Decentralized markets and free choices make Thanksgiving possible. Central planning promises food security, but capitalism delivers it.

Thanksgiving draws people, regardless of race or creed, together around a table heavy with food and laughter. At its center sits a golden turkey, but it’s the sides (mashed potatoes, green beans, stuffing, and gravy) that spark the most excitement. American football murmurs from the television as plates and hands cross the table, passing dishes with the casual choreography of family life.

This is, in spirit, the very scene Frédéric Bastiat once imagined when he marveled at how Paris was fed each morning. “It staggers the imagination,” he wrote, “to comprehend the vast multiplicity of objects that must pass through its gates tomorrow… And yet all are sleeping peacefully at this moment.” No single mind coordinates the miracle and yet, it happens.

Thanksgiving is the modern version of Bastiat’s wonder. What we see is the feast itself: Mom and Nana pulling the turkey from the oven. The Department of Agriculture reports that roughly 46 million turkeys, about the population of Spain, are eaten every Thanksgiving. The extended family that arrives hours before the meal is ready is joined by 1.6 million people who travel on Thanksgiving. Dad and his child switch between American football and the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade, joining the more than 100 million viewers who tune in each year, coordinated across satellites, networks, advertisers, and camera crews, so that the same spectacle can play out in millions of living rooms at once.

...read more at thedailyeconomy.org