Here’s an interesting documentary on the Emma Maersk, an ultra-large container ship. It’s worth 45 minutes of your time–as you watch, consider just how many people–and how many jurisdictions–are involved in what you see.

In the video, Emma Maersk is carrying over 10,000 containers of cargo. Could the captain list a complete inventory of what’s on the ship on command? I really doubt it.

Most importantly, does he have to know or really care about the people who loaded the containers, the people who made what is in the containers, and who will buy what’s in the containers once they reach their destination? No–and yet he is bid into their service by the fact that he has his own interests. He has his own family, his own goals, his own ideas about what makes for a good world, and yet markets allow him to cooperate with people around the word to mutual benefit.