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• Saturday, November 18, 2006 09:31 AM

  Inflation comes in many forms

  Milton Friedman was one of the most brilliant economists of all time, but the weakness of his thinking is emblematic of the weakness of economic thought in general: exaggerating a partial truth into a universal truth. Economics starts with the assumption that more is "better" than less, a value judgement that certainly is true in a general sense, but not universally so. Eating two slices of pizza may be "better" than one, but eating 1000 slices may not be "better" than 999.

  Milton Friedman was a master at exaggerating the particular into the general. A perfect example is his attitude toward drug addiction. Freedom of choice was the only criterion for him, ignoring all evidence from the fields of psychology, sociology, medicine, and criminology (and I don't mean the study of crimes related to illegality).

  Friedman's other great weakness was his assumption that markets alone would make a mass industrial system work for the betterment of all. He never questioned the very premise of this belief - that the mass industrial system is a given, a precondition, an imperative. Underlying his brilliance was a fundamental dishonesty, borne out by his and his disciples' support and assistance to the dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet of Chile.

  I always found Milton Friedman suspect because of his smug cocksureness. Anyone that self-satisfied is masking something. In his case it was the hollowness of his thought. Like most intellectualls, he built a house of cards. He had a superior intellect and was a masterful polemicist, but his real genius was in the power of exaggeration.

  —HappyJack Read HappyJack's other letters
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