Milton Friedman was one smart guy. He won a Nobel Prize in Economics. He really knew his stuff.
I could understand Capitalism and Freedom and Free to Choose. But his other books were pretty much beyond me. Economic equations or just about any business equation makes my eyes glass over.
But if you guys wanna understand where Republicans are coming from, you should read either book. Free to Choose or Capitalism and Freedom. Free to Choose is an easier read.
...followed his advice aggravated some of our more serious social ills thereby. Friedman was a single-minded (tho' not simnple-minded) free-market advocate who almost literally believed in the market as Invisible Guiding Hand.
On the other hand, he made at least one very significant contribution. His economic advice was indirectly responsible for the abolition of the military draft.
You're right, Geezer, he was a smart guy, no matter that I didn't agree with him most of the time. RIP, Milt.
anybody grossly oblivious to major issues. I could not call anybody smart who had any of those seriously Rainman qualities.
Eg, I've seen plenty of MDs too scared to death of motorcycles to even get near one. That's a serious emotional disability.
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It works in the same way a ouiji board works-- with an invisible hand. All the profiteers put your hand on the market planchette, and the invisible hand will spell out the truth.
Yeah right. I think I'll stick with the goat bladders.
hero of the stupid.
Geezer, let the dead RIP. Don't saddle the late Dr. Friedman with the onus of the Repubs.
Free To Choose is where the GOP is coming from? Well, what do you think about :
Free To Pander
Free to Prevaricate
Free To Engae In Reckless And Irresponsible Tax Cuts
Free To Gull The Social Conservatives
Free To Exploit Both Sides Of Illegal Immigation
Free to Tremble And Cower Before The NeoCons
Free To Drag The US Into Endless And Open-Ended War
Free To...
Yes, the giants pass every day. But the pygmies who seek to claim their mantle and to act under their inspiration are with us always.
What's unique about you guys is that you both come across as believing in what you write- and where there's passion as opposed to contempt/cynicism, there's hope.
So, this Milton Friedman quote is for you guys.
In the 1920's and the 1930's, intellectuals in the United States were overwhelmingly persuaded that capitalism was a defective system inhibiting economic well-being and thereby freedom, and that the hope for the future lay in a greater measure of deliberate control by political authorities over economic affairs. The conversion of the intellectural was not achieved by the example of any actual collectivist society, though it undoubtedly was much hastened by the establishmehnt of a communist society in Russia and the glowing hopes placed in it. The conversion of the intellectuals was achieved by a comparison between the existing state of affairs, with all its injustices and defects, and a hypothetical state of affairs as it might be. The actual was compared to the ideal.
This is the 1st paragraph in chapter XIII of Milton Friedman's Capitalism and Freedom-- written in 1962.
don't be an intellectual, ie don't value thinking. If God meant you to think, he wouldn't have given you an ass - right Geezer?
He too compared the actual to the ideal he had created, and compared it quite moralistically, I will add.
Don't get me wrong, Geezer, markets and trade are extremely important, and should be kept as free as we can without causing disasters.
Nevertheless, if all you needed to create freedom and happiness everywhere was have unregulated markets, human beings would have have established utopia in 2500 B.C. It would have been like making fire. We wouldn't need economists to point it out now in this day and age.
Markets can never be free of politics, Geezer. Because in real life, even in a "free" market, one will trade with one's cousin first, and cut him breaks on price. That's politics, Geezer; in that simple example it's done along family lines. It's only one example that I could make.
Politics are built into human nature more than trade is. That means you can't run an economies isolated from governments. I mean can't be done any more than you can change the direction of gravity. Period.
If you don't have regulation, it only means that somebody with government power will step into the market freelance and use his government power to leverage his place in the market-- in other words, regulate in his favor. The perfect example of that would be Jack Abramoff. In Russia, they have tons of examples. So, if you don't formally "regulate" it will be regulated informally by somebody who has power, whether economic or government or both. That has been well demonstrated under Reagan, Bush 1, and Bush 2.
As good as I thought Friedman was, his reasoning had a blind spot. It was a variation on the "fall from grace." He takes this simple principle, and the only reason why it never works is because of evil or dumb people-- who he never actually includes in the model and never analyzes or his ideal would immediately fall apart.
It's not pretty when moralism hits social science.
what you do is, watch them, and prey on them.
Yeah, and when you stop to consider how widespread, diverse, active and fruitful the evil and the dumb are, it's amazing that Friedman didn't factor them in.
[Well actually, it's understandable, as the ywould make hash out of his theorizing].
He fails a basic test -- he doesn't test his theory against reality to see if it is borne out. Bad theorist, bad theorist.
Well, the Austrain economist Freidrich Hayek [no relation to the knockout bauty Salma Hayak] beat him to this point by several decades with his book "The Road To Serfdom" [fellow Austrain Joseph Schumpeter also had a few, less alarming,observations on the topic].
But no mater, I've linked a few thing from The NY Sun re his passing. [The photo accompanying the sun editorial maked Dr. Friedman look a lot like Mel Brooks, but no matter].
http://www.nysun.com/article/43705
gov. regulations, rules and laws to try to make big guys and little guys play by the rules. He directly addresses your points. Go for it. Read Capitalism and Freedom.
XL1, thanks for linking that artical.
...but I'll add that only occasionally did Friedman remind me of that.
Like reading Nietzsche-- every other line is genius but in between those are the statements of a madman.
RIP Friedman: the Karl Marx of conservatism.
Out of sheer perverse curiosity, what was that person's name?
Is it safe to assume it was the Nobel Prize in Medicine?
And what year?
It seems to me more that Friedman was "adopted" by the conservos, not that he was a conservative himself except to the extent that his free markets/small gov't thinking ran parrellel to theirs.
But I really did like the "Karl Marx of conservatism line." Nicely original.
He was awarded it in 1949. The only man ever to receive a Nobel prize for psychiatric medicine.
http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/medicine/articles/moniz/index.html
There's another link at the bottom.
All you had to do was Google, you know.
Yeah, but i'n lazy.
and my equipment is so bloody slow and antiquated and moves at such a slow speed...
I see the nobel commitee must have realized it's mistake quickly enough. Which leads me to a thought. Why does it happen in medicine that inovations thought to be socially beneficial often turn out quite the opposite over time? another example -- eugenics.
BS, you get BS. Garbage in, garbage out.
Look at the DSM clinical diagnostic standards. These diagnoses are sold as diseases, despite the lack of ANY independent organic markers.
What they are, is maladjustments. The first step to dealing with them is weaning ourselves from the bullshit idea that we know what we are doing, which seems to have been largely created by the privatization of drug research by Reagan.