I beg to disagree.. it's Social and Economic engineering.. care of the banksters, aka banking cartel, aka Federal Reserve that owns mega Corporations that owns the American politicians and the military, law enforcement, and the judiciary.
Well almost exactly, America has only become more capitalist since this was recorded. The real problem for both socialism and true capitalism is big business that control huge swaths of markets undermine human values and real capitalistic innovation
You're right. I was an Econ major 50+ years ago, and the professors considered him anathema. Their heroes were Keynes, Galbraith, and Samuelson. Turns out Friedman was correct all along.
Absolutely love Milton. I think the most important thing he said is that we need to communicate this info to those that are unaware. Don't yell at people to wake up or tell them how stupid they are but instead talk to them and provide insight.
The reason people let others take control of their lives is because of the fear they feel about their ability to do for themselves. Insecurity is the driving force behind the surrender of freedom.
Young impressionable minds are interested in Socialism/ Communism because Socialists/Communists understand that young impressionable minds are who they need to sell their ideas to.
He said most people want less government. I live in Canada, and although some people want less government, people have been indoctrinated so much to love the government and to see it as a benevolent force in society that a lot of people actually campaign for more government, even in general!
That why Freedom Of Speech is so so so important to clear out ignorance 🇺🇸 Don’t not let government or big companies restrict Freedom Of Speech. Need to take away protection for companies that restrict freedom of speech.
Thank You !!! FTCN is a marvelous Idea for a channel !! Glad I stumbled here !! I'll be Tweeting /// Emailing and spreading the word on this ... So many today have no idea about this stuff .. Consider me an ardent supporter ... Godspeed !!
People want free stuff & a government that will wipe their backsides. & that's all there is to it, it's the path of least resistance, little knowing or caring where that path leads.
@KayamaTakeru It's available at freetochooseDOTnetSLASHstore, but choice clips are being released on their UA-cam channel (from these as well as other FTCN clips) each week.
@Lunarisx718 I agree completely 100%, but we have to keep in mind even though he is no longer with us.. if a group of enough intelligent individuals can get together and scheme ideas together, a huge movement could begin...
Not according to: "Milton Friedman's Second Thoughts on the Costs of Paper Money" He basically reject the Fed Reserve and promoted the Gold Standard for a free market economy.
He is a pragmatist, he tried to make the best of a bad situation. In his days, the fed reserve wasn't going to go away. He has always been critical of govt control and its affiliates.
Its just because of the recent recession. the business cycle is demonstrating that we are bouncing back slowly. In time things will get better but not right now
Seriously, people need to read some books before we argue against classical liberalist positions such as the ones defended by Friedman. That's all he's really getting at. The sort of common-sense knowledge people take as so intuitively correct often blind us from the counter-intuitive answers that a rigorous science provides.
@cevansroxy The term "Democracy" has over time developed a unique meaning in American usage. Rather than rule by the majority it has come to mean rule by the individual. it is not used here in the sense that the the Ancient Greeks would have understood it.
My advice would be to try to talk about your ideas with people. although it can be difficult trying to discuss ideas with socialists,they generally just end up calling you a racist,anarchist,or any other "ist" label theyll stick on you.take our provincial election a few weeks back, we gave a landslide majority to a "conservative" party while the party advocating freedom and responsibility was trashed mercilessly by the public.go for it though,spread your small govt ideals,ill be rooting for you
You are sort of right and mostly wrong. He felt that the people in charge of the fed near the end of his life were keeping a good balance, but he felt that the fed as an institution was doomed to fail sooner or later and more so at the end of his life felt it should eventually be removed. In his personal opinion he preferred the abolition the fed and return to a gold standard, but he felt too many forces worked against and wouldn't likely become a reality any time soon.
I agree with you. in canada we no longer have a small government party, and the populous itself is moving towards a general want for bigger government. even in alberta our "conservative" party is exceedingly liberal, takes huge salaries and is constantly destroying public schools and hospitals. and they just won a landslide majority. i will never understand this.
