciously directed thought, and still less the product of a deliberately coordinated effort of many individuals, but of a process in which the individual plays a part which he can never fully understand."

Unfortunately as Jennifer 8 Lee laments, such wonderful accomplishments has hardly been appreciated.


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