Shopping ’Til We Drop

The global supply chain digs shale from from the hostile terrain of northern Alberta, refines it, ships it halfway around the world and back again, and in the process turns it into thousands of distinct consumer items, from dollar store plastic sharks to laptop computers.

Some see this continual transformation of the world’s raw materials into things that consumers can use as a Hayekian cornucopia. It is the culmination of the free market system: the self-organized coordination of the work of millions of individuals, dancers in the most complex ballet every choreographed. It has brought goods previously reserved for the rich into the lives of people throughout North America and Europe; it is the greatest anti-poverty program in the history of the world, lifting hundreds of millions of people in emerging economies, especially in China, out of the grinding desperation of rural life.

Others see something more sinister at work. Faced with seemingly impossible...