The question isn't like "why did the grass get too tall?" The question is more like "why do we allow tyrants?" "Why are there assholes that think they can control people and not expect negative personal consequences?"
Good question! I've heard the libertarians talk of the era from the mid 1700s to the late 1800s [Industrial revolution] as having had much less regulation! Not surpisingly, Marxian thought started becoming prominent as a reaction to what he considered as the 'inevitatable excesses of capitalism' it in the 1850s.
What really? Because so far as I know towards the end of his life, Milton Friedman was praising the Federal Reserve saying that they'd found just the right equation to keep everything balanced.
Well if you search youtube for "Milton Friedman abolish fed" you'll see that at the end of his life he advocated for getting rid of the Federal Reserve
It seems that the last question is the easiest to answer. They have no power to stop it. The politicians don't tell you whether they are anti-freedom. Everyone who cares about voting always seems to think their guy is pro-freedom and the other side is anti-freedom, but very few politicians actually are pro-freedom in practice. They are incentivised to pretend to be pro-freedom but act in ways that are anti-freedom (most probably even believe themselves to be pro-freedom despite their actions). And even if you could wade through the bullshit to find which ones are pro-freedom, you'd have a lottery ticket's chance to actually affect the outcome. So why does the government bend ever so slightly but consistently toward totalitarianism? What have you done to stop it? Oh you talked about it... Hows that working out? Oh you voted... for someone who said they were pro-freedom who either didn't get elected or when he did get elected decided it was necessary for the public good to reduce freedom. I'm not saying its impossible to change the government. I'm saying its so near impossible to change it in the direction of public good that it might as well be impossible unless you somehow get nearly unanimous agreement on what that is and that it is important.
As the population itself leans towards immorality, they tend to elect immoral politicians since the politicians mirror the electorate in thought, word and deed. The Constitution then becomes a nuisance in high places.
newjerseybt There is nothing quite so tedious as thinking the political spectrum is based off morality. Is it moral to decide to feed and clothe the poor with government force or moral to let people keep their earnings? Is it moral to ban sinful acts like prostitution or moral to let free people behave as they wish? The spectrum I see is those that want freedom to those that want to fix things by government fiat. I can find an easy alliance with a corrupt, but lazy politician. I could never do so with a moral crusader. A politician who just wants to skim a bit off the top never does as much harm as a politician who wants to cure the world of its ills. If you are right on morality and voting, then I find myself rooting for the devil.
"Socialist, like all other monopolists, desire to make the law their own weapon. And when once the law is on the side of socialism, how can it be used against socialism?" - Frederic Bastiat - The Law
42 years later and these words have not been heeded. Trump made a start but never made cuts and still added to the debt, trump did at least get a conversation started
What if there simply WASN'T a government? What if for anything you might want, as an individual or as a group, you had to just cooperate with others in order to achieve it? Voluntary interaction for mutually beneficial goals. No more. No less. ( I know, right?!? What a crazy idea.)
We had gone into demanding government over work over extent I to becoming the Soviet Union of the west. Also need more enduring many more challenge because the thousand years build up in solid structure of mind, and concrete, steel, and not enough time to contemplate why are we here just work and die for other inherit and destroy what we build. Would we like to live longer seeing tears in children's eyes this way ? I have answer for self but not force other to agree.we can not determine the outcome but the choice is our to be our decision that made us who we are
I know, Milton Friedman preferred the fed to be abolished. He described his policy as a compromise (big mistake), saying that if the fed must exist, this is how it should be run. Another serious problem with Milton Friedman is his positivist methodology. It drove him to denounce the Austrian Business Cycle Theory as false and even said, "it's brought a great deal of harm to the world." Besides that, Milton Friedman is overrated anyway. Watch Murray Rothbard's lecture on him.
At least we know how communism ends and that it does eventually (when other people's money runs out) from modern history. So that's a silver lining I suppose.
This is why we need to take away the monetary system from the government and let people opt out of government controlled monetary system. This is why we need cryptocurrencies.
