The American Spectator

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Turkey Frying and Capitalism

By Philip Klein on 11.22.06 @ 10:35AM

Tomorrow my family will be frying our turkey for the fourth year in a row-and our experiences over the years serve as important lesson on the beauties of capitalism. The first year we fried the turkey, everything went smoothly-until we were confronted with the task of pouring several gallons of used peanut oil from the huge turkey frying pot into the narrow opening of the plastic oil container. My brother and I tried to be as steady as we could, but it didn't prevent us from spilling oil onto his grass (to this day there's still a section of the lawn that doesn't grow properly). The following year, not wanting to do any further damage to the lawn, we decided to make the cement patio our base of operations-however, when we spilled the oil again, it required a hose and a ton of detergent to clean it up. Last year, however, my brother discovered that someone had invented a turkey frying oil pump for the express purpose of sucking peanut oil from a turkey frying pot and cleanly transferring it through a tube back into the oil container. I could not think of a more perfect demonstration of the brilliance of the market system to match supply with demand. You cannot imagine a government planner in a Soviet-style command economy saying, "You know what, we really could use a turkey frying oil pump." God bless capitalism! And a Happy Thanksgiving to all!

topics:
Law, Oil