“I, Pencil” is a persuasive essay composed as a dramatic monologue in the voice of a lead pencil. Read published the essay in a specialized libertarian magazine, indicating that his intended audiences were economists, people educated in economics, and principally, the fellow conservatives who subscribed to The Freeman. In other words, Read is largely “preaching to the choir,” and the essay’s style is similar to that of a religious sermon or testimonial. Read was a devout Protestant, and his religious beliefs influenced his embrace of libertarian thought. Even the title—“I, Pencil”—is reminiscent of the Protestant theologian Martin Buber’s famous book I and Thou (1923). Read uses the pencil’s genealogical story as an allegory to thematically explore The Advantages of Dispersed Knowledge and The Value of Freedom.

Arguing on behalf of Adam Smith’s economic theory of the “invisible hand,” the essay is written from the first-person perspective of a pencil, which describes the intricacy of its own creation.