If you are a miniarchist who wishes to become involved in politics you'll probably have to become a writer. Its highly unlikely that the government will pay you to destroy it ; ).
Taken at face value, Friedman's question is as facetious as it is rhetorical. If the erosion his question assumes were valid, the explanation would have to notice the fact that it is because of a public policy elite, (of which Milton Friedman was a vocal member) who were successful in bamboozling the electorate, into believing that Democratic institutions and the public who empower them are incompetent to formulate public policy. If Milton wanted to know who was pushing his agenda he need look no farther than Washington where his antigovernment rhetoric served as the boiler plate on every party platform since Barry Goldwater in '64.
Friedman's ideology comes cleverly packaged in rhetoric that disguises its carefully submerged content by pretending to seek the subordination of politics to "economics". Politicians who fell under the spell of "free-market economics" subsequently gave momentum to a program of government "reform", This antigovernment ideology was originally test marketed by Barry Goldwater and subsequently adopted by the Reagan Administration as part of its ironic antigovernment populism. Milton sought to lend his name and dubious credentials to Voodoo Economics, and a program of austerity in opposition to public programs in general, leading to the ideological targeting of budgets for and the employment of public sector workers. Amid the clamor for public budget reductions hid a program of massive tax breaks for upper bracket individuals and corporate profits. Outliving Friedman's failed monetarist intervention is what in the aggregate, now referred to as free-market statism. Wrapping your head around what Milton was up to in Washington and worked to set the political stage for later, would entail learning a lot more than you presently know about this huckster and his "ideas". I enjoyed your rant very much although we are done here, you may carry on if you wish. Thanks for sharing.
***** This is a market economy and despite the insistence of economists who cannot explain why it is prone to crisis, this economic system and its corresponding social structure are not controlled by, nor within the reach of government. You have not produced a shred of evidence to support the contention that the social programs that were effectively destroyed by Reagan era budget cuts and not incidentally, were ideologically motivated and rationalized under the misguided rubric of austerity, produced any empirical improvement in correcting the problem of unemployment and underemployment which proceeded to reach devastating new levels during Reagan's term in office. The outcomes of this program of "adjustment" was to engineer the transfer of trillions of dollars in wealth into the hands of a class of plutocrats who privately sought the specific public policy regime that produced higher interest rates and eased the offshoring of millions of American jobs and the closure of industries at a rate unseen since the Great Depression, It is a misguided belief that this public policy regime or its social economic and political outcomes were not actively sought by the people who profited from them. While the self regulating free market remains a myth it has proven effective as part of the political lexicon that means to conceal a political coup behind the naive belief that ," Milton was simply trying to inculcate some common sense in the nonsensical,..".
+gary morrison even in the 16th century with the mississippi bubble, south sea bubble and tulip mania bubble there was considerable inflation (increase in money supply). mises.org/library/early-speculative-bubbles-and-increases-supply-money (you can get the PDF for free here) Its a shame that free markets/capitalism takes the blame for a lot of failed governmental policies and central banking. free markets are the foundation of economics, everything else is just governmental intervention and yes, mainstream economics are wrong especially regarding macro economics hence the mess we are in . The austrians macro is linked to the micro unlike other economic school of thoughts and the micro is based on Human Action (praxeology) whereas mainstream econ is based on how they think humans should act. Anyway i highly recommend studying the Austrian trade cycle because it's extremely useful to know, especially if you know how to invest :) Friedman was right on everything but monetary theory
It remains a source of curiosity why economists as a group place so much faith in a political ideology with so little reference to the history of economic theory. Milton's theory of individual rights sounds modern but functions better to rationalize corporate feudalism than any modern conception of liberty. If Friedman had a better knowledge of the traditional literature he might have acquired a more nuanced and mature conception of political liberty enabling him to speak more wisely on the topic rather than expropriate the term as if it were somehow an argument against democracy. Milton might have done better had he learned this from The Wealth Of Nations: The subjects of every state ought to contribute toward the support of the government, as nearly as possible, in proportion to their respective abilities; that is in proportion to the revenue which they respectively enjoy under the protection of the state. ---Adam Smith
I would have enjoyed the opportunity to quiz him in person and on camera on the literature political science and economic history with which he was clearly unfamiliar. It remains a marvel that people like you can put your faith in a cardboard idol like Friedman, Economists by and large dismiss Milton as a goof who used Economics as a political soap box from which to defend dictators like Samosa and Pinochet. Having said this much Friedman remains artifact of the Reagan era which may explain his enduring popularity among authoritarians and paranoids, see; Richard Hofsteadter.
