Everybody Makes, Everybody Uses
Almost everyone is both a producer and a consumer. Meet a farmer and a florist and see what they make and what they use.
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What this means
Think about a farmer who grows corn. All summer, the farmer makes something. When you make something, you are a producer.
Corn is a good. You can hold it and eat it. A haircut is not a good, because you cannot hold a haircut. A haircut is a service.
Now think about the same farmer at dinner. The farmer eats bread, wears boots, and drives a truck. The farmer did not grow the wheat, sew the boots, or build the truck. When you use something up, you are a consumer.
That is the big idea. The farmer is a producer and a consumer. So is a florist, who grows and arranges flowers all day but still needs a dentist, a grocery store, and a phone. Almost every person you know is both.
Here is the part worth noticing. The farmer produces one thing, corn. But the farmer consumes hundreds of things. Nobody makes everything they use.
Why it matters
Look around the room you are in right now. Count how many different things are near you. A chair, a light, a pencil, a shirt, a floor. You made none of them. Other people produced every single one, and you are consuming them right now.
And you produce things too. If you draw a picture for your grandmother, you are a producer. If you help a neighbor carry groceries, you produced a service. Being a producer is not only for grown-ups with jobs.
Real-world example
A florist buys flowers, cuts the stems, and arranges them into a bouquet. That bouquet is a good she produced. On her way home, she stops for gas, picks up medicine at a pharmacy, and pays a mechanic to fix a noise in her van. Gas and medicine are goods she consumed. The mechanic's work is a service she consumed. She sold one kind of thing and used many kinds of things.
Try it
- Pick one worker to study. Good choices: a farmer, a florist, a baker, a bus driver, a nurse, a firefighter.
- On a sheet of paper, draw a line down the middle. Label the left side "Produces" and the right side "Consumes."
- On the left, write the one main thing that worker produces. Then decide out loud: is it a good or a service? Write G or S next to it.
- On the right, list at least six things that worker uses in a normal day but does not make. Mark each one G or S.
- Compare your two columns. Which one is longer? Say why out loud.
- Now do the same chart for yourself. What did you produce this week, even something small? What did you consume today? Mark each one G or S.
- Challenge: find one thing on your "produces" list that is a service, not a good. If you cannot find one, think about times you helped someone.
Teacher note
Two misconceptions show up almost every time. The first is that "producer" means factory worker and "consumer" means shopper, so students decide a person can only be one or the other. Fix this by making them chart the same worker in both columns, which is why step 4 comes right after step 3. The second is that services do not count as real production because nothing is left over afterward. Students will insist a nurse "does not make anything." Ask what the patient paid for, and what would happen if nobody did that work. The lopsided columns in step 5 are the whole point of this lesson and the door into the rest of Standard 3: one thing out, many things in. If a student says "the farmer's list is way longer on the consuming side," they are ready for specialization. A student has it when they can label a service they personally produced without help.
Check yourself
A florist grows and sells flowers. On the way home she pays a mechanic to fix her van. Which sentence is true?
Which one of these is a SERVICE?
Why does a farmer's list of things consumed end up much longer than the list of things produced?
Almost everyone is both a producer and a consumer, and everyone consumes far more kinds of things than they produce.