哇哦！我觉得这是我所见过的最酷创意之一：绿色的搅拌匙完美的插入超大Venti杯盖，我很享受这个物件带来的愉悦。印象中我依稀记得有过那么一次，但又不确切的记得是哪一个，但我记得：一个看似平凡的小小创新，多数人甚至根本不会在意的一个小细节，但我却认为这个小小的惊喜竟然真的使我生活变得更美好，我感谢发明它的星巴克员工。
我打算把这个小家伙带回去，作为百宝箱的又一个小收藏。这样的话，无论何时何地喝咖啡，都能拿它搅一搅。我经常出差在外，所以这样一个小勺子用来搅拌咖啡，相当方便的小道具。
我觉得，用它的好处就是方便快捷，还很环保，特别适合我这样的“多外出族”。
说到这儿你可能会问了“那又怎样？咖啡烫手，你烫不到。但你知道世上有多少可怜的遭受饥饿之苦的人吗？”其实，我是一个富有同情心的人，我当然不愿给人留下一个不太友好的印象，好像在说“关你什么事？我的咖啡很热，但我烫不到手。”
说了这么多的咖啡搅拌勺，其实真正觉得这就像一场自由灵活经济的变革。一次，当我们讨论政策或总统候选人将解决的社会问题时，还记得托马斯•索维尔曾说过的：“没有解决方案，只有权衡取舍。”一个我并不知道的人发明了一个小小的咖啡搅拌勺，就能让我感到兴奋。那比任何政客的劝解游说都有效。
此外，我们清楚的记得哈耶克和其他经济学家所强调过的“知识在社会中的运用”。该社会问题的重点在于协调选择优先和可能性。这不是三言两语能说清的，就像哈耶克和其他人所力证的那样，如果这些信息是要通过利用和相干信号的传输来完成，那么市场就是极有必要的。
星巴克小勺同样也被另一位经济学家唐纳德（Donald J. Boudreaux）称为“繁荣池”，这个提法比以往更加清楚的诠释了基本真理的突破。这是一个试验的过程，也是一个便于人们通过反复试验，最终识别真理的工具。以上道理应用到经济学进步的研究方面，同样适用。
Wow. I think this is one of the coolest things I’ve ever seen: it’s a little green plug/stir stick that fits neatly into the lid of the Venti dark roast I’m enjoying. I think I vaguely recall having seen one before, but I don’t know for certain. This I do know: a seemingly mundane little innovation that few people probably even notice has made my life appreciably better by keeping my coffee hot and by keeping it from spilling. According to the baristas who served me today, a Starbucks employee invented it.
I’m going to keep the one I just got and add it to my assortment of doodads that I take on the road so I can use it when I get coffee elsewhere. I travel a lot, and there’s a chance you’ve probably seen my bumbling figure in an airport this week. Too many times, I’ve been holding a cup of coffee and gotten bumped or otherwise jostled in such a way as to land a splash of burning hot coffee on my hand. Suffice it to say this isn’t something that improves my mood.
I got to experience this just a minute ago. I opened a door that swung back and bumped my right elbow. I was holding a full cup of coffee in my right hand and noticed that I braced myself for the coming pain that would accompany a splash of piping-hot coffee on the flesh between my thumb and index finger.
No such pain was forthcoming. The benefits of this tiny, mundane little innovation were immediate, apparent, and good for my productivity. Instead of cursing my pain and searching for a napkin with which to wipe up spilled coffee, I got to focus on more important things.
By this point, you might be thinking “So what? Your coffee is a little hotter, and you don’t burn your hands as often. Why does that matter in a world where there is still widespread starvation and suffering?” I’m sympathetic, and I certainly don’t want to give the impression that I’m dismissing real suffering or saying “what’s your problem? My coffee is hot and yet my hands are unburned.”
The little coffee plug illustrates a few important facts about innovation in a free and flexible economy. During a time when we’re debating which policy or Presidential candidate will solve Great Social Problems once and for all, we do well to remember the wisdom of Thomas Sowell: “there are no solutions, only trade-offs.” Someone I don’t know who invented a little plug for my coffee has made me appreciably better off. That’s more than can be said for just about any politician.
Further, we do well to remember what economists like Friedrich Hayek and others have emphasized about “The Use of Knowledge in Society.” The social problem is to coordinate the knowledge about preferences and possibilities dispersed across billions of minds. Such knowledge cannot be known by a single person, and as Hayek and others have argued, markets are necessary if such knowledge is to be harnessed and transmitted through coherent signals.
The Starbucks coffee plug is another drop in what the economist Donald J. Boudreaux calls “the prosperity pool,” and it illustrates a more fundamental truth about the process of capitalist innovation. It’s a process of experimentation that allows people to identify (through trial and error) an array of goods and services that make people better off. To borrow from Joseph Schumpeter, the capitalist achievement does not consist of better baubles for plutocrats. It consists of a countless array of innovations that benefit the rest of us.