terry wilder Every battle between history and economic ideology has ultimately been decided in favor of history. Friedman's top down plan for re-engineering society thru the mechanism of private wealth failed and its vision of a authoritarian utopia has not been vindicated by subsequent events. Friedman case for minority rule like his attempt to disable democracy, when seen together amounted to little more than a made for mass media political ideology for cranks. Libertarian economics failed to extinguish the aspirations held by the vast majority of us, to preserve a government by and for the people. In the absence of a social conscience, Friedman deployed the tools provided him by a cruelly limited education and the mediocre intellect it produced, to pursue every authoritarians dream which is to escape history and remake the world by placing themselves in charge. Friedman is also a reminder of the once great cause of living in the past that brought the country to grief in the Civil War. The plantation system is gone and with it the pride of the ancient regime of a feudal aristocracy based on the ownership of property and inherited wealth.
gary morrison Quote: Friedman's top down plan for re-engineering society through the mechanism pf private wealth failed and it's vision of an authoritarian utopia". What a bunch of pseudo-intellectual idiocy. First of all someone with half a brain who can at least listen would know he had no plan to "re-engineer society
But capitalism failed throughout the world always resulting in a small group of rich people and teeming masses of poor people who had to be regularly shot and suppressed by police throughout most of it's history. It only started to 'succeed' when colonialism and imperialist conquests created an abundance of resources, and only really took off when cheap energy was discovered, and it collapsed regularly until the adoption of Keynesian redistribution, replacing collapses with boom and bust cycles.
This video is prophetic. Almost 35 years later, things have played out exactly as Milton Friedman described they would.
The Critical G so is your comment 7 years later
I beg to disagree.. it's Social and Economic engineering.. care of the banksters, aka banking cartel, aka Federal Reserve that owns mega Corporations that owns the American politicians and the military, law enforcement, and the judiciary.
Well almost exactly, America has only become more capitalist since this was recorded. The real problem for both socialism and true capitalism is big business that control huge swaths of markets undermine human values and real capitalistic innovation
@@bigdawg9237 ☺
When I was young Milton Friedman was spoken of as a boogie man. Wish I could have met him - what a mind!
You're right. I was an Econ major 50+ years ago, and the professors considered him anathema. Their heroes were Keynes, Galbraith, and Samuelson. Turns out Friedman was correct all along.
Absolutely love Milton. I think the most important thing he said is that we need to communicate this info to those that are unaware. Don't yell at people to wake up or tell them how stupid they are but instead talk to them and provide insight.
The reason people let others take control of their lives is because of the fear they feel about their ability to do for themselves. Insecurity is the driving force behind the surrender of freedom.
Young impressionable minds are interested in Socialism/ Communism because Socialists/Communists understand that young impressionable minds are who they need to sell their ideas to.
No wonder why Bernie Sanders has a clear advantage at younger age groups. Problem is, quite a few of these "kids" are stuck on that mindset.
Friedman did the same...what's your point?
Wow, Covid 19 just proved my old friend Milton true.
What he is saying it even more relevant today. Timeless truths.
We need Milton Friedman now more than ever. We have a president who believes that the market doesnt work
A very wise man.
Bravo to this man! Wow, his insight is so clear and simple yet subtly complicated.
Dear Free to Choose network: can you make these university speeches and Q & A sessions available in their entirety somehow?
He said most people want less government. I live in Canada, and although some people want less government, people have been indoctrinated so much to love the government and to see it as a benevolent force in society that a lot of people actually campaign for more government, even in general!
Great video, thanks for posting this, I'd love to see the full video if possible
That why Freedom Of Speech is so so so important to clear out ignorance 🇺🇸
Don’t not let government or big companies restrict Freedom Of Speech.
Need to take away protection for companies that restrict freedom of speech.
this is as relevant today as it ever was.
Thank You !!! FTCN is a marvelous Idea for a channel !! Glad I stumbled here !! I'll be Tweeting /// Emailing and spreading the word on this ... So many today have no idea about this stuff .. Consider me an ardent supporter ... Godspeed !!
True 30-40 years ago and still true today
Absolutely!
You're absolutely right.
Everybody should read The Liberty Amendments by Mark Levin.
People want free stuff & a government that will wipe their backsides. & that's all there is to it, it's the path of least resistance, little knowing or caring where that path leads.
We are being led that way... by our liberal universities and professors!!!
Nah, they start in preschool, nowadays.
Lol, almost all economists are conservative hacks.
Who is watching this in 2020?
@KayamaTakeru It's available at freetochooseDOTnetSLASHstore, but choice clips are being released on their UA-cam channel (from these as well as other FTCN clips) each week.
Post more videos please!
Humans will seek security over freedom as long as their basic needs are met; but let them get hungry and the fight for freedom will begin.
Nailed the issue on the head!
Ignorance of where we are going and total ignorance of the consequences of centralism.
INTELLECTUALLY HONEST. That's all.
Could this be any more timely?
@Lunarisx718 I agree completely 100%, but we have to keep in mind even though he is no longer with us.. if a group of enough intelligent individuals can get together and scheme ideas together, a huge movement could begin...
This basically summed up what is going on today
Is Friedman talking to R J Macready?
Not according to: "Milton Friedman's Second Thoughts on the Costs of Paper Money"
He basically reject the Fed Reserve and promoted the Gold Standard for a free market economy.
I doubt about the gold standard, can you reference about this....
He is a pragmatist, he tried to make the best of a bad situation. In his days, the fed reserve wasn't going to go away. He has always been critical of govt control and its affiliates.
Its just because of the recent recession. the business cycle is demonstrating that we are bouncing back slowly. In time things will get better but not right now
Seriously, people need to read some books before we argue against classical liberalist positions such as the ones defended by Friedman. That's all he's really getting at. The sort of common-sense knowledge people take as so intuitively correct often blind us from the counter-intuitive answers that a rigorous science provides.
@cevansroxy
The term "Democracy" has over time developed a unique meaning in American usage. Rather than rule by the majority it has come to mean rule by the individual. it is not used here in the sense that the the Ancient Greeks would have understood it.
Yes he does.
My advice would be to try to talk about your ideas with people. although it can be difficult trying to discuss ideas with socialists,they generally just end up calling you a racist,anarchist,or any other "ist" label theyll stick on you.take our provincial election a few weeks back, we gave a landslide majority to a "conservative" party while the party advocating freedom and responsibility was trashed mercilessly by the public.go for it though,spread your small govt ideals,ill be rooting for you
@Lunarisx718 we have his words and example, we have but to draw on it
was this Milton Friedman in the navy?
if so I think were related.
You are sort of right and mostly wrong. He felt that the people in charge of the fed near the end of his life were keeping a good balance, but he felt that the fed as an institution was doomed to fail sooner or later and more so at the end of his life felt it should eventually be removed. In his personal opinion he preferred the abolition the fed and return to a gold standard, but he felt too many forces worked against and wouldn't likely become a reality any time soon.
Brilliant. Looking to run for office and eliminate government authority. People and manage this and be more happy and prosperous
I agree with you. in canada we no longer have a small government party, and the populous itself is moving towards a general want for bigger government. even in alberta our "conservative" party is exceedingly liberal, takes huge salaries and is constantly destroying public schools and hospitals. and they just won a landslide majority. i will never understand this.
I'm not looking to argue. I'm just telling you my opinion. You're entitled to disagree but let's let it go.
