Mike Benz is confused about where pencils come from, and much more.

(and it's Leonard Read, not Milton Friedman!)

I have no idea where Mike Benz came from, but he’s sure been vocal these last few years — and very effective in some very good ways.

I first noticed him railing against the government’s censorship crusade during Covid. Then he became really useful pointing out how the Deep State functions, pulling aside the curtain and showing how the gears of the machine actually operate.

He’s a big reason why these crooked organizations like the National Endowment for Democracy (NED) and the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) (and many others) have been exposed for the CIA regime-change cutouts they are.

I mean, it’s not like this wasn’t already known to people who are paying attention. These “non-governmental organizations” (hardy-har-har) have been openly bragging for decades about the parts they play in helping the CIA and the State Department overthrow foreign governments who won’t do the bidding of the American Empire.

I was reading all about them in Scott Horton’s new book Provoked as Elon Musk and his Department Of Government Efficiency (DOGE) started tearing USAID apart recently. But Benz is a big reason why all this bubbled up to the mainstream and got the attention of people like Musk and Trump.

Benz has been on a number of big podcasts, including Joe Rogan’s and Tucker Carlson’s, and it’s a recent appearance on Tucker that I want to talk about.

Tucker was asking Benz how he feels now that all his hard work is showing some fruit. Our corrupt CIA and it’s Constitution-evading cutouts are now exposed and we might actually be able to get rid of them all. “Well done, Mike! How do you feel about it?”

Benz was torn. According to him, on the one hand, the system does evil things and needs massive reforms. But on the other, he says he’s a “big fan of American ‘soft power’” because of all the benefits he gets as an American from it.

He then several times asserts (without showing any argument or evidence) that it is only because of the existence of the semi-covert American Empire and it’s CIA cutout organizations that we Americans enjoy inexpensive goods and have food on the table and have access to cheap energy.

I almost fell out of my chair when I heard that.

How can a man who sees past all the lies of the regime and how all its evil machinations work, still fall for the most basic lie the regime tells?

“I may be evil, but I’m indispensable!”

Benz doesn’t make an argument to support this tragic claim, but he does mangle an analogy. He references Leonard Read’s classic essay, “I Pencil” — Benz misattributes it to Milton Friedman — and says that we consumers have no idea all the things (and here he means CIA machinations) that go on behind the scenes so that goods and services can be provided to us. Nobody knows. It’s just too complicated.

Hearing this part, I did fall out of my chair.

I linked to Read’s “I Pencil” above. It’s short. You should read it. The thesis is that a simple pencil (who can speak, somehow) brags that no one person in the whole world knows how to make a pencil.

As Benz (distortedly) points out, the production process, taking everything into consideration, is far too long and involved and complex, and uses far too many people, spread out all over the world, for one person to comprehend.

There are complicated mining processes for the graphite production, logging processes for the wood. Who even knows where the rubbery eraser thing comes from? And don’t forget that little metal thingy holding the eraser on!

Each of these simple, small “ingredients” involves massively long chains of production to make — at least the way we do so in the modern world.

Don’t forget, you’ll have to explain how the trucks were created to carry the wood from the forest, and the graphite from the mines. And the ships who carried the rubber from one continent to another to be assembled with the other elements into a simple pencil.

Don’t forget the internal combustion engine. Gotta explain that, too if you want to explain how a pencil is made. And whatever machinery makes roads. And how did the factory get there?

The more you comprehend the massive interconnection of people and places and processes and inventions and capital that all have to work seamlessly together to create a pencil (and any other good we enjoy), one wonders how it all happens.

After all, there is no “pencil czar” barking orders to all these people to make it happen. And yet it does.

That’s the beauty of free (even semi-free) markets. Prices create incentives that allow for a bottom-up natural coordination of all these things such that supply meets demand — and at the lowest price possible, due to competitive pressures.

It’s beautiful. It’s almost magical. It’s truly glorious.

But Mike Benz doesn’t understand that. He not only forgot who the author was (Read, not Friedman), but he misunderstands the whole point of the essay. Benz thinks he does know how a pencil is made, at least in part. The CIA does it.

Benz has swallowed that “indispensable” lie that all regimes tell. Why, if not for the CIA’s regime change operations, we wouldn’t be able to buy rubber from wherever-the-heck rubber comes from. Or oil! Heck, without the CIA, oil producers would drink the stuff rather than sell it to us. And isn’t it great that we use “soft power” now rather than gunboat diplomacy! Yay!

Benz literally has been hypnotized into thinking that it’s government force that is the reason commerce exists. That without it, we would be poorer. He is confusing or conflating or forgetting about a whole bunch of things, including:

• All these CIA programs cost money (lots of it) that comes from taxpayers.

• The blowback from these programs is very costly. See 9/11/2001 et al.

• The “interests” of some politically connected company or Public Choice incentivized politician are not remotely the same as the interests of the American people. Every time you hear a pundit or politician talk about “American interests”, they are lying to you and hoping you will accept the bait-and-switch.

• People all over the world want to trade with us. They get richer when they do. Our government need not be involved in the slightest. What does need government involvement is for one particular crook to get a particular kind of deal in some country. Consumer’s don’t care about this. Cronies do.

It surprises me a little bit that Benz swallowed such a big lie and hasn’t shaken it. I would have figured that a guy who sees the complicated inner workings of so much government corruption wouldn’t accept the government’s central myth. That shocked me.

But what caused me to write about it was him completely screwing up the deep wisdom in “I, Pencil”. That, I cannot let stand without comment.

To his credit, Carlson pushed back on some of Benz’s assertions, saying that the short-term stock price of specific politically connected American corporations isn’t a perfect substitute for “American interests”, but Benz didn’t quite get the point.

If Mike Benz ever ends up reading this, I hope he knows I greatly appreciate what he’s done exposing the various elements of the Deep State. Kudos, sir! I also hope he spits out that awful Deep State lie he’s swallowed.

Naturally,

Adam