Letters to the Editor
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Wonderfull Tribute
And thank you for enlightening me on this very interesting man. I will immediately try to find his writings...I found myself agreeing with him throughout the article. Anyone who allows us to challenge ourselves and our beliefs is a treasure, indeed.
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I'm all for individual freedom,
but I've never understood how a 20th-century economist could fail to understand the vital role of government in making capitalism work. The redistributive effects of taxation and spending by governments are nothing less than necessary to keep capitalism from falling on its own sword. We've know this since Keynes and it is not optional. If you want capitalism to thrive, you want massive governmental interference in the market. Period.
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Health Care
Sometimes the market is the most effecient way to allocate resources and sometimes it is not. Canada spends less per capita on health care and insures everyone in the country because it cuts out the kafkaesque beurocracy in our system. The scandivanian middle way - a blend of capitalism and socialism is, in my opinion the best possible form of economy.
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Speak for yourself, Brad!
Liberals and lefties do NOT consider Milton Friedman an 'enlightened adversary'. Where did you pick up this little piece of fascist drivel. Milton Friedman was one of the most morally bankrupt humans on the planet, and that pretty much goes for any Chicago school scumbag. These people blame the poor for being poor, wouldn't care one bit if 99% of the population lived in abject poverty, mostly wouldn't know a free market if it kicked them in the face and couldn't even describe the indicators that demonstrate whether or not the market is working. It is the philosophy of this filth that is the cause of 45 million Americans not having health insurance - not only doesn't the market work, it doesn't want to work. Income inequality is directly attributable to these bozos. Milton Friedman was an execrable excuse for a human being. He was the anti-enlightenment.
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I Studied Friedman in Grad School
He's an economist like all the other economists. It's not a philosophy or a religion or an ethos which is what all the todies forgot. You are free to pick up or discard whatever aspects you like w/o having to drink the koolaid. Of course if libertarians and other fools want to bow and scrape, that's their deal.
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A man who hated government.
Problem with Friedmanism is he never understood someone has to run things and if it isn't government it will be organised crime.
Which is more or less what has happened since governments abdicated control of the global economy in favour of big business.
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And all the pro-slavery trolls come out.
Guess what guys, I don't owe you anything. You have no claim on me. I work, I keep what I gain. If people think my work is worth more than yours, I get more than you do, and you have no right to complain. Not surprisingly, those who don't do anything that others find valuable find this offensive, since it _shows_ that they have minimal value. Their self-esteem is harmed, and they feel the need to seize by force what they can't get people to give them through equal exchange.
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JustAGuy
I can only guess at what you're talking about, but if you think for one second that government "interference" in the market doesn't affect your paycheck, you need to re-take Econ 101. As I suggested in my previous post, if it weren't for the gov't redistributing income downward, you'd be in the breadlines along with everyone else. I wonder what you'd say about your self worth then.
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Ideologue...and probably dangerous for that alone.
In one paragraph, Mr. DeLong uses three words which betray that which drove (inspirited?) Mr. Friedman.
"His worldview began with a bedrock belief.....
a trust in free markets....
on top of that was layered a powerful conviction...."
'Trust', 'conviction' & 'belief' are keywords and
hallmarks (or warning signs) of the ideologue.
That said...and in substantial but incomplete disagreement with Mr Friedman's thesis...I would wonder if much of economic theory is actually just belief system.
IF that is true, we need more data and less 'religion'...
And will then find actual enlightenment & economic truth.
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What was Friedman's recommendation regarding global warming?
Because the market's response was to hire a bunch of people to muddy the waters and deliberately delay action on it. Global warming has been a theory at least since the 1970's, and a near-total scientific consensus since 1995.
If this was one of those instances where government should have intervened, Friedman should have spoken up.
In fact, I'll take that a step further, from the specific to the general: If you are widely considered the "father of a movement" and prominent people like Reagan and Thatcher are publicly invoking your name to support their own policies, and if you think those policies are not what you meant or intended, you have an obligation to speak up. To his credit, Francis Fukuyama has had the intellectual honesty to come forward and say that the neoconservative lunacy now being practiced is not what he had in mind.
Friedman was silent.
How does the free market deal about global warming? How does the free market deal with the destruction of fisheries, the destruction of biodiversity, the depletion of irreplacable fossil fuels and the erosion of topsoil--all cases where those who pay the price (i.e. people in the future) are not those who reap the benefits.
That his worldview was easily adapted to suit the ends of selfish, antisocial people and institutions is not necessarily his fault. (Though it seems like an obvious outcome to me.) But the fact that he stood by, apparently without objection, as they were so appropriated is certainly an abrogation of his responsibility as an intellectual.
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You want a world without beliefs, conviction, or trust?
You've ignored the part where Friedman stresses the importance of checking in with reality. The danger comes from those who don't allow reality to test their beliefs, convictions and trust (like the fundamentalist and the Bush administration).
It's a scary world if belief and trust are now dirty words.
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Pragamtism
Whoever wrote on health care in canada clearly has never tried to make a doctors's appointment in canada. The canadian/univeral health care system can be as problematic as our own. This is not to say that we as country should not provide health care to those who cannot afford it, but rather think harder about a better system. If there is something to be learned from Delong's article on Friedman, is that we all need to be more pragrmatic. Hopefully politicians on both aisles can learn from their economists and tackle problems not with pure idealogy but rather from a hope to find something that works.