The question isn't like "why did the grass get too tall?" The question is more like "why do we allow tyrants?" "Why are there assholes that think they can control people and not expect negative personal consequences?"
As prophetic as Paul Harvey's IF I WERE THE DEVIL. Frightening how oblivious so many are.
Im interested to know in what period have we had "unregulated capitalism" . Genuine question , not trolling .
well, never
Good question! I've heard the libertarians talk of the era from the mid 1700s to the late 1800s [Industrial revolution] as having had much less regulation! Not surpisingly, Marxian thought started becoming prominent as a reaction to what he considered as the 'inevitatable excesses of capitalism' it in the 1850s.
Yep! Ron Paul 2012!
If we do not heed Friedman, we will eventually lose all that has meaning. America will become a "prison state".
Monetarism isn't a free-market function. In fact, playing God with the money supply is one of the most dangerous forms of government intervention.
If you love Milton you would love Jeremy Bentham, David Ricardo, John Stuart Mill and Hjalmar Schact!
What really? Because so far as I know towards the end of his life, Milton Friedman was praising the Federal Reserve saying that they'd found just the right equation to keep everything balanced.
Conformity and Laziness along with gullibility of voters .
He was referring to the Deep State
I agree 100% we should have been at 6-7% GDP growth then, now we should be aroud 3-4% and we can only manage 1.5% growth
You can get the complete lectures at freetochooseDOTnetSLASHstore
Well if you search youtube for "Milton Friedman abolish fed" you'll see that at the end of his life he advocated for getting rid of the Federal Reserve
It seems that the last question is the easiest to answer. They have no power to stop it.
The politicians don't tell you whether they are anti-freedom. Everyone who cares about voting always seems to think their guy is pro-freedom and the other side is anti-freedom, but very few politicians actually are pro-freedom in practice. They are incentivised to pretend to be pro-freedom but act in ways that are anti-freedom (most probably even believe themselves to be pro-freedom despite their actions). And even if you could wade through the bullshit to find which ones are pro-freedom, you'd have a lottery ticket's chance to actually affect the outcome.
So why does the government bend ever so slightly but consistently toward totalitarianism? What have you done to stop it? Oh you talked about it... Hows that working out? Oh you voted... for someone who said they were pro-freedom who either didn't get elected or when he did get elected decided it was necessary for the public good to reduce freedom.
I'm not saying its impossible to change the government. I'm saying its so near impossible to change it in the direction of public good that it might as well be impossible unless you somehow get nearly unanimous agreement on what that is and that it is important.
As the population itself leans towards immorality, they tend to elect immoral politicians since the politicians mirror the electorate in thought, word and deed. The Constitution then becomes a nuisance in high places.
newjerseybt There is nothing quite so tedious as thinking the political spectrum is based off morality. Is it moral to decide to feed and clothe the poor with government force or moral to let people keep their earnings? Is it moral to ban sinful acts like prostitution or moral to let free people behave as they wish? The spectrum I see is those that want freedom to those that want to fix things by government fiat. I can find an easy alliance with a corrupt, but lazy politician. I could never do so with a moral crusader. A politician who just wants to skim a bit off the top never does as much harm as a politician who wants to cure the world of its ills. If you are right on morality and voting, then I find myself rooting for the devil.
@@newjerseybt This is correct. But what is so insideous is that most of these are just moral busy-bodies who are trying to get reelected.
"Socialist, like all other monopolists, desire to make the law their own weapon. And when once the law is on the side of socialism, how can it be used against socialism?" - Frederic Bastiat - The Law
@KayamaTakeru i think freetochoosemedia should set you straight
42 years later and these words have not been heeded. Trump made a start but never made cuts and still added to the debt, trump did at least get a conversation started
What if there simply WASN'T a government? What if for anything you might want, as an individual or as a group, you had to just cooperate with others in order to achieve it? Voluntary interaction for mutually beneficial goals. No more. No less.
( I know, right?!? What a crazy idea.)
