Walter Williams on the Incredible Value of Consumer Surplus

Consumer surplus is the economic term for the value that is created by an enterprise that is neither captured by the business or its distribution partners but instead falls to the benefit of the end consumer.  Walter Williams eloquently explains just how freaking big this consumer value can be:

Henry Ford benefited immensely from mass-producing automobiles, but the benefit for the common man from being able to buy a car dwarfs anything Ford received.  Individuals and companies that produced penicillin and polio and typhoid vaccines may have become very wealthy, but again it was the common man who was the major beneficiary.  In more recent times, computers and software products have benefited our health, safety, and quality of life in ways that far outstrip whatever wealth was received by their creators.