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It is clearly possible to lay some of the blame for both the Silverado/S&L scam and the Enron bust-out at Friedman's feet. Certainly, they are the logical extreme of putting several of his theories into practice, such as "structured finance".
Further, Friedman clearly endorsed a position that crime is good for society because it is more "efficient" (as a matter of Economics) than crime prevention and regulation.
Certainly, Friedman thought that it should be legal for corporate insiders to capitalize on (pun intended) their unfair advantage over outsiders by engaging in illegal "insider trading".
It may also be possible to lay much of the blame for Iraq at Friedman's feet:
"There is no doubt that the destruction of Iraq’s governmental infrastructure is the exact outcome the Neocons in the Bush administration sought, because they also sought to privatize as much of the Iraqi infrastructure as possible.
Iraq was to be the petri dish of the Neocon experiment to prove privatized infrastructure was a better alternative to governmental oversight of a nation’s infrastructure. It needs also to be mentioned that the corporate clients of the Bush cabal were to profit handsomely from the privatization of Iraq’s infrastructure.
That the cultural divisions of the Iraqi population were ignored is a testament to the self centered arrogance of the Neocons, they simply couldn’t envision any other outcome to their plans than their chosen outcome."
It is also important to note, as does Barry Schwartz, in his "The Paradox of Choice", that "constantly being asked to make choices, even about the simplest things, forces us to 'invest time, energy, and no small amount of self-doubt, and dread.' There comes a point, he contends, at which choice becomes debilitating rather than liberating. Did I make the right choice? Can I ever make the right choice?" We normally assume in America that more options ("easy fit" or "relaxed fit"?) will make us happier, but Schwartz shows the opposite is true, arguing that having all these choices actually goes so far as to erode our psychological well-being.
Many of Friedman's "suggestions for reform" are GOP platform line-items that serve the hidden agenda of gutting America's national security interests. This is especially true of his "school voucher" program that will deprive America the Nation of millions of intelligent citizens of the Republic who are qualified to vote based on an understanding of national issues that goes beyond the superficial jingoism doled out at Friedman's "voucher schools", which are, in reality, nothing more than the segregation academies of the Massive Resisters.
So, as globalization (i.e. transnational corporatism) subsumes democracy, it becomes clear that Friedman was ever more of an apologist for profiteers and criminals than a major economic thinker.