We had gone into demanding government over work over extent I to becoming the Soviet Union of the west. Also need more enduring many more challenge because the thousand years build up in solid structure of mind, and concrete, steel, and not enough time to contemplate why are we here just work and die for other inherit and destroy what we build. Would we like to live longer seeing tears in children's eyes this way ? I have answer for self but not force other to agree.we can not determine the outcome but the choice is our to be our decision that made us who we are
I know, Milton Friedman preferred the fed to be abolished. He described his policy as a compromise (big mistake), saying that if the fed must exist, this is how it should be run. Another serious problem with Milton Friedman is his positivist methodology. It drove him to denounce the Austrian Business Cycle Theory as false and even said, "it's brought a great deal of harm to the world." Besides that, Milton Friedman is overrated anyway. Watch Murray Rothbard's lecture on him.
At least we know how communism ends and that it does eventually (when other people's money runs out) from modern history. So that's a silver lining I suppose.
This is why we need to take away the monetary system from the government and let people opt out of government controlled monetary system. This is why we need cryptocurrencies.
Neo-liberalism - now there's a treat
The road to hell...
Vote Ron Paul in 2012 then =)
If you are a miniarchist who wishes to become involved in politics you'll probably have to become a writer. Its highly unlikely that the government will pay you to destroy it ; ).
@natritious1 Yeah i know, its a sickening statement.
@MCANOUAR
Uhh what?
Milton Friedman believed too much in central banking and fiat currency to be useful to us now.
Rather the Gvmt has the power than the rich!....and the way USA is going....the danger comes fm the rich....
Because we fail with anything new. Capitalism is residual from our past experiences.
Taken at face value, Friedman's question is as facetious as it is rhetorical. If the erosion his question assumes were valid, the explanation would have to notice the fact that it is because of a public policy elite, (of which Milton Friedman was a vocal member) who were successful in bamboozling the electorate, into believing that Democratic institutions and the public who empower them are incompetent to formulate public policy. If Milton wanted to know who was pushing his agenda he need look no farther than Washington where his antigovernment rhetoric served as the boiler plate on every party platform since Barry Goldwater in '64.
Friedman's ideology comes cleverly packaged in rhetoric that disguises its carefully submerged content by pretending to seek the subordination of politics to "economics". Politicians who fell under the spell of "free-market economics" subsequently gave momentum to a program of government "reform", This antigovernment ideology was originally test marketed by Barry Goldwater and subsequently adopted by the Reagan Administration as part of its ironic antigovernment populism.
Milton sought to lend his name and dubious credentials to Voodoo Economics, and a program of austerity in opposition to public programs in general, leading to the ideological targeting of budgets for and the employment of public sector workers. Amid the clamor for public budget reductions hid a program of massive tax breaks for upper bracket individuals and corporate profits.
Outliving Friedman's failed monetarist intervention is what in the aggregate, now referred to as free-market statism. Wrapping your head around what Milton was up to in Washington and worked to set the political stage for later, would entail learning a lot more than you presently know about this huckster and his "ideas". I enjoyed your rant very much although we are done here, you may carry on if you wish. Thanks for sharing.
***** This is a market economy and despite the insistence of economists who cannot explain why it is prone to crisis, this economic system and its corresponding social structure are not controlled by, nor within the reach of government. You have not produced a shred of evidence to support the contention that the social programs that were effectively destroyed by Reagan era budget cuts and not incidentally, were ideologically motivated and rationalized under the misguided rubric of austerity, produced any empirical improvement in correcting the problem of unemployment and underemployment which proceeded to reach devastating new levels during Reagan's term in office. The outcomes of this program of "adjustment" was to engineer the transfer of trillions of dollars in wealth into the hands of a class of plutocrats who privately sought the specific public policy regime that produced higher interest rates and eased the offshoring of millions of American jobs and the closure of industries at a rate unseen since the Great Depression, It is a misguided belief that this public policy regime or its social economic and political outcomes were not actively sought by the people who profited from them.
While the self regulating free market remains a myth it has proven effective as part of the political lexicon that means to conceal a political coup behind the naive belief that ," Milton was simply trying to inculcate some common sense in the nonsensical,..".
+gary morrison you guys always say "tax break" implying it's something bad, I just can't see that way.
+gary morrison even in the 16th century with the mississippi bubble, south sea bubble and tulip mania bubble there was considerable inflation (increase in money supply).
mises.org/library/early-speculative-bubbles-and-increases-supply-money (you can get the PDF for free here)
Its a shame that free markets/capitalism takes the blame for a lot of failed governmental policies and central banking. free markets are the foundation of economics, everything else is just governmental intervention and yes, mainstream economics are wrong especially regarding macro economics hence the mess we are in . The austrians macro is linked to the micro unlike other economic school of thoughts and the micro is based on Human Action (praxeology) whereas mainstream econ is based on how they think humans should act. Anyway i highly recommend studying the Austrian trade cycle because it's extremely useful to know, especially if you know how to invest :) Friedman was right on everything but monetary theory
No he doesn't
Thats not true. Do your homework.
It remains a source of curiosity why economists as a group place so much faith in a political ideology with so little reference to the history of economic theory. Milton's theory of individual rights sounds modern but functions better to rationalize corporate feudalism than any modern conception of liberty. If Friedman had a better knowledge of the traditional literature he might have acquired a more nuanced and mature conception of political liberty enabling him to speak more wisely on the topic rather than expropriate the term as if it were somehow an argument against democracy. Milton might have done better had he learned this from The Wealth Of Nations:
The subjects of every state ought to contribute toward the support of the government, as nearly as possible, in proportion to their respective abilities; that is in proportion to the revenue which they respectively enjoy under the protection of the state.
---Adam Smith
I would have enjoyed the opportunity to quiz him in person and on camera on the literature political science and economic history with which he was clearly unfamiliar. It remains a marvel that people like you can put your faith in a cardboard idol like Friedman, Economists by and large dismiss Milton as a goof who used Economics as a political soap box from which to defend dictators like Samosa and Pinochet. Having said this much Friedman remains artifact of the Reagan era which may explain his enduring popularity among authoritarians and paranoids, see; Richard Hofsteadter.
***** He's doing a pretty good job himself.
gary morrison He would have made you look like a bigger idiot than any here
terry wilder Every battle between history and economic ideology has ultimately been decided in favor of history. Friedman's top down plan for re-engineering society thru the mechanism of private wealth failed and its vision of a authoritarian utopia has not been vindicated by subsequent events. Friedman case for minority rule like his attempt to disable democracy, when seen together amounted to little more than a made for mass media political ideology for cranks. Libertarian economics failed to extinguish the aspirations held by the vast majority of us, to preserve a government by and for the people. In the absence of a social conscience, Friedman deployed the tools provided him by a cruelly limited education and the mediocre intellect it produced, to pursue every authoritarians dream which is to escape history and remake the world by placing themselves in charge. Friedman is also a reminder of the once great cause of living in the past that brought the country to grief in the Civil War. The plantation system is gone and with it the pride of the ancient regime of a feudal aristocracy based on the ownership of property and inherited wealth.
gary morrison Quote: Friedman's top down plan for re-engineering society through the mechanism pf private wealth failed and it's vision of an authoritarian utopia".
What a bunch of pseudo-intellectual idiocy.
First of all someone with half a brain who can at least listen would know he had no plan to "re-engineer society
Liar!
But capitalism failed throughout the world always resulting in a small group of rich people and teeming masses of poor people who had to be regularly shot and suppressed by police throughout most of it's history. It only started to 'succeed' when colonialism and imperialist conquests created an abundance of resources, and only really took off when cheap energy was discovered, and it collapsed regularly until the adoption of Keynesian redistribution, replacing collapses with boom and bust cycles.
Complete nonsense, every word.
No one has produced more millionaires than the capitalist USA
Whereas socialism/communism went straight to shooting and oppressing people.
Socialism/communism has killed more people in this world than capitalism. That is all that needs to be said.
Why is capitalism forced